There’s nothing especially trenchant about noting that the video games industry has experienced some hard years of late, as the corporate expansion wave that kicked off when everybody had to stay inside during the COVID lockdowns gave way to a series of extremely high profile layoffs and studio closures after the planet’s populace was able to go outside again. Now, Variety reports that the rolling ball has once again landed on French Assassin’s Creed studio Ubisoft—the second-largest gaming employer in the world—with another 200 jobs set to get the axe through a “voluntary departure plan.” (God damn, but corporate language can be sinister sometimes, huh? “Pray you do not trouble me further, detective… lest you be subjected to the voluntary departure plan.”)
Although Ubisoft has done layoffs pretty regularly over the last few years, eliminating more than 300 jobs across five different studios since 2020, this 200-job elimination—apparently aimed at the company’s corporate HQ, as it undergoes a wide-scale restructuring—will be the largest single swipe it’s taken. Admittedly, these are less impactful cuts, in the aggregate, than they might be at a smaller company: Ubisoft employs something on the order of 17,000 people, so this represents a roughly 1 percent reduction in its workforce. (Compare news earlier this month that far smaller studio Wildlight, facing apparent financial troubles in the wake of the release of its new online shooter Highguard, was cutting a proportionally much larger percentage of its team.) But it’s still a) 200 people losing their jobs, and b) a reminder that whatever contraction is happening in the world of making video games still hasn’t stopped just yet.
Ubisoft’s last major release was 2025’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows; the title reportedly “fell in line with expectations,” according to the company’s financial disclosures. Back in January, the studio revealed that a planned remake of beloved classic Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time was being canceled. Meanwhile, Aftermath reports that the recent restructuring plan—which will reportedly also include a large-scale elimination of the option to work remotely—has not been popular among staff, with more than 1,200 unionized employees participating in a strike over management’s decisions.
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