Ubisoft has gone through many rough patches in recent years, but the CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, is enacting a plan to save the company.
Recent months have not been exactly good for Ubisoft as they have gone through many layoffs and studio closures due to the less-than-great sales of its recent games. In an interview with Variety, Guillemot spoke about how these lay-offs and closures are all part of a plan to reignite the spark that Ubisoft once had.
The current idea is to reformat its studios into “Creative Houses.” Essentially, every house will have full responsibility over its assigned brands’ development, plus its profit and loss. They will design new IPs and operate like their own dedicated business with transparent accountability geared toward performance and actual autonomous creativity.
The latest addition to the creative house project is Vantage Studios, which seems to be in charge of making new games under the Far Cry, Rainbow Six Siege, and Assassin’s Creed IPs. “We have a solid pipeline underway across Vantage Studios. Under the Assassin’s Creed brand, several titles are in development, spanning both single-player and multiplayer experiences, with the ambition to further grow a community that exceeded 30 million players last year,” said Guillemot. He also claimed that they have two ongoing Far Cry projects underway and are putting more resources into Rainbow Six Siege events.
Before all of this restructuring happened, the company cancelled six games from its selection of recognized games, especially the highly anticipated Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake. This doesn’t bode very well for the company, even though Guillemot says, “While such decisions are never easy, they allow us to concentrate our talent on the highest-potential projects and ensure that every release meets the quality our players expect.” Despite three of the cancelled games being entirely new IPs, it can only be speculated on what Ubisoft’s current projects are.
Speaking of current projects, one of the only games in development that didn’t get cancelled was the Splinter CellRemake. This is still a shock because, according to MobileSyrup, Ubisoft just recently laid off 40 employees working on the remake since 2021 from the Toronto office. Even now, Ubisoft says that the game is not cancelled, but judging by recent trends, it could just be a matter of time. Especially so since 1,200 Ubisoft employees went on strike a couple of weeks ago because of the same cost-cutting measures.
Only time will tell if or when Ubisoft will come out of this restructure still kicking or not. In the meantime, we just have to hope that new Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed games will come out soon.
Ubisoft are laying off around 40 people at Ubisoft Toronto, the studio behind the forthcoming remake of the original Splinter Cell. That’s approximately eight percent of the studio headcount. It’s all in the service of Ubisoft’s drive to cut costs after restructuring their operations around a big dollop of Tencent funding, which has elsewhere seen Ubisoft propose to lay off up to 200 people in Paris, and chop fixed costs by €200 million over the next two years.
Video game updates are an incredibly funny thing, mostly because I come from a time where they weren't a thing at all, apart from the odd second printing that patched some things here and there. Which is why my humerus has been particularly tickled by the news that a new Assassin's Creed Shadows has arrived today that, amongst a couple of other things, add in the ability to simply let you jump.
I still haven’t left the starting area in Skull and Bones, but it’s a relief to know that as and when I do, I’ll have some big molluscs to bombard alongside those boring galleons. Ubisoft’s open world Jolly Rogerer forges bravely on with another season of updates, Eye of the Beast, despite Ubisoft recently jettisoning a bunch of games and studios in their efforts to buoy up the share price. Yes, this is the same Skull and Bones that has 320 in-game players on Steam as of writing, and a worryingly Biblical user review average of 66.60%.
Ubisoft has started email users of its services that it is rolling out age verification for Ubisoft accounts, with limits coming in for social features so players can only interact with people on their friends list unless the account is verified. It does not look like it is worldwide but does affect countries where laws require age verification for people to access some content, including the UK with the introduction of the Online Safety Act. This move seems to be specifically about the UK
In the email I received, Ubisoft wrote, “To keep our community safe and ensure age‑appropriate experiences for all players, Ubisoft is introducing a new age verification step for certain communication features. This update also helps us comply with the UK Online Safety Act.
What is changing
If your Ubisoft chat setting was previously set to “Friends of Friends” or “Everyone”, it has now been switched to “Friends Only”. You can still chat freely with people on your friends list, but you’ll need to verify that you are 18 or older to use text or voice chat with players outside your friends list.
This update applies to your experience on PC and mobile. On console, nothing changes: your platform settings continue to apply.
Why this is required
This step helps us maintain a safe environment for all players and offer more tailored experiences while meeting UK regulatory requirements. Your privacy stays fully protected. Age verification is handled securely and Ubisoft does not store your identity documents. They are used only to confirm your age.
How to verify your age
You can complete the verification at any time from the Privacy center on the Ubisoft Account website. Simply switch your Voice & Text Chat setting to “Friends of Friends” or “Everyone”, then follow the verification steps. You’ll only need to do this once. More details about age verification and how it works are available on Ubisoft Help. Thank you for helping us keep our community safe and enjoyable for everyone.”
If you choose to verify your age to access text and voice chat with people that are not on your friend list Ubisoft is providing four ways to do this. The first is to use the Yoti Digital ID app through which you confirm your ID and get a digital ID that can be used for different services. The second is age estimation where you take a photo and software estimates your age. Ubisoft states that these photos are not store and are encrypted. The third way is to upload a photo of your ID and scan your face to confirm it matches. Again, Ubisoft says that none of this data is stored or shared. The final way is to do a credit card check to confirm you are over 18. Ubisoft has confirmed that this only applies to voice and text chat through the Ubisoft platforms on PC and mobile, but not on consoles as those are controlled by their parent companies.
Would you like to have your design skills immortalized in Skull and Bones? Then you’re in luck because that opportunity is available during an official second anniversary contest, which will grant creative fans of the piratical playground the chance for their custom sail and emblem to be a part of the game. From now until March 8th, […]
Welcome back to yet another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news! We’ve got quite a bit to cover today, so let’s not waste too much time with a preamble and hop right into this list of headlines. Regime change at Microsoft Gaming and Xbox: According to reporting at IGN this afternoon, Microsoft Gaming CEO […]
In a recent interview with Variety, Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot revealed that two Far Cry games are currently in development, despite recent restructuring at the company and several canceled and delayed titles. He also confirmed that multiple Assassin’s Creed games are in development.
The two Far Cry projects, previously reported on, are codenamed “Blackbird” and “Maverick.” Blackbird is reportedly the next mainline entry in the series, while Maverick is described as an extraction shooter-style title. Both games have reportedly undergone multiple internal delays and changes. Guillemot added that several Assassin’s Creed titles offering both multiplayer and single-player experiences are in development.
According to a recent Insider Gaming report, which cites anonymous sources, three projects are currently “locked in” at the studio: Invictus, a multiplayer title; Obsidian, a remake of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag scheduled to release later this year; and a third game codenamed Neo, also known as Hexe, which is now slated for release in 2027.
In a report from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson last year, several details for multiple of Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed titles were revealed. The report claims that the upcoming title Assassin’s Creed Hexe, will be a linear title with some open world elements. It will allegedly launch at the end of the Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ post launch content plans which has around two years of DLC support. It will also receive one year of DLC support. According to past reports, the game won’t be an RPG and will have players control a Witch named Elsa. It’s worth noting these are all rumours and should be taken with a grain of salt.
How many years have we heard about the so-called future of Far Cry? Ubisoft has never revealed what’s to come, but following its massive internal reset, CEO Yves Guillemot finally confirmed that two new projects are in the works.
“On ‘Far Cry,’ anticipation is high, and we currently have two very promising projects in development,” he told Variety. So not much to go on, but with rumors about the extraction shooter project, reportedly codenamed Project Maverick, being in trouble, it seems to have survived the recent cancellation spree.
Of course, Far Cry is only one of the franchises that fall under Vantage Studios. Assassin’s Creed is another, with Guillemot assuring that “several titles are in development, spanning both single-player and multiplayer experiences, with the ambition to further grow a community that exceeded 30 million players last year.”
Otherwise, it seems that the brand, which was overperforming per Ubisoft’s fiscal report, hasn’t escaped the cancellation curse. A co-op project called League, allegedly meant for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, was reportedly cancelled. After that, reports emerged of a mobile title known as Assassin’s Creed Singularity that had been cancelled after a “couple of years” of work.
Ubisoft's enormous restructuring - which saw it create five "creative houses," delay multiple projects, and throw six more in the trash - has led to a lot of understandable angst about what is and isn't being developed right now. The only project we officially know of that got scrapped is the Prince of Persia Sands of Time remake, which also showed just how cutthroat Ubisoft has been, given how it seemed like it was finally on a solid path to launch. Now, in a new interview, CEO Yves Guillemot has lifted the lid ever so slightly wider as to what Ubisoft is still working on following its reorganization.
Rayman is one of Ubisoft’s most overlooked franchises of recent times but that could all be set to change. In a recent interview with Variety Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot says that Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition is “the first step in the brand’s comeback.” He says that fans of the Rayman series will get to hear… Read More »Ubisoft says they look forward to talking about what’s next for Rayman “soon”
Will you miss Phil Spencer? (Credits: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Monday letters page continues to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Legend Of Zelda, as one reader wonders if Far Cry has fans.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Turn and face the strain Just seen the news about Phil Spencer leaving Xbox and I don’t know what to say really. He should’ve left at least five years ago, as far as I’m concerned, but the person coming in sounds much worse. If it was some boring accountant type I wouldn’t worry so much, but someone whose last big thing was AI? And they’re at Microsoft? It’s going to be slop around the clock.
The best case scenario is that she admits she doesn’t know anything about games, just business, and gets in a bunch of new people to handle the details. But the fact that she promoted Matt Booty sounds like the worst possible first move, as I’d say he was even worse than Spencer.
We’ll see what happens – it’s not like any of us can influence any of this – but this is long overdue and I really don’t know if the Xbox brand can be saved now. Gaston
Welcome competition Somehow I doubt Sony is going to be quaking in its boots right now, at the news of Xbox’s new boss. Sounds like Microsoft decided that they’d gone with a gamer as the boss before so now let’s go with the exact opposite. I can kind of see the logic but at the same time… that’s not going to work out is it?
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How’s someone that knows nothing about gaming going to make sensible decisions about Halo or funding some new game or whatever? I don’t know, maybe it is better they know nothing, since they could hardly have done worse than Spencer in recent years, but it doesn’t seem a good starting point.
I’ll admit I haven’t played an Xbox game since the Xbox 360 so I don’t really have any skin in this game but I don’t think anyone would argue that PlayStation 5 couldn’t do with some more serious competition, to wake them up too. Focus
Touring circuit So Phil Spencer has finally left Xbox and, of course, the news comes out in the most skeevy way possible, at the weekend when most people will miss it and the guy is leaving on Monday? That doesn’t sound like a respected veteran finally hanging up his spurs. That sounds like someone getting frogmarched out the building by security, the second the boss reads him his rights.
Normally I’d say we’ll never find out what actually happened but maybe we will with Microsoft, since most everything else usually leaks out from them. My guess is that the head of Microsoft had had enough and Spencer had too.
The guy must be a multi-millionaire by now. If I was him I’d leave it all behind me too and buy a brewery somewhere. Can’t wait for him to start doing the interview rounds in a few years, where everyone has to treat him like some business genius and not the guy that killed Xbox. Wotan
No rush I played Red Dead Redemption 2 this weekend. It’s a game I go back to every so often but not because I love it more than the rest of my games. Not because I’ve beaten it and love the story and gameplay. It’s due to the fact I’ve been playing it since 2018 and still haven’t got round to finishing it. I did manage to complete a new mission and have reached 36% on the story.
I just think this game is like a mood. It’s so chilled out when not in gunfights. The hunting and fishing keeps me occupied. I don’t feel pushed to finish it. There is no urgency. Red Dead Redemption 2 might be the game I’ve owned the longest and not finished. I’ve beaten Minecraft and not Red Redemption 2?
Anyone else have a long-term project like this? Bobwallett
GC: If it took you this long to get a third of a way through it then you should finish it sometime around 2042.
Far Cry fan club Far Cry 6 feels like such a long time ago now, I was bit surprised to find out it wasn’t much more than four years. I think that was when Ubisoft lost their way, when that flopped they seemed to give up on everything except Assassin’s Creed… and live service games, of course.
I don’t know what they’re going to do for the next game, to try and make it special, but I don’t think being away for a while is going to be a big enough draw. Games like Far Cry are popular but they’re not the sort of thing people are fans of, I wouldn’t have thought. I mean, we’re not talking Zelda or Resident Evil here.
Or maybe I’m wrong and there’s a big following for Far Cry 6 and… whatever it was about and whoever the characters were. (It was set in Cuba, wasn’t it?) Cuit
GC: It was a fictional country inspired by Cuba.
Seeing red I bought the cardboard Virtual Boy ‘headset’ and I’ve been playing the games over the weekend and all I can say is… why is it all red?
That sounds a bad idea before you even try it and when you do it’s just as bad as you think. Like you said in your review, it’s like it’s been raining blood or everything is set on Mars or something.
Even so, I did enjoy trying out all these weird games I’d never heard of before and would certainly never have played any other way. I can’t say I particularly liked any of them, but Wario Land was okay, even though it was a bit slow. It was fun to see the ‘other platforms in the background’ gimmick though, which Nintendo has used in a bunch of games since.
I look forward to playing the other games, especially the cancelled F-Zero one, in the future and even if they’re terrible, I like that it feels that you’re getting this glimpse into a secret world.
Star Fox 2 was good like that too. You could absolutely see why they canned it, but it was interesting getting to play it all the same. Austin
GC: Red LEDs are cheaper than other colours is the simplest answer.
Marketing decision I’ve just seen the banned ad for Call Of Duty and I can’t believe anyone would of thought that was a good idea.
I’d like to know if Activision or Xbox gave the greenlight and said, ‘Yes, that’s a good ad, let’s show it.’ I never thought either of them would of made an ad like that and I’m not surprised it got banned.’ David
GC: It would’ve been someone at Activision.
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Lucky accident That was a great Reader’s Feature at the weekend about Zelda’s 40th anniversary, kudos to Rhion for writing it.
My journey with the Zelda franchise is a little odd. I was about 14 years old and ordered The Legend Of Zelda 2: The Adventure Of Link from my mum’s catalogue, on the promise I would pay her back £2 a week from my paper round money until it was paid off.
After all, number 2 is always going to be better than number 1 right? At least that’s what my 14-year-old brain was telling me.
The game arrived.
I got home from school only to find that the catalogue had sent me a substitute game. The original Legend Of Zelda.
I was a little bit gutted and went on my paper round mulling over whether to send it back and wait another two weeks or not at all?
I got home and, as kids do, I had no capacity to wait for another game so I fired it up in my trusty old NES and the rest was history.
On the future of the Zelda games… I’m not completely enamoured by the open world template of Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of A Kingdom, yeah I said it.
I prefer the much more linear titles but if they do go open world again and it’s probably a dead certainty due to the money it brings in.
I would like to see them leave from the skies and head for the sea.
Sailing vast open oceans while learning to plunge new depths and discover new islands. Yes, I know very The Wind Waker-ish but it’s not really been done in a 3D Zelda title since then and that’s been a good 25 years now.
If they used the original Zelda as inspiration for Breath Of The Wild then there is no reason not to use another title as a platform to push off. freeway 77
Inbox also-rans In response to Biter and Mario Kart Arcade, where is he playing it for only £1? The arcades near me in Merry Hill and Birmingham are charging 3 quid a turn! LeeDappa
So are we really expecting the next mainline Pokémon games to be announced this week? I guess that gets that out of the way, but it seems an awful lot of Pokémon games are already on Switch 2 and we still don’t have a Mario or Zelda. Priorities! Ned
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Multiple Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry games are in development, as Ubisoft’s CEO addresses the cancellation of Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time.
Ubisoft has been in trouble for some time now, after a string of flops, but the company made some drastic moves recently to turn its fortunes around.
Following a bailout from Tencent, Ubisoft announced a massive restructuring which will break the company into five ‘creative houses’, including the already launched subsidiary Vantage Studios. This studio owns all of Ubisoft’s biggest IP, namely Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.
The news of this restructure was bundled with layoffs and a string of cancellations, including the troubled Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time remake. It was unclear what other projects had been cancelled, but four were unannounced titles (including three new IPs), and a mobile game.
Following all this upheaval, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has now clarified what projects are still in development at the company.
In an interview with Variety, Guillemot was asked if there’ll be new game announcements from Vantage Studios soon, where he touched upon Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry.
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‘Under the Assassin’s Creed brand, several titles are in development, spanning both single-player and multiplayer experiences, with the ambition to further grow a community that exceeeded 30 million players last year,’ he replied.
A Black Flag remake seems inevitable (Ubisoft)
One of these projects is likely to be the Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remake, which has practically been confirmed already. We also already know about several other projects in the series, including the witch-themed Hexe, along with a multiplayer spin-off codenamed AC League (but that was reportedly cancelled earlier this month).
Guillemot went on to confirm Ubisoft has ‘two very promising projects in development’ in regards to Far Cry. One of these will likely be the inevitable Far Cry 7, but the other is more of a mystery. There have been rumours about a multiplayer-focused entry called Project Maverick, which was previously described as an extraction-based shooter.
Beyond these two franchises, Guillemot teased how it is ‘looking forward to talking more about Rayman soon’, following the recent remaster, but also touched upon the cancellation of the Prince Of Persia remake – stating it is still an ‘active’ franchise.
‘While such decisions are never easy, they allow us to concentrate our talent on the highest-potential projects and ensure that every release meets the quality our players expect,’ he said in regards to its cancellation.
‘Prince Of Persia remains a beloved and active brand and continues to play an important role in our Creative Houses portfolio and long-term strategy.’
Elsewhere, Ubisoft confirmed it had ‘several new IPs in progress’ but didn’t share any details about them.
The big question is when these projects will be announced, with the next obvious place being Summer Game Fest in June. However, after all its financial woes, there’s perhaps a greater urgency than ever to get some of these titles out the door.
Rayman is celebrating its 30th anniversary (Ubisoft)
Ubisoft published a report for the third quarter of its current fiscal year, covering the period from October 1 to December 31, 2025. Here are the highlights from the document.
Ubisoft has announced the continuation of a large-scale restructuring of its business. As part of this, the company has decided to divide into five “creative houses” — not without some casualties.
“Assassin’s Creed” publisher Ubisoft is trying to emerge from a rocky few years. From here, the biggest hurdle the French video game giant has to overcome is the mounting skepticism of fans — and employees — after disappointing or delayed releases and multiple pivots over a short period of time. Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot is even facing calls from union leaders and others to […]
Ubisoft chief executive officer Yves Guillemot has finally spoken outside of the company's financial earnings reports after kicking off 2026 by confirming a "major reset" that involved huge structural changes to Ubisoft and saw hundreds of developers get laid off, either through cuts at different branches or just full studio shutdowns. In an interview with Variety, Guillemot didn't offer any meaningful comments in response to questions about the strikes across different studios within the company or provide any further comment as to why projects like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake were cancelled that we hadn't heard before. But […]
Ubisoft published a report for the third quarter of its current fiscal year, covering the period from October 1 to December 31, 2025. Here are the highlights from the document.
Ubisoft has announced the continuation of a large-scale restructuring of its business. As part of this, the company has decided to divide into five “creative houses” — not without some casualties.
Layoffs will occur at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm studios.
