New wave of layoffs at Ubisoft: Within a week, around 130 employees had to leave the French publisher. One of the studios affected had only recently been unionized.
The axe is falling again at Ubisoft. After a disastrous 2024 financial year, the French publisher announced a rigorous cost-cutting program worth around €200 million at the beginning of 2025. This was followed by several waves of layoffs, and the studios in San Francisco, Osaka, and Leamington were closed completely.
Ubisoft is now in a much better financial position – the recently published financial results for the first half of 2025/26 show an operating profit of €27 million. Thanks to a partnership with Tencent, Ubisoft was able to secure €1.16 billion in fresh capital.
However, the publisher is not out of the woods yet. And so the publisher is starting the 2026 calendar year with a wave of layoffs. This time, a total of 126 employees in two different branches are affected. The team in Halifax, Canada, is particularly hard hit. The studio will be completely closed by the group’s management , resulting in the loss of 71 jobs.
Layoffs shortly after union membership
Particularly controversial: According to Canadian media reports, the majority of the workforce had voted in favor of joining a union just a few weeks before the studio closure was announced. Ubisoft itself assured GamesIndustry.biz that the closure was part of group-wide cost-cutting measures that had been planned for some time and had nothing to do with the union membership; nevertheless, the move leaves a bitter aftertaste.
GTA developer Rockstar Games in the UK is currently facing accusations that it deliberately laid off over 30 employees to prevent the formation of a union within the company. The British Parliament even addressed the allegations recently.
Some of the Ubisoft employees affected told IGN that they were devastated, especially since they had only recently decided to unionize. The CWA union said: We are exploring all options to fight for the rights of our members.
Cuts also at the Outlaws developers
Jobs are also being cut in Sweden. Ubisoft has announced that it will lay off 55 employees at Massive Entertainment. The Stockholm team most recently developed the action-adventure games Star Wars: Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for the publisher.
However, according to an internal email obtained by Insider Gaming, among others, the layoffs are not related to the studio’s mixed financial performance. Rather, they are a structural measure to position the studio well for the future.
Back in October 2025, Ubisoft had already set up a severance program for Massive employees to encourage as many employees as possible to leave voluntarily. However, it appears that not enough volunteers came forward, so management is now resorting to coercive measures.
The long-term direction of the studio is not expected to change as a result of the current layoffs. Massive Entertainment will continue to work on the The Division
franchise for Ubisoft and, in addition to an extraction shooter mode for the second installment of the series, will also be responsible for The Division 3 .
Massive also supports Ubisoft with the technology for the Ubisoft Connect client and continues to work on the in-house Snowdrop engine. However, single-player experiments such as SW: Outlaws and Avatar are likely to be over for now in Sweden.
It is unlikely that the current wave of layoffs will be the last at Ubisoft. Just recently, management announced its intention to continue with the cost-cutting program in 2026. With a target of 100 million euros, further layoffs are unfortunately very likely.
