According to Wccftech, Ubisoft announced a “major reset” last week, restructuring the entire company into five ‘Creative Houses’ and creating new leadership roles that pushed out company veterans. The plan cancelled six projects, including the Sands of Time Remake, delayed seven more, and aims for further layoffs alongside a return-to-office mandate. This caused the company’s share price to drop to its lowest point since 2011, marking a staggering 95% loss of total value over the last eight years. In response, the French union Solidaires Informatique organized a strike on Thursday, January 22, 2026, outside Ubisoft Paris, with ten attendees demanding an end to cost-cutting, better remote work policies, and “decent pay raises.” Union representative Marc Rutschlé stated that “anger and despair” are “reigning supreme” internally and that CEO Yves Guillemot has “no knowledge or understanding of his company or its employees.”
A Company in Freefall
Look, losing 95% of your value in eight years isn’t just a bad streak. It’s a systemic failure. And the union’s scathing quote about Guillemot’s lack of understanding? That’s not just angry rhetoric. It points to a fundamental disconnect between the C-suite’s grand “reset” plans and the brutal reality on the ground—teams that are understaffed, demoralized, and haven’t seen a real raise in years. Cancelling long-awaited projects like the Sands of Time Remake while creating new “high-level positions with excessive salaries” is the kind of move that screams “tone deaf.” It basically tells your workforce that their years of labor are disposable, but the management layer is untouchable. No wonder the internal channels are reportedly full of shame and people polishing their LinkedIn profiles.
The Broader Industry Context
Here’s the thing: Ubisoft isn’t operating in a vacuum. The entire games industry has been through a brutal two years of layoffs and project cancellations. But Ubisoft’s situation feels uniquely self-inflicted. While other publishers are cutting back after pandemic-era overexpansion, Ubisoft’s woes are compounded by its own specific ghosts: the unchecked allegations of misconduct, a years-long reliance on bloated open-world formulas, and now, a restructuring that seems to prioritize managerial reshuffling over stabilizing its core talent. In a competitive landscape where retaining top developers is everything, this strategy is a surefire way to become a farm team for your rivals. Who would stay when the atmosphere includes “breakdowns in tears” and “suicidal comments,” as the union rep described?
Can Ubisoft Survive This?
It’s a real question. A company can’t bleed value, talent, and morale indefinitely. This “reset” feels like a last-ditch effort to appease shareholders, but it’s actively enraging the very people needed to execute it. Forcing a return-to-office while cutting costs and denying raises is a perfect recipe for a death spiral. The best people leave, the remaining projects suffer, leading to more financial trouble, leading to more cuts. It’s a classic corporate doom loop. Without a genuine change in leadership perspective—one that values its human capital as much as its IP—it’s hard to see how the Ubisoft we knew survives another decade. They might stumble on, but as what? A hollowed-out shell managing legacy franchises? The clock is ticking, and the strike outside Ubisoft Paris, however small, is the canary in the coal mine.
