Ubisoft Cancels 6 Games, Delays 7 Games, and Closes Studios - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 21 January 2026 / 5,285 Views
Ubisoft announced it has cancelled six games, one of which is the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake. Four of the games were unannounced, including three new intellectual properties and a mobile game.
The publisher will also be allocating additional development time to seven games to ensure the quality benchmarks are fully met and to maximize the long-term value. This includes unannounced games that were planned for fiscal year 2026 that will now release in fiscal year 2027.
Two studios have also been confirmed to have shut down. This includes the Halifax mobile studio and the Stockholm studio. Abu Dhabi, RedLynx and Massive are also being restructured. This will help reduce costs by at least €100 million by March 2026 with the goal to reduce another €200 million over the next two years.
"On the one hand, the AAA industry has become persistently more selective and competitive with rising development costs and greater challenges in creating brands," said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. "On the other hand, exceptional AAA games, when successful, have more financial potential than ever. In this context, today we are announcing a major reset built to create the conditions for a return to sustainable growth over time. We are transforming Ubisoft’s operating model to produce exceptional quality games on the two core pillars of our strategy, Open World Adventures and GaaS-native experiences.
"At the center of this transformation are our Creative Houses, integrated business units now combining production and publishing and therefore unifying the gamer relationship. Each one is built around a clear genre and brand focus, with full responsibility and financial ownership, led by dedicated leadership teams. It is a radical move, relying on a more decentralized creative organization with faster decision making and best-in-class cross functional core services supporting and serving each Creative House.
"To put the Creative Houses in the best conditions to succeed, we decided to refocus our portfolio with a meaningfully revised three-year roadmap and accelerate our cost reductions initiatives to rightsize the organization. We will discontinue several projects currently in development and provide additional time to certain games, to ensure enhanced quality and maximize long term value. We will also selectively close several studios and continue restructurings throughout the Group. While these decisions are difficult, they are necessary for us to build a more focused, efficient and sustainable organization over the long term.
"Taken together, these measures mark a decisive turning point for Ubisoft and reflect our determination to confront challenges head-on to reshape the Group for the long term. The portfolio refocus will have a significant impact on the Group’s short term financial trajectory, particularly in fiscal years 2026 and 2027, but this reset will strengthen the Group and enable it to renew with sustainable growth and robust cash generation. Ubisoft is entering a new phase—one designed to reclaim creative leadership and build value for players and stakeholders over the long term."
Ubisoft will have a new operating model that is structured around five Creative Houses that will be supported by a Creative Network that provides development resources, shared Core Services and a reshaped HQ. This new organization will start operation in early April.
Read details on the five Creative Houses below:
- CH1 (Vantage Studios), focused on scaling and extending Ubisoft’s largest and established franchises to turn them into annual billionaire brands;
- Brands: Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six
- CH2 dedicated to competitive and cooperative shooter experiences;
- Brands including The Division, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell
- CH3 designed to operate a roster of select, sharp Live experiences;
- Brands including For Honor, The Crew, Riders Republic, Brawlhalla, Skull & Bones
- CH4 dedicated to immersive fantasy worlds and narrative-driven universes;
- Brands including Anno, Might & Magic, Rayman, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good & Evil
- CH5 focused on reclaiming position in casual and family-friendly games.
- Brands including Just Dance, Idle Miner Tycoon, Ketchapp, Hungry Shark, Invincible: Guarding the Globe, Uno, Hasbro
There are four new IPs also in development that includes March of Giants. Ubisoft will announce which Creative House these games are in at a later date.
"Each Creative House will benefit from dedicated leadership with a clear creative mandate and accountability. These leadership teams will include high-profile talent coming from the industry," said Ubisoft. "They will be tasked with attracting and developing top-level, specialist talent, and supported by incentive schemes aligned with creative success, player engagement and long-term value creation.
"Each Creative House will have end-to-end responsibility for its portfolio, overseeing the full creative and brand scope from development to publishing (brand, marketing and sales go-to-market strategy). They will also be financially accountable, both in terms of P&L and cash generation. This structure will sharpen strategic focus, reinforce execution discipline and ensure that investment decisions will be taken closer to where value is created.
"The model also enhances visibility into development pipelines, milestones and key risks, supporting more informed decision-making throughout development cycles."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
More Articles
I am unfortunately old enough to remember a time when Ubi was industry leading in its innovative tech and gameplay design...
Sadly, that was over 2 full console generations ago
What’s weird is I became interested in gaming around the launch of Switch 1 (3-2017). So it’s crazy for me to ever consider Ubisoft as a major leader in the industry.
The first three Splinter cell games are rated 93, 93 &94 on Metacritic. Far Cry and Assassins Creed were once genre defining games(especially AC2 and FC3).
Edit: I even forgot things like PoP: Sands of time which was a GoTY level game massively influential at the time.
Rayman was a staple platformer back in the old days of PS1 too.
And I guess those Rabbids things were popular on the Wii. Same with Just Dance.
I don't udnerstand why they havn't done anything with those IPs. Go back to making some platformers.
This must be the most depressing generation of gaming ever.
Yeah, it’s not looking good for Ubisoft…
Dumpster organisation.
TLDR: We are closing down studios that focus on unique experiences to milk our big annual franchises.
Which is probably why they shut down other studios to make Assassins Creed an annual franchise again.
Hopefully they don't go nutty like last time and do multiple Assassin creed releases a year.
It's ironic... That annual big franchises like Assassins Creed -only- exist because a studio decided to do something different and unique.
Risk and innovation is dead in game development in the AAA sector.
Sigh it basicly sounds like 60-80 % will be dedicated to GASS. Because history has definitely told us that can't possibly go wrong.
Sad but The Sands of Time remake seems to have been in development hell for some time.
They should have just released the previous build that everyone complained about
Wouldn't they have then got soundly criticised for releasing an unfinished and broken game?
Dang! And here I was waiting for the PoP Remake to be shadow dropped. :(
It dropped into the shadow realm.
That deal with Tencent is really paying off, don't you think?
Sad about Prince of Persia remake but glad Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still on the slate
BGE2 will never release
Ubisoft is a sinking ship.
How the mighty have fallen, sad times
What a complete and utter disappointment.
could it be the industry? do you think even if the PS5 console outsells the PS4 console that the PS5 game sales will out sell the PS4 game totals?
Annoying thing. The best ruining IPs ever.
