Just a week after announcing the cancelation of six games, the closure of two studios and further job losses at another three locations, Ubisoft is now aiming its cost-reduction initiative at staff working inside its Paris headquarters.
Ubisoft has proposed the loss of up to 200 jobs within the French capital, where it currently employs around 1100 people. This process will be organized under the voluntary Rupture Conventionnelle Collective (RCC) process, where staff can agree to form a collective, voluntary mutual termination agreement.
“In line with last week’s announcements on its new operating model and the acceleration of cost-reduction initiatives, Ubisoft International has initiated discussions regarding a potential Rupture Conventionnelle Collective, a collective, voluntary mutual termination agreement that could involve up to 200 positions at its headquarters in France,” a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN today.
“At this stage, this remains a proposal, and no decision will be final until a collective agreement is reached with employee representatives and validated by French authorities. The proposal applies exclusively to Ubisoft International employees under French contracts and has no impact on other French entities or Ubisoft teams worldwide.”
While the RCC process has to be voluntary and has to be based on terms agreed by employees and trade unions, there’s no word today on next steps if the company does not achieve the reduction in headcount it is expecting through this scheme.
Ubisoft’s Parisian offices have previously been the sight of protests against the company’s previous return-to-office stipulations. Last week, Ubisoft said its company reorganization would also reintroduce five-day office work as standard (albeit with an annual pool of remote working days). Still, IGN understands the decision to propose an RCC to its Parisian workers was made some time ago, before the five-day mandate was decided.
Last week, Ubisoft said it was completely shuttering its Stockholm studio that previously collaborated on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, alongside mobile studio Ubisoft Halifax. “Restructurings” have also taken place at Ubisoft offices in Abu Dhabi, at Trials studio RedLynx and at Massive, home to The Division.
Of the half dozen games that have now been fully scrapped, Ubisoft only publicly named one — its long-awaited Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake. Today, an actress believed to have been working on the remake said that she had lost three years’ worth of work and discovered her project had been canceled after reading about Ubisoft’s shock decision online.
Ubisoft simultaneously confirmed it had delayed a further seven games, including an unannounced title set for launch within the next two months that is widely expected to be the company’s under-wraps Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag remaster. Ubisoft’s stock plunged by 40% following the announcement, and now sits 95% down on its January 2021 peak.
Image credit: IGN.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
