Ubisoft says it has postponed several of its “biggest productions” currently in development in order to grant them more time in the oven, after previously delaying Assassin’s Creed Shadows in order to provide further polish.
Exactly which games these are was not named by Ubisoft during its financial results broadcast today, though in an investor call listened to by Eurogamer, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot suggested the impacted titles came from the publisher’s top five brands – Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, The Division and Ghost Recon.
Guillemot said Shadows’ delay had been a “good decision to deliver a really strong quality” and that the delayed projects would now launch beyond the current financial year ending 31st March 2026, in either the following year ending March 2027, or the year after ending March 2028.
“After a review of our pipeline, we have decided to provide additional development time to some of our biggest productions in order to create the best conditions for success,” Guillemot said today in a statement. “As a consequence, FY2026-27 and FY2027-28 will see significant content coming from our largest brands.”
What’s coming this year then? Ubisoft lists Anno 117: Pax Romana, its long-delayed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake, Rainbow Six Mobile and The Division spin-off Resurgence, as well as “other titles” to be announced at a later stage. Assassin’s Creed Shadows will get is first major expansion later this year, while Rainbow Six Siege gets its big X update in June. (There’s no mention at all of Beyond Good & Evil 2.)
Elsewhere, Ubisoft has commented further on Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ launch, its plans for a new subsidary backed by Chinese publisher Tencent, and ongoing push to cut costs and headcount.
The company’s latest financial results show it earned a “slightly below objective” €1.85bn (£1.56m) for the year ending 31st March, a miss it blamed on “lower than expected partnerships, notably due to a timing impact”.
Of course, Ubisoft’s biggest launch of the year was Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which finally arrived in March after a notable delay from last year. Ubisoft avoided providing a new sales figure for the game today, though said its financial performance “reaffirms the strength and resilience” of the brand.
As previously announced, Shadows had the second-highest day one sales revenue for the series – behind the lockdown-era launch of Valhalla. Today, Ubisoft said Shadows had now recorded 160m gameplay hours across all players to date. How many players? Ubisoft isn’t saying, and hasn’t provided a fresh figure since the game passed 3 million players a week after launch.
The Assassin’s Creed brand as a whole had “around 30 million unique players” for the fourth consecutive year, Ubisoft said, the same as Rainbow Six. Ubisoft’s third pillar, Far Cry, had “around 20 million” meanwhile.
On Ubisoft’s continued mission to cut costs – and employees – the company said it had succeeded in trimming €200m from its fixed costs ahead of time, with a lowered headcount now at 17,782 people. That’s a decrease of 3000 people from September 2022, due to layoffs and reduced recruitment.
“This year has been a challenging one for Ubisoft, with mixed dynamics across our portfolio, amid intense industry competition,” Guillemot continued. “Despite these headwinds, Ubisoft managed to deliver positive free cash flow generation over the fiscal year, reflecting the discipline applied across the Group.
“Aware of the challenges ahead, we took decisive steps to continue strengthening the company’s future,” Guillemot continued. “The launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows was a defining moment. It reaffirmed the power of the Assassin’s Creed brand, with a highly favorable community response from long-time fans and new players alike. We also completed our initial cost savings program ahead of schedule. We are committed to going further, with additional savings of at least €100m over the next two years to drive structural efficiencies and reinforce the foundations of our organisation.”
Further details of Ubisoft’s plan to launch a new subsidiary with Tencent that will house the company’s biggest three brands – Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six and Far Cry – will be laid out later this year, Ubisoft said.
That said, Ubisoft said today that this new group will focus on “improving the quality of narrative-driven solo experiences”, “expanding live service offerings with richer multiplayer features and more frequent content updates”, and targeting “underpenetrated markets such as mobile and China”.
And in other news, Ubisoft’s film and television division has announced a Riders Republic movie, with Bad Boys for Life directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah signed up to work on the project.
