Ubisoft cancels Prince of Persia remake, shuffles studios and more
Ubisoft have announced a massive change for the company, which includes the cancellation of a number of games, one of which is the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, they have closed another studio, delayed 7 more games and are changing how their studios function. All of this come less than 12 hours after we published our 2026 Preview for the group, so yeah that is out of date now.
Right, let’s get into things, what is changing. First and foremost are the foundations of 5 new Creative Houses. Well technically four as Vantage Studio was already formed, but like Vantage, the rest will be structured the same. These are the new groups:
Creative House 1 - Vantage Studios
Brands: Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six
Creative House 2
Brands: The Division, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell
Creative House 3
Brands: For Honor, The Crew, Riders Republic, Brawlhalla, Skull & Bones
Creative House 4
Brands: Anno, Might & Magic, Rayman, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good & Evil
Creative House 5
Brands: Just Dance, Idle Miner Tycoon, Ketchapp, Hungry Shark, Invincible: Guarding the Globe, Uno, Hasbro
While reshuffling studios into groups would have been enough on its own, Ubisoft has taken it one very extreme step further. Each Creative House will have full financial ownership and accounting for economic performance. This means that if CH3 want to make a new Skull & Bones, they have to fund it themselves and if the game does not do well, they have to wear the expenditures themselves as well.
It is not just the financial side of things as each 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 new structure, which you can see below will also consist of a larger creative network, and a team of core services, that will support all the Creative Houses. This is much like Sega, Capcom, Bandai Namco and Nintendo operate. The creative network is also a little bit like how Marvel, Star Wars and DC work, with a core group of support folks for narrative and character based creation, but I am sure the Ubisoft version will be vastly different.
This brings us to games, as part of the restructuring 6 games have been given the axe, including The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake. This game if you recall, was first meant to release in January 2020, then March 2020 and then it got delayed again, restarted development with a new studio and was dated for release this year, that is now no longer happening. In addition to this game four unannounced console/pc games have been cancelled, three of which were brand new IPs and the remaining game is a mobile title.
These game cancelations do mean studio closures and as of this news, one additional studio has been closed, the Stockholm studio. They join the recently announced Halifax studio that was closed a few weeks ago. It also joins the existing restructuring work at Massive Entertainment, Redlynx and the Abu Dhabi studio. Our thoughts go out to all impacted by this news.
It is not just game cancellations as the company has also chosen to delay 7 games, to allow for more development time. They say it is to “ensure enhanced quality benchmarks are fully met and maximize long-term value creation.” That reads to me as they want to make sure they can add in as much Games as a Service (GaaS) as they can, but that is the other part.
This is what they said around the GaaS:
The new operating model will further empower the execution of the Group’s strategy, centered on Open World Adventures and GaaS-native experiences, supported by targeted investments, deeper specialization, and cutting-edge technology, including accelerated investments behind player-facing Generative AI.
The reason for concern is the idea that games might become GaaS as the default. Now these types of games are nothing new for the publisher, Rainbow Six Siege, For Honor, Just Dance, The Crew and many more already work within this model type. What made Ubisoft interesting is that for every game that was one of those, there were single player narrative adventures that you could just enjoy and not have to worry about seasons, content passes or other ways of having your wallet wrung out of every last dollar within.
Now it is entirely possible that a Creative House might elect not to make a GaaS and instead focus on a great single player, narrative driven experience, but as the funding for their group will come from Ubisoft HQ, they might be pressured into doing it their way, even after being told they have full control.
These changes are massive and it may take weeks for the dust to settle on them. Now normally I would give Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt here, but this is yet another mass game cancellation, which joins a few others over the past few years. Once is ok, twice is concerning but three or more and you have a systemic issue at the top.
Below is the full statement from Yves Guillemot, Co-founder and CEO of Ubisoft. Given all these years of failure, cancelations, studio closures and reports to police about sexual harassment and bullying, one can only hope he won’t have that job for much longer, but that is for another time.
On the one hand, the AAA industry has become persistently more selective and competitive with rising development costs and greater challenges in creating brands. 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 3-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.
All the details were provided in a fairly packed PDF, which you can read here if you want. I for one am honestly not as shocked as I probably should be at these changes, mostly because I just spent weeks trying to work out what the studio was doing and got really nowhere.
But what about you? Do these changes matter to you, or are you someone who falls into the F*** Ubisoft camp?
