The gaming giant continues to be in turmoil.
Assassin's Creed Shadows is set to launch on March 20, 2025, and it may very well have the future of Ubisoft riding on its success. Yesterday, the company revealed that it had laid off 185 staffers, resulting in the virtual closure of its Leamington, UK studio, as well as big losses at its Düsseldorf, Stockholm, and Newcastle locations. Ubisoft asserts that all of these personnel decisions are part of "restructuring" efforts with an eye towards reducing costs and prioritizing projects.
It's the projects bit that has been so problematic for Ubisoft of late, with games like XDefiant and Star Wars Outlaws being outright canceled or falling well short of sales prognostications. Currently, it's rumored that the Guillemot family and Tencent are in talks to spinoff select Ubisoft IPs into a new venture entirely. Thus, it seems likely that if Assassin's Creed Shadows ends up underperforming or outright failing that it could spell doom for Ubisoft being in the precarious state that the company is in.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz