The financial fortunes for developer and publisher Ubisoft are looking a bit more grim in the wake of an internal email and its first quarter earnings report, which is seeing game projects either get delayed or canceled outright and cost-cutting measures applied by the company.
In an internal email, CEO Yves Guillemot writes that Ubisoft will be “limiting […] spending to what is essential by questioning some of [its] habits and reflexes, and by reinventing [itself] together to make gains in terms of cost, agility, and efficiency.” This includes the delayed release of a game based on the Avatar films to sometime in 2023, and the binning of game projects like Splinter Cell VR and the battle royale title Ghost Recon: Frontline, which incidentally received intense backlash from series fans.
On top of these project changes, Ubisoft employees are reporting austerity measures being applied by the company like fewer and smaller raises for staff, less hiring, and various budget freezes.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft appears to be hitching its wagon to some upcoming releases in its search for its next hit: The turn-based strategy game Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is set to arrive in October, the multiplayer pirating title Skull and Bones is due in November, and work is continuing on Assassin’s Creed Infinity, a live service version of the franchise that is rumored to combine different titles from the series as well as introduce a setting in Asia.
