Ubisoft used to be the gold standard for open-world innovation, but today’s "major company reset" feels more like a frantic attempt to keep the lights on while the roof collapses.

I used to love this company. I really did. I have spent hundreds of hours lost in the clockwork perfection of the Anno series. I remember when Far Cry 3 dropped and, even though it wasn’t perfect it felt like a studio at the top of its game. Even if Assassin’s Creed was never my personal obsession, I could always respect the sheer ambition of the older titles. But sitting here in 2026, looking at the wreckage of their latest press release, I don't see that company anymore. I see a bloated, confused titan that has spent the last five years chasing trends it didn't understand and running its best franchises into the ground.

Today’s announcement isn't just news. It is an admission of total failure. Six games cancelled, including the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake that has been a punchline for years—and seven more delayed into the ether. They are closing studios, forcing people back into offices, and begging investors to believe that "Creative Houses" will fix a culture that is clearly broken at the top.

The Prince of Persia Remake is the Perfect Metaphor

If you want to understand the downfall of Ubisoft, look at the Sands of Time remake. It was announced years ago to a chorus of "that looks like a PS3 game," and then proceeded to vanish into development hell. It moved from studio to studio, getting rebooted more times than a shitty router. Today, they finally put it out of its misery.

It is the perfect metaphor for modern Ubisoft. They take a beloved IP, fumble the execution, panic when the internet rightfully roasts them, and then spend millions of dollars trying to "reset" it until there is nothing left. The fact that the Black Flag remake is now reportedly delayed into 2027 just adds insult to injury. That game was supposedly weeks away from going gold. How do you fuck up a pirate game that is already 90% finished? Only Ubisoft.

The Five "Creative Houses" or: How to Rearrange Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Ubisoft’s big solution to this mess is a massive reorganization into five "Creative Houses." On paper, it sounds like they are trying to return to their roots by specializing in genres. In reality, it looks like a desperate attempt to decentralize the blame when the next Far Cry or Assassin’s Creed inevitably underperforms.

THE NEW UBISOFT CREATIVE HOUSES

The company is betting its entire future on these five genre-specific divisions. It is a radical move, but it might be too little, too late.

Division	The Mission / My Take
Vantage Studios (CH1)	Targeting "Annual Billionaire Brands." This is the Assassin's Creed and Far Cry factory. Expect more of the same, just faster.
CH2 (Shooters)	The Division, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell. They are still pretending Splinter Cell exists. I will believe it when I see Sam Fisher.
CH3 (Live Service)	Skull & Bones, For Honor, and The Crew. The "GaaS-native" hub. This is where they double down on the things players actually hate.
CH4 (Narrative)	Anno, Beyond Good & Evil, Rayman. The "Soul" of the company. Probably the house that will be most ignored by the shareholders.
CH5 (Casual)	Just Dance, Uno, and mobile fluff. The safe money-maker while the AAA projects burn through cash.

The "Annual Billionaire Brand" Delusion

The most insane part of this whole "reset" is the ambition of Vantage Studios. They want Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six to become "annual billionaire brands." This is corporate speak for "we are going to milk these cows until they turn to dust."

Ubisoft is looking at the success of Call of Duty and thinking they can just flip a switch and have three different franchises making a billion dollars a year. But Call of Duty works because it has a massive, dedicated engine of three-plus studios churning out content. Ubisoft is currently closing studios like Halifax and Stockholm while begging for a €200 million cost reduction. You cannot grow your way out of a crisis by cutting the people who actually build the games.

The AI Problem and the Human Cost

To fill the gaps left by the layoffs and the studio closures, Ubisoft is now leaning into "player-facing Generative AI." It is the ultimate slap in the face. They are firing developers and then telling the survivors that they need to use AI to speed things up. It is a recipe for soulless, procedurally generated garbage. We have already seen the "Ubisoft Tower" fatigue set in over the last decade. Imagine how much worse it is going to get when a machine is designing the outposts.

Then there is the return-to-office mandate. Forcing people back five days a week in 2026 is a transparent attempt to get people to quit so the company doesn't have to pay out as many severance packages. It is cold, it is calculated, and it is going to drive every talented developer who actually has a choice to leave for a better studio.

Final Thoughts: Liberation or Oblivion?

I genuinely hope that someone buys Ubisoft. Not for the sake of the shareholders, but for the sake of the IPs and the developers. The current leadership has proven time and again that they are incapable of navigating the modern market. They are stuck in a cycle of over-promising, under-delivering, and then "resetting" when things get tough.

If this company is ever going to make a game as good as Anno 1800 or the original Splinter Cell again, it needs to be liberated from its own leadership. This "major reset" feels like the final gasp of a giant that has forgotten how to stand on its own two feet. It is a sad day for anyone who remembers what Ubisoft used to represent. For now, we are just left with a roadmap of delays and the ghost of a Prince of Persia remake that never should have been handled this poorly.

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