Ubisoft shares tumble after ‘Assassin’s Creed’ creator unveils restructuring, cancels games

By Gianluca Lo Nostro and Leo Marchandon

Jan 22 (Reuters) – Ubisoft, the French video game publisher behind the “Assassin’s Creed” series, on Wednesday announced a sweeping reorganisation and said it would cancel six games, sending its shares to their lowest level in more than a decade on Thursday.

Shares of the “Far Cry” maker fell as much as 35% and were on track for their biggest one-day drop since the company’s 1996 listing.

The Paris-based company said it planned to split its operations into five creative divisions organised by genre, part of a broader attempt to sharpen focus and rein in costs after years of disappointing releases and weak results.

Ubisoft said it would abandon development of six titles, including a highly-anticipated remake of “Prince of Persia”, while seven would be delayed. It also trimmed its net bookings forecast for 2026 and withdrew its guidance for the 2026/27 fiscal year.

Studios in Halifax, Canada and Stockholm are being closed, with restructurings in other countries, it said.

The latest overhaul follows several difficult years marked by game delays, cancellations and weak execution, which have eroded investor confidence and strained the group’s finances.

In November 2025, Ubisoft postponed the publication of its half-year results at the last minute, triggering a week-long suspension of trading in its shares and bonds.

The company later said an accounting change had revealed a debt covenant breach, pushing it to use part of the proceeds from Tencent’s 1-billion-euro investment for an early repayment of outstanding loans.

In a note to investors, analyst Corentin Marty from brokerage firm TP ICAP Midcap called the major reorganization “the big shake-up”.

“The prospect of a return to positive cash generation appears remote, and the maturity of the 675-million-euro bond in November 2027 is likely to put additional pressure on the group’s financial structure,” Marty said.

Ubisoft’s shares were trading at about 4.5 euros in early Thursday trading, giving the group a market value of around 616 million euros ($720 million).

The stock nearly halved in value last year and has now fallen well below 1 billion euros in market capitalisation, down from a peak of about 11 billion euros in 2018, LSEG data showed.

($1 = 0.8558 euros)

(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; Additional reporting by Clement Martinot; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)