French gaming publisher Ubisoft stopped development on 7 games between July 2022 and January 2023, including titles like Ghost Recon Frontline and Splinter Cell VR. The boss of the publisher, Yves Guillemot, now assures the investors: That was necessary. You want to focus on class instead of quantity.
Which games were canceled? In July 2022, Ubisoft announced that they were stopping work on 4 games:
In January 2023, Ubisoft announced that they were discontinuing 3 more games: none of the games had been announced at the time.
In addition, Ubisoft said in January 2023 that the pirate game “Skull & Bones” would be postponed, which would come between April and December 2023. The CEO also announced austerity measures – the union responded by threatening a strike.
Pirate MMO Skull & Bones shows brutal naval battles and absurd upgrades in the trailer
More videos
Ubisoft was very dissatisfied with its earnings in January 2023
What did you know about the reasons? In January 2023, Ubisoft was dissatisfied with the current results. “Mega-brands and long-lived titles” that reach players worldwide across all platforms and business models are responsible for the weak performance. So the market is almost saturated with games like Fortnite, LoL or Call of Duty: Warzone.
In particular, titles such as “Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope” and “Just Dance 2023” fell short of expectations.
Ubisoft screwed up The Division 2 – now they’re paying a heavy price for it
Deleting 7 games should help the games that are really coming
Why are they stopping work on so many games? During a recent earnings call, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said:
We’ve canceled a few games because we need to make more room for other games that are being developed at the company, and that really helps the other games move forward in development. We feel like we have the right number of games now and we know that in fiscal 2024 we will be releasing a lot of games giving way to the other games in the company.
Guillemot says: Over the next 24 months the number of games being developed at Ubisoft will drop significantly and that will give more space to all the games that they want to release.
Also, many of the games will continue to be supported after release, and that requires numerous teams and talents.
With Division: Resurgence, a popular shooter comes to mobile phones – trailer shows notorious PvP mode
More videos
What games are coming out there? Games we expect to see from Ubisoft from April 2023 to March 2024 include:
Since a sexism scandal in 2020, things seem to be amiss at Ubisoft:
Insider report paints a bad picture of Ubisoft – sexism as a system