Ubisoft Barcelona Cuts Jobs After Black Flag Resynced Hits 2M Copies

Developers at Ubisoft Barcelona who worked on Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced say the studio’s layoffs are happening at the worst possible time: the game has reportedly hit commercial success, moving 2 million copies in roughly 24 hours, while their team is being cut.

Key takeaways

• Ubisoft Barcelona staff who contributed to Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced claim they are being laid off even after the game’s rapid sales milestone.
• The latest round targets 380 positions, with layoffs affecting multiple Ubisoft offices including Winnipeg, Belgrade (set to fully close), Barcelona, and the company’s global publishing arm.
• Workers at Ubisoft Barcelona say their contributions were focused on underwater mission content for the remake/updated Black Flag project.
• Employees have started a strike that will run until Thursday, July 16, with a flyer claiming 51 roles will be lost in the coming weeks.
• Ubisoft’s planned redirection for the Barcelona team is said to be toward the Rainbow Six franchise amid broader corporate restructuring.

Layoffs follow a burst of Black Flag Resynced sales

Job cuts at Ubisoft Barcelona were announced last month as part of a broader downsizing push affecting the wider company. In this newest restructuring effort, 380 employees are slated to be laid off. The impact is spread across several locations, including offices in Winnipeg and Belgrade, with the Belgrade site expected to shut down entirely. Barcelona is also included, as is Ubisoft’s global publishing division.

Ubisoft Barcelona has a track record of supporting projects led by larger Ubisoft studios. Past contributions include work tied to entries in the Rabbids lineup, as well as Star Trek: Bridge Crew. For Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, the Barcelona team’s work is described as covering the game’s diving-related side missions—content that, in the original Black Flag, was handled by a different team.

Manel Cota, a tech and gameplay animator at Ubisoft Barcelona, posted on social media that the studio “did all the underwater levels.” He added that the same group is now being fired, arguing Ubisoft believes that is what the team “deserve[s].”

Isabel Codina García, a quality assurance lead at Ubisoft Barcelona, echoed the frustration in a LinkedIn update. She said that a portion of the Barcelona studio had been working on the game for more than two years. However, she noted that just two weeks before launch, the entire Assassin’s Creed team at Ubisoft Barcelona was told it would be covered by a collective redundancy plan.

Strike begins as workers protest the redundancies

Barcelona-based employees have begun a strike that had been announced in advance. The walkout is planned to continue until Thursday, July 16. A flyer promoting the action claims that 51 staff will lose their jobs in the coming weeks.

The flyer also frames the decision as a betrayal after years of commitment. It states that, despite dedication to the team, the company has “turned its back” on them, and that workers will not get to see the results of their efforts—only to have their reward be job losses.

Ubisoft is understood to be shifting the Barcelona group to focus exclusively on the Rainbow Six franchise. This change is presented as part of broader organizational shifts, including repeated reshuffling and additional redundancies throughout the company.

Ubisoft’s wider studio cuts and closures

Ubisoft’s recent moves have included cutting hundreds of roles and shutting down multiple studios entirely, with 2026 described as starting especially harshly. In January, the company canceled six projects, including its Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, and fully closed two Ubisoft studios: Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Halifax. Layoffs also hit other parts of the organization, including the Abu Dhabi office, Trials studio RedLynx, and the studio Massive Entertainment, which is tied to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Only a week after those developments, Ubisoft announced it would eliminate 200 positions at its Paris headquarters, which triggered protests in the French capital. Then, in February, Ubisoft had to reassure players that its long-awaited Splinter Cell remake remained in development after 40 jobs were cut at Ubisoft Toronto.

Tom Phillips is a news editor. You can reach him at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social.