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Ubisoft Barcelona faces layoffs amid Black Flag remake launch

gamingJul 9, 2026813,541

Ubisoft Barcelona announced staff cuts the same day Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced launched, with reports online saying 51 employees were laid off; outlets and posts cited the layoffs as overshadowing the studio’s release-day celebrations. Black Flag Resynced arrived to a wave of negative Steam reviews within hours, dropping to a "Predominantly Negative" rating after more than 1,000 user reviews in under 19 hours, per GameVicio. Players flagged two main faults: cutscenes locked at 30 frames per second regardless of PC settings and an extensive day-one microtransaction store that lists roughly R$ 424.91 in additional cosmetic and map-pack content not included in the Deluxe edition. GameVicio noted a free community mod that removes the cutscene FPS cap, and said specialist press reviews outside Steam have been positive. Coverage and social posts tied the layoffs to community calls to boycott purchases and to criticism of Ubisoft’s treatment of developers, making the launch a mixed moment for the franchise and the Barcelona team.

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@theletterten.gay

Don't buy the remake to Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. The game just came out and how does the team get rewarded? With layoffs. Why should we reward Ubisoft with our hard earned money?? Boycott this shit! insider-gaming.com/assassins-cr...

19716h ago
Kotaku
@kotaku.com

Ubisoft devs who worked on Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced in Barcelona celebrate the game's launch today by bracing for layoffs. "After 7 years at Ubi... https://kotaku.com/assassins-creed-devs-celebrate-black-flag-remake-launch-with-layoffs-this-is-not-how-i-imagined-it-would-end-2000714209

667h ago
Quoting this
Shayna Moon (she/they)314

I saw a post where someone made the connection that a company laying you off right after your product comes out is pretty much stealing your wages from you and, yeah. They’re double dipping, getting all the profit and not having to pay for the team that generated it.

Nathan Grayson255

hardly the worst part of this, but an utterly needless shovelful of salt in the wound

janekiller pain185

at what point do game devs just start holding nearly-completed games hostage because they've been shown that as soon as they release a wildly successful game they'll all be fired

RTL333

At this point, releasing a game is the leading cause of job termination for people who make video games, followed closely by "work on video games"

Aranock, 4 of Ravens27

You can literally make a successful game and get laid off anyway. The games industry hates workers.

Sputnik3420

make a bad game? layoffs make a good game? layoffs make an award winning game? layoffs

Pokey9

Meant it the other day that you should make connections with indies looking for publishers this upcoming gamescom if you still want to leap into the games industry. Anyone I know of in a secure enough spot right now is through self-sustainment or mutually beneficial support.

Biological Riley7

It’s disgusting that this happens so regularly in the industry. People working 7 years on a game only to have anxiety over job security the day of release (when sales success or failure still needs to be accounted for) is a disgrace

Hershel6

they released an unfaithful remake that cut whole sections/scenes in the game that were pretty well enjoyed back in the day, with 80 dollars worth of day one dlc NOT part of the deluxe edition, and followed it up by firing a bunch of folks. stop giving ubisoft your money. this shit is evil

Pim’s Crypt!4

This song but this time exclusively about the video game industry. youtu.be/68juSuQRtMY?...

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