Hey, remember when I was like “oooh, the Black Flag remake is pretty clearly a desperate Hail Mary to turn games giant Ubisoft’s ailing fortunes around?” I love it when I’m vindicated.
Per an earnings report Ubisoft filed recently, they closed out last year with a major loss of 1.3 billion euros, or about 1.4 billion dollars, a record for the company according to their CFO. Further operating losses to the tune of 500 million euros are also expected over the next year, coming on the heels of a string of lukewarm launches, layoffs and generally just not making very good games anymore.
The company expects (hopes, rather) to be in the green again in 2027, and will apparently just burn money until then. New releases in the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Ghost Recon franchises in that window will apparently be responsible for this rebound — if that’s what they’re hoping for, all three of these games had better be able to do my taxes for me. CEO Yves Guillemot made a personal statement touching on these plans in the report:
“This past fiscal year was one of decisive action for Ubisoft. We initiated one of the most ambitious transformations in the company’s history, building a more focused, agile and disciplined organization that is capable of consistently delivering high quality experiences to players through a sustained release cadence while supporting value creation over time.
To achieve this strategic reset, in FY2025-26, we began putting in place a new operating model, rationalized our portfolio of games and executed with discipline on our cost reduction program while significantly deleveraging the Group.
In FY2026-27, we will pursue and complete the execution of this transformation, and continue investment ahead of a much stronger and sustained content cycle. This year is therefore expected to represent a low point in our free cash flow trajectory along with a softer release slate and restructuring costs. We will continue to grow our Live games, led by Rainbow Six Siege and its strong roadmap, deliver Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and launch other targeted premium games based on established Ubisoft brands.
This two-year transformation comes with difficult decisions and a disappointing short-term financial performance, but I firmly believe that, together, these actions are better positioning Ubisoft to deliver sustainable free cash flow over time.”
If nothing else, it’s worth reading through the report just to see the corporate language they so carefully blunt the point of “we are hemorrhaging money” with. “Initiated one of the most ambitious transformations in the company’s history,” for instance, means “we fired thousands of people.” At least they’ll always have Rainbow Six Siege propping them up.