Ubisoft’s Internal Town Hall Meeting Fails to Reassure Employees on Its Future - FPSHUB

Ubisoft held an internal Town Hall Q&A meeting with employees yesterday to instill confidence in the company’s upcoming changes, but, according to over a dozen employees who spoke to Insider Gaming anonymously, it appears to have had the opposite effect.

The Town Hall featured a host to read out the questions, along with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, Executive Vice President Cécile Russeil, Chief People Officer Sébastien Froidefond, CFO Frederik Duguet, and Chief Studios & Portfolio Officer Marie-Sophie de Waubert, in a roundtable format.

According to those who spoke to Insider Gaming, employees described the Town Hall as an expert class in avoiding questions, with executives repeatedly sidestepping or recycling earlier statements.

Insider Gaming was sent a recording of the Town Hall under the condition that it would not be made public.

Ubisoft Yves Guillemot opened the Town Hall, once again reinforcing the decision for the 5-day return to office mandate, stating, “It’s a decision we have not taken lightly, but we feel strongly that it will bring more efficiency, innovation, and velocity. As it already has since we came back, three days per week. Working in person brings stronger performance, especially in the tech and creative industries.”

Yves addressed concerns about a supposed ‘hidden agenda’ to lay off employees, stating, “Our only objective is to get Ubisoft back on the right path as soon as possible, to share success and profits. I founded Ubisoft with my brothers, and as you can imagine, my goal is to continue to make it flourish for many years to come. It’s thanks to your strengths and collective talents that we will succeed.”

The host said that more than 300 questions were submitted for the Q&A, with sources noting that some had 700-800 upvotes, 3-4 times the number from past Q&A calls. When asked why they thought this was, many said it was due to the frustration, anger, and betrayal employees felt from the current announcements.

Return to Office Mandate

One of the biggest questions that had the most upvotes was around the Return to Office mandate that will see all employees across all studios return to office five days per week.

As has become a constant frustration with criticism of RTO mandates, the updated comment focused on whether Ubisoft has any actual data to support the claim that productivity and collaboration have increased since 3-day RTOs were enforced.

Chief Studios & Portfolio Officer, de Waubert said, “What we hear, both internally and externally, is that when it comes to creative, the more people that are present together, the more all of those things we mentioned earlier improve from a collective perspective.”

Marie-Sophie went on to cite competitors like Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, Rockstar, etc. have already implemented RTO mandates. Marie-Sophie also cited companies outside of the industry, including Instagram, Paramount, and many others, that have also implemented RTO.

“Of course we will keep flexibility exceptions, but in a clear hybrid policy,” she said.

In response to a follow-up question about flexibility and how many “at-home days” will be granted, among other details, Froidefond said that these decisions will not be made until July.

A question around why Ubisoft won’t meet developers’ requests to have a 4-day RTO was also shot down by Froidefond, stating, “We have already explained this in the past, and our position remains the same; we are not considering a 4-day office workplace.”

Significant Headcount Reduction

One question cited Insider Gaming’s recent prediction that the recent cost-cutting measures could see a reduction of 2000+ jobs, to which Frederik Duguet responded,

“First of all, we must state very clearly that we have never shared such numbers externally, and as I’ve just said, we won’t share any more decisions today. Again, it is, however, true that we will proceed with additional targeting restructuring as we need to resize the organisation and reduce our costs.”

Duguet later added that in May’s yearly financial results (which will end March 31, 2026), “We [Ubisoft] should expect our headcount in March to be significantly lower than it was in September”. No further elaboration on what “significantly lower” entails.

Ubisoft’s headcount in September 2025 was 17,097.

Acknowledged Lack of Communication

One positive from the call was that Ubisoft acknowledged the lack of communication about the announced structural changes, with Executive Vice President Cécile Russeil acknowledging that most employees learned about many of the upcoming changes from media reports.

Russeil acknowledged that the live Q&A session that took place at the end of the day was the wrong decision, as employees found out about a lot of the details from media rather than the company itself.

“We heard you, and in the future, we will attach the press release with an internal email so that you get all of the information at the same time of media and investors.”

Duguet weighed in to mention that Ubisoft is a publicly traded company and “we have disclosure duties with our investors, which means, in concrete terms, that we cannot share anything that is sensitive internally at large before updating the market on these very elements.”

Selling a Creative House / Assets Is Possible in The Future

One of the biggest questions in the call revolved around Ubisoft’s Creative House structure and what will happen if a Creative House fails to be profitable.

On that, CFO Frederik Duguet said, “First, I would like to repeat that we are setting up the Creative Houses for success. We want them to win. It’s the whole purpose of what we’re doing. Of course, we should keep in mind that not all of them might not be profitable on day one, but the important element will be for the five of them to project into the next years and see to what extent they can continue to the overall Ubisoft performance improvement.”

He continued, “Now, if in some years from now a house is not profitable, if it underperforms versus management expectations, then ultimately we will look at the root cause. We will discuss with the GM and the team in charge to see whether there is a way to bring it to performance and profitability.”

“So, selling a house will be a possibility, but it shouldn’t be the first route to work on. If we open the perspective, and the options, if we find a powerful and motivated partner, and we agree on long term vision, and it comes with an important cash injection, with the force to invest in the future of the brands, if this is good for the house or Ubisoft, it is something to consider.”

Employee Sentiment

Those employees who spoke to Insider Gaming under the condition of anonymity say that the Town Hall did very little to reassure them about the future.

Many of the critical questions were seemingly dismissed or danced around, and did little to ease the feeling that the company faces uncertain times.

Both current and former employees can contact me securely and anonymously at [email protected] if you would like to weigh in on current events, or share your story.

For more Insider Gaming, read about Beyond Good & Evil 2 surviving the announced restructuring at Ubisoft. And for more Insider Gaming delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming’s Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he’s not running one of the industry’s leading independent video game websites, he’s probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…