Ubisoft doubling down on 'more profitable projects' after sunsetting XDefiant

After a string of disappointing games, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot reiterates plans to focus on more profitable projects.

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Ubisoft is under a lot of pressure right now. In a bid to stay competitive and capture more of the best-earning segments on the market, the French games-maker has spent multitudes of millions on failed game projects including XDefiant, a live service Call of Duty contender that was recently sunset by the group, who already operates the successful Rainbow Six Siege. Ubisoft has also missed the mark on other high-profile AAA game productions, including Star Wars Outlaws, a game that delivered soft sales and went under a radical re-work in an attempt to appease spurned fans.

Faced with growing costs and fiduciary duty to deliver growth to shareholders, Ubisoft has made all the usual cuts to reduce spending: Division-based layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations like the ill-fated XDefiant. One reaction to the Outlaws reception, and the current games industry market trends, was to delay Assassin's Creed Shadows outside of the critical holiday season and into February 2025. This delay was a major hit to Ubisoft's projected earnings--the company simply expected to sell a lot of copies of AC Shadows during Christmas.

Ubisoft is also moving into culling its projects and narrowing its content pipeline in an effort to get spending under better control. Ubisoft wants to maximize return on investment, so that means putting its focus on more established franchises, like, say, Assassin's Creed. Reports indicate that Ubisoft is working on releasing 10 Assassin's Creed games in the next 5 years.

In a recent memo to employees obtained by Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, the same one where XDefiant was sunset and two of Ubisoft's game studios were shut down, company CEO Yves Guillemot says that investments will be made with more care.

"We wanted to take a firm and clear decision to enable us to concentrate our investments and forces on more profitable projects.

"I am well aware that, given the current context, such announcements may worry you, and that's understandable. The entire industry is facing similar difficult decisions, yet often the scale of the impact is much larger.

"Our organization has allowed us to limit the impact of these kinds of decisions and make more targeted restructurings, and all our efforts are focused on trying to maintain this course and philosophy. We will continue working on evolving our organization to adapt it to market changes, and with a long-term perspective in mind."

We have to wonder what's going on with Beyond Good and Evil 2, a game that's been in development for a long time. As far as we know, BG&E2 is still in development.

Ubisoft currently has two major strategic pillars: open-world adventures and games-as-a-service experiences.