Ubisoft hesitant to confirm unannounced games as it weighs strategic and capitalistic options

Ubisoft won't comment on unannounced games for FY26 as the company weighs its current options.

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Ubisoft isn't in the best place right now. Sales and earnings are down, debts are coming due, and margins are being squeezed. Layoffs have been triggered and entire games and development teams have been shut down. Ubisoft's most recent games have underperformed, with Star Wars Outlaws' sales actually disappointing Ubisoft two times in a row.

Ubisoft's current position makes it vulnerable for hostile takeovers. To prevent such a takeover, Ubisoft's largest stakeholders signed a deal with Tencent to prevent the Chinese firm from buying up a ton of stake in Ubisoft. Now it's said that Ubisoft may team up with Tencent to buy out all remaining Ubisoft shares and give creative control to the Guillemot Family, of which Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot is a member of.

So what's going on exactly?

Ubisoft can't tell us specifics, but the company did confirm it's hearing and weighing the opportunities, including transactional ones. It's unclear as to what scope these investments, buyouts, or even acquisitions will be made; Ubisoft could sell off percentages of the rights of its franchises or IPs, for instance, to help generate money for future projects.

It could be a few months before we get an update, though. In a recent earnings call, Ubisoft Chief Financial Officer Frederick Duguet said that updates will happen "in the coming quarters," but what about those big investments on new games that Ubisoft has been making?

Duguet clarifies, indicating that Ubisoft is not yet ready to talk about any other games for Fiscal Year 2026, likely because Ubisoft could look very different by March 2026.

More updates will drop in May 2025 when Ubisoft announce its full-year fiscal earnings.

"We have, as we had said before, been investing significantly for a big pipeline of products for the coming years along our two verticals--open-world action-adventure as well as games-as-a-service experiences. That's what we want to deliver year after year.

"As you know, we are preparing for a big launch with AC Shadows in the very short-term this year, we have big growth plans that will benefit Rainbow Six console platforms, and that's focusing well and it's a key milestone in the growth plan for the company.

"We announced that Anno Pax Romana will come next [fiscal] year, as well as The Division on mobile, which is progressing well. We haven't provided more color on Fiscal 26 and we will have more to share by the time of May. As I said, we have a strong pipeline for the future years across these two verticals."

Duguet was pressed by an analyst for more information, but the Ubisoft CFO wouldn't budge.

Analyst Nick Dempsey - Do you have at least one AAA unannounced game, so we can start to build into our modeling for the year to end March 2026?

Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet -"It's too early to give you more color on this. We will share where we are with you by May. What we said already--again we have strong plans for the Rainbow Six brand, across all platforms. We should get the benefit from strong sales from AC Shadows, we said that 2 years and a half ago that we'll come with high-quality paid content going to market on the AC franchise, and we already announced the launch of Anno: Pax Romana.

More to be said by May.

Ubisoft has a lot riding on Assassin's Creed Shadows' success, but pre-orders are doing pretty well so far.