Ubisoft cancels four games to free up developers for other projects

Ubisoft today announced that it has cancelled four in-development projects so it can free its teams for other games.

Ubisoft just posted up its Q1 Fiscal Year 2023 earnings and made some big promises to investors. The publisher says it will achieve 10% year-over-year topline growth as it accelerates towards a new mix of premium and what it calls AAA free-to-play mobile games (The Division: Resurgence is an example).

One of the ways that it will achieve this growth is streamlining its development teams. Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet confirmed that four games have been cancelled, including Ghost Recon Frontline and the Splinter Cell VR game. The publisher also delayed the big new Avatar Frontiers of Pandora game by as much as 16 months.

"Coming back to the sizable cross-optimization I just mentioned, we are looking to reduce our structure cost growth for Fiscal 23 and we expected them to come back to Fiscal 22 levels by the course of Fiscal 24.

"We also expect to maintain Fiscal 24 cash R&D to Fiscal 23 levels, versus our prior expectation for growth.

"All this while continuing to expect a continuing multi-year topline growth trajectory. This will be achieved through the stabilization of headcounts by the end of Fiscal 23 at the level of end of Fiscal 22, strength of our cross-discipline, and even more focus on our biggest development opportunities as evident by our decision to stop development of the Splinter Cell VR game, Ghost Recon Frontline, and two other unannounced titles."

Sources have told Tom Henderson that Ubisoft was working on a multitude of new games, including multiple free-to-play titles.

Axed games could include unannounced projects like Pathfinder, Ghost Recon OVER, and Assassin's Creed Nexus (a new VR game).