French developer Ubisoft has recently canceled a trio of unannounced games. Per the company’s press release, the games’ cancellation came as the company has had “surprisingly slower sales” during the holiday season.
These cancellations are part of a planned reduction in cost amounting to €200 million ($214.8 million) over the next two years. Ubisoft’s reduction will involve “targeted restructuring, divesting some non-core assets and usual natural attrition.”
“The Company is facing major challenges as the industry continues to shift towards mega-brands and long-lasting titles than can reach players across the globe, across platforms and business models,” wrote Ubisoft. “However, the games from this investment phase have yet to be released, while our recent launches have not performed as well as expected.”
Ubisoft’s newest string of cancellations comes after four games were canceled in July 2022, including Splinter Cell VR and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline. At the time, Ubisoft attributed those games’ end to its “more uncertain economic environment.”
For Ubisoft, 2022 was a relatively slow year of releases, with the highlights being Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction in January and Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope in November. To Ubisoft’s surprise, the latter game underperformed towards the end of 2022 and in early January, as did fellow November game Just Dance 2023.
Other big games from the company, such as Assassin’s Creed Mirage or Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, were pushed to 2023-2024. During that 2023-2024 period, Ubisoft plans to release another “large” premium (triple-A) game that’s currently unannounced, and other premium and free-to-play titles.
Additionally, Ubisoft’s long-in-development pirate game Skull & Bones has been delayed again from its present March 9 release date to a window of “early 2023-24.”