--- title: Ubisoft Barcelona workers strike over layoffs as Black... description: Ubisoft Barcelona is laying off 51 employees despite Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced selling two million copies on launch day and peaking at nearly 100K... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ubisoft-barcelona-workers-strike-over-layoffs-as-black-flag-resynced-hits-two-million-sales-0mvxe4q8x twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Ubisoft Barcelona workers strike over layoffs as Black Flag Resynced hits two million sales | daily.dev og:description: Ubisoft Barcelona is laying off 51 employees despite Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced selling two million copies on launch day and peaking at nearly 100K... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ubisoft-barcelona-workers-strike-over-layoffs-as-black-flag-resynced-hits-two-million-sales-0mvxe4q8x og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0mvxE4q8x.png og:image:alt: Ubisoft Barcelona workers strike over layoffs as Black Flag Resynced hits two million sales og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Ubisoft Barcelona workers strike over layoffs as Black Flag Resynced hits two million sales **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 2 min read · 11 upvotes · 4 comments ## Summary Ubisoft Barcelona is laying off 51 employees despite Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced selling two million copies on launch day and peaking at nearly 100K concurrent Steam players. Workers organized a three-day strike through Spanish union CGT, arguing they won't benefit from the game's commercial success. The studio proposed new Assassin's Creed projects to save jobs, but Ubisoft declined, redirecting Barcelona exclusively to Rainbow Six. The cuts are part of a broader restructuring targeting €200 million in savings by March 2028, following a $1.25 billion Tencent investment. Ubisoft has also closed studios in Winnipeg, Belgrade, Stockholm, and Halifax, with additional layoffs at multiple other locations. Net bookings fell 54% year-on-year. CEO Yves Guillemot described the shift as moving away from dependence on individual game launches toward a 'more selective model' relying on back-catalog and live service titles. ## Content Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced sold two million copies on its first day and peaked at 99,451 concurrent Steam players, a franchise record. The team most responsible for the game's underwater mechanics, Ubisoft Barcelona, is being rewarded with a collective redundancy plan. Fifty-one employees — about 28% of the studio — were informed of potential layoffs roughly two weeks before the game launched. Workers organized a three-day strike through Spanish union La Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and the CSVI union, with staff arguing they won't see any benefit from the game's commercial success. Ubisoft says no final decision has been made and that the consultation process is ongoing, though the studio has already been told it will focus exclusively on Rainbow Six going forward. The Barcelona team had proposed new Assassin's Creed projects; none were approved. The Barcelona cuts are part of a broader restructuring that has already closed studios in Winnipeg, Belgrade, Stockholm, and Halifax, and resulted in layoffs at Ubisoft Toronto, Red Storm, and the San Francisco office. Net bookings are down 54% year-on-year. The restructuring follows a $1.25 billion Tencent investment and is framed internally as the final round of cost-cutting, targeting €200 million in savings by March 2028. Ubisoft's 2025/26 annual report describes a strategic shift away from relying on individual game launches toward what CEO Yves Guillemot calls a "more selective model" — leaning on back-catalog titles and live service revenue instead. The report also flags risks including poor launch timing, pricing missteps, and talent retention problems following the studio closures. Guillemot described the past year as "decisive action." The timing is hard to ignore: a game ships with an 84 Metacritic score and a record-breaking launch day, and the studio that built core parts of it is simultaneously negotiating how many of its people will be let go. ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@devfredx** · 3 upvotes > It's always about the money, they want to focus on live service because it makes them more money, this industry forget that their are consumers that are not into live service. Enterprise is nothing without consumers. The layoff it too much cause in the end you don't blame the devs when its probably management that is responsible for all this loss but they're not the ones that get the punishment. **@ronaldroe** · 0 upvotes > Sounds a lot like Mindscape when Lego Island came out in 1997. Dumped their entire engineering staff the day before launch, so they didn't have to pay them royalties --- Tags: [#tech-news](https://daily.dev/tags/tech-news), [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ubisoft-barcelona-workers-strike-over-layoffs-as-black-flag-resynced-hits-two-million-sales-0mvxe4q8x) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Ubisoft Barcelona workers strike over layoffs as Black Flag Resynced hits two million sales","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ubisoft-barcelona-workers-strike-over-layoffs-as-black-flag-resynced-hits-two-million-sales-0mvxe4q8x","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ubisoft-barcelona-workers-strike-over-layoffs-as-black-flag-resynced-hits-two-million-sales-0mvxe4q8x"},"datePublished":"2026-07-14T19:16:40.998Z","dateModified":"2026-07-17T14:17:29.520Z","description":"Ubisoft Barcelona is laying off 51 employees despite Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced selling two million copies on launch day and peaking at nearly 100K...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/36af7bf0d06719079113ca4c9eabf35b?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/36af7bf0d06719079113ca4c9eabf35b?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Collections","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Collections","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--fk_6ycEi--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996001/logos/collections?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},"commentCount":4,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ubisoft-barcelona-workers-strike-over-layoffs-as-black-flag-resynced-hits-two-million-sales-0mvxe4q8x","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":11},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}],"keywords":"tech-news,game-development","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Collections","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Ubisoft Barcelona workers strike over layoffs as Black Flag Resynced hits two million sales"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ubisoft-barcelona-workers-strike-over-layoffs-as-black-flag-resynced-hits-two-million-sales-0mvxe4q8x","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"It’s always about the money, they want to focus on live service because it makes them more money, this industry forget that their are consumers that are not into live service. Enterprise is nothing without consumers. The layoff it too much cause in the end you don’t blame the devs when its probably management that is responsible for all this loss but they’re not the ones that get the punishment.","datePublished":"2026-07-15T19:01:28.400Z","dateModified":"2026-07-15T19:01:45.487Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/0mvxE4q8x#c-UtE58AoNY","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Fredrick-Marie","url":"https://daily.dev/devfredx","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/78586515?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Sounds a lot like Mindscape when Lego Island came out in 1997. Dumped their entire engineering staff the day before launch, so they didn’t have to pay them royalties","datePublished":"2026-07-19T14:00:25.771Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/0mvxE4q8x#c-BKVlsW3Gk","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Ronald Roe","url":"https://daily.dev/ronaldroe","image":"https://avatars0.githubusercontent.com/u/1720729?v=4"}}]} ```