Ubisoft Barcelona developers who contributed to Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced have spoken out about the company’s plans to lay them off — just as their final project becomes a commercial success, selling 2 million copies in around 24 hours.
Layoffs at Ubisoft Barcelona were announced last month as part of a wider wave of job losses across the firm. 380 staff are being let go in this latest downsizing, spread across offices in Winnipeg and Belgrade (which will close completely), in Barcelona, and in the company’s global publishing division.
Ubisoft Barcelona has a history of supporting projects typically led by other, larger Ubisoft studios, such as games in the Rabbids series and Star Trek: Bridge Crew. For Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, the team worked on the game’s diving side-missions — a secondary activity that a separate team also worked on in the original Black Flag.
“Ubisoft Barcelona did all the underwater levels,” wrote Manel Cota, a tech and gameplay animator at the studio, via a post on social media. “And that same team is being fired right now because Ubisoft thinks that’s what we deserve :)”
Thanks! Ubisoft Barcelona did all the underwater levels. And that same team is being fired right now because Ubisoft thinks thats what we deserve 🙂 https://t.co/rf3p4fGzlH
— Manel Cota (@MaNeo_O) July 13, 2026
“Today is a bittersweet day,” added Isabel Codina García, a quality assurance lead at Ubisoft Barcelona, via a post on LinkedIn that noted that a portion of the Barcelona studio had been working on the game for over two years. “However, two weeks before launch, the whole AC team at Ubisoft Barcelona was informed of a collective redundancy plan.”
Barcelona-based workers have now begun a previously-announced a strike against the layoffs which will continue until this Thursday, July 16. A flyer advertising the walkout claims that “51 staff will lose their jobs in the coming weeks.”
“After years of dedication to our team, the company has turned its back on us,” the flyer states. “We will never see the fruits of our labor, and the reward for our hard work will be the loss of our jobs.”
Ubisoft Barcelona goes on strike. The company wants to layoff 51 #ACResynced developers after game success.
🏴 No to ERE (redundancies) in Ubisoft Barcelona! pic.twitter.com/vCeNfUBqTD
— CGT Catalunya 🚩🏴 (@CGTCatalunya) July 14, 2026
Ubisoft plans for its Barcelona team to now focus solely on the Rainbow Six franchise, IGN understands, as part of wider organizational changes that have seen repeated reshufflings and redunancies across the whole company.
In March, Ubisoft confirmed that 105 staff were set to depart veteran Tom Clancy game studio Red Storm Entertainment, as part of a move that downsized the studio permanently, following three previous waves of layoffs at the company since 2022.
Ubisoft has cut hundreds of staff and fully closed numerous studios in recent times, with 2026 already off to a brutal start. In January, the company canceled six games including its Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake and closed two Ubisoft studios completely (Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Halifax), while making layoffs at its office in Abu Dhabi, at Trials studio RedLynx and at Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora outfit Massive Entertainment.
Just a week after that, Ubisoft announced plans to ditch 200 jobs at its company headquarters in Paris, leading to protests within the French capital. Next, in February, Ubisoft was forced to reassure fans that its long-awaited Splinter Cell remake remained in development after 40 jobs were eliminated at its studio Ubisoft Toronto.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
