Ubisoft staff raised concerns with management over the company’s alleged dealings with Saudi Arabia.
According to a report by Game File’s Stephen Totilo, published on September 10, 2025, some Ubisoft staff internally questioned the company’s alleged dealings with Saudi Arabia earlier this year, following a report that Ubisoft leaders, including CEO Yves Guillemot, accompanied French president Emmanuel Macron to the country to meet with Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) and other Saudi leaders in 2024.
Game File reported that a representative from Ubisoft’s social and Economic Committee (CSE) directly questioned company management about whether “seeking a contract with a person accused of crimes against humanity for ordering the assassination (including his dismemberment and dissolution in acid) of a journalist, could contribute to the Ubi-bashing the company is currently suffering?”
“Yves Guillemot’s participation in the President of the Republic’s trip, as CEO of a renowned French company in the field of culture and technology, is a contribution by Ubisoft to the development of France’s ‘soft power’,” Ubisoft management allegedly responded, before saying: “We do not comment on rumours.”
Ubisoft management reportedly went on to clarify that it sees a difference between MBS, who the US government found to have directly approved the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
According to the report, Ubisoft management stated that it did not see the PIF’s money as MBS’s money and that “talking with partners who do not share our democratic values does not mean abandoning them.”
In response, the CSE reportedly called management’s attitude “naive” and noted they didn’t respond to the question regarding the impact that dealings with Saudi Arabia could have on the company’s image.
In January 2025, a month after Guillemot’s trip to Saudi Arabia, French publication Les Echos reported that, according to its sources, Ubisoft had entered into a partnership with Savvy Games Group, owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
This deal allegedly involved the creation of DLC for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which Ubisoft developers said in a 2024 AMA (via Rock Paper Shotgun) had been “designed as a standalone experience without any DLC plans.”
While Ubisoft hasn’t confirmed a deal with the Savvy Games Group or Saudi Arabia generally, the company announced on August 23, 2025, that Assassin’s Creed Mirage will receive free DLC later this year, which will be set in ninth-century AlUla (a city in Saudi Arabia).
The DLC was first announced by Guillemot on stage in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during the New Global Sport Conference.
When asked whether Mirage’s new DLC is funded by the PIF, a Ubisoft spokesperson told Game File:
“This title update to Assassin’s Creed Mirage was made possible thanks to the support of local and international organizations, through access to experts, historians, and resources to ensure the creation of an authentic and accurate setting.”
GamesIndustry.biz has reached out to Ubisoft for comment on this story.
