Ubisoft Toronto is the latest big-name studio to be hit by layoffs, with around 40 employees losing their jobs this week as the publisher pushes ahead with a sweeping cost-cutting and restructuring plan. For anyone who’s followed Ubisoft over the last few years, the news feels less like a shock and more like the depressing continuation of a trend that’s reshaping both the company and the wider games industry.

In a statement to Canadian outlet MobileSyrup, Ubisoft framed the cuts as part of the “final phase” of its global cost-savings plan, which has already meant shuttered studios, cancelled projects and major changes to how the French publisher is structured. The company stressed that the decision “was not taken lightly” and said the affected staff would receive severance and career-placement support, but that familiar corporate language does little to soften the blow for the people now suddenly out of work. The 40 roles are being cut specifically at Ubisoft Toronto, a roughly 500-person studio that’s become one of Ubisoft’s key hubs in North America over the past decade.

Toronto isn’t some minor satellite office; it has led development on big, marquee releases like Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Watch Dogs: Legion and Far Cry 6, and it played a central role in shaping the story of last year’s Star Wars Outlaws. That track record is part of why the news hit so hard among fans and developers—this is a team that’s repeatedly been trusted with some of Ubisoft’s most valuable franchises and major co-development mandates. Internally, Ubisoft has told staff that the studio will remain a “key contributor” on multiple projects and service teams, including its Alice x Junction performance capture collaboration with Ubisoft Montreal, which supports cinematics across various titles.​

The headline project everyone immediately worried about, of course, is the long-awaited Splinter Cell remake, which Ubisoft Toronto has been quietly working on since it was announced back in December 2021. Ubisoft has been quick to insist the game is still in development despite the layoffs, reiterating to multiple outlets that the remaining team will continue on the project even though we still haven’t seen any gameplay footage years after its reveal. That reassurance has a slightly surreal edge: fans have waited a decade for Sam Fisher to properly return, and now they’re being told not to worry about the remake at the exact moment the studio behind it is losing dozens of developers.

These cuts don’t exist in a vacuum; they’re tied directly to a major overhaul of Ubisoft’s entire business. In January, the company laid out plans to reorganize itself into five so-called “Creative Houses,” each responsible for its own portfolio, budget and strategy, as it chases roughly €200–235 million in savings after years of disappointing sales and wavering investor confidence. On paper, the new structure is supposed to make Ubisoft leaner and more focused, letting teams move faster and deploy resources more efficiently around key franchises. In practice, that “efficiency” has translated into a wave of closures, cancellations and restructurings—everything from the shutdown of studios like Ubisoft Halifax to the scrapping of multiple projects, including the already once-rebooted Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake.

What’s happening at Ubisoft Toronto is also part of a much wider contraction across the games industry. After the pandemic-era boom—when people stuck at home bought more games and companies went on hiring sprees—the correction has been brutal. According to the latest Game Developers Conference “State of the Game Industry” survey, roughly one-third of game workers in the U.S. report having been laid off at some point in the last two years, with around 28 percent affected globally. Big names—Microsoft, Sony, EA, Embracer, Unity—and countless mid-size studios have all cut staff, often while still reporting strong revenues or celebrating blockbuster releases.

Ubisoft sits right inside that contradiction. Its CEO, Yves Guillemot, has been trying to convince investors and players that the new Creative House model will restore “creative leadership” and bring more predictable releases, even as thousands of roles have disappeared across the company over the past couple of years. The company has admitted it overextended itself in the last cycle, betting heavily on live-service titles and a crowded slate of projects that either underperformed or never shipped, forcing a hard reset. High-profile experiments, including some live-service games and repeated delays on flagship titles, have left Ubisoft facing the awkward task of cutting costs while still arguing it can compete with the biggest publishers in the world.

For developers on the ground, that strategic repositioning translates into a familiar pattern: one month, a studio is being celebrated as a key pillar of Ubisoft’s future; the next, entire teams are gone. Even when severance packages are on the table, finding a new role isn’t easy: the same GDC survey found that nearly half of laid-off game workers said they still hadn’t secured new employment, often months later, because so many companies are downsizing at once. It creates a kind of rolling anxiety—people may still love making games, but they’re less sure the industry can offer a sustainable career, especially in expensive cities where many major studios are based.

For players, the impact is subtler but still real. When a studio like Ubisoft Toronto loses 40 people, that’s institutional memory walking out the door: designers, engineers, artists, producers who understand a franchise’s quirks and a studio’s pipelines. Games may still come out—Ubisoft is adamant Splinter Cell will—but there are always questions about what gets cut, delayed or quietly scaled back along the way. Fans have long memories; they remember when a series like Splinter Cell felt like a priority, not something the company has to reassure them about every time layoffs hit the team behind it.

The irony is that Ubisoft Toronto, like many big studios, was built up during a period when publishers were told they needed to be bigger to survive—more teams, more projects, more live games, more everything. Now, as the industry swings in the opposite direction, the very scale that once looked like a strength is being trimmed down in the name of “focus” and “discipline.” For the 40 people in Toronto whose jobs just vanished, those are cold comfort words, and for everyone still inside the building, the message is clear: even working on a flagship remake is no guarantee of security anymore.

If there’s any small bright spot, it’s that the conversation around these layoffs is louder than it used to be. Developers are more organized, unions and advocacy groups are more visible, and fans are increasingly willing to call out companies for framing job cuts as just another line item on an investor slide. But for now, the core reality doesn’t change: another respected studio has lost dozens of people, a beloved franchise is moving forward with a smaller team, and the games industry’s post-pandemic reckoning is still far from over.