Ubisoft ends its year in the red despite the success of "Assassin's Creed"

The French giant in the sector, which unveiled the creation of a new subsidiary at the end of March, ended its year with a net loss of 159 million euros, weighed down by the lackluster launch of "Star Wars Outlaws" last summer, the premature end of its online shooter "XDefiant" and a stock market collapse.

"Ubisoft faced challenges this year, with contrasting dynamics across our portfolio in a highly competitive environment," said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.

Accustomed to up-and-down results in recent years, the French publisher nevertheless managed to keep its head above water in the last quarter thanks to the success of "Assassin's Creed Shadows."

Released on March 20, this new installment in its flagship saga has more than three million players in one week and has ranked second among the best-selling games of the year in the United States, according to the firm Circana.

Over the year, Ubisoft's turnover stood at 1.9 billion euros, down 17.5% year-on-year.

New organization

The company's preferred indicator, net bookings (i.e. sales excluding deferred revenue), fell sharply by 20.5% over the year, to 1.8 billion euros.

These are announced as stable for 2025-2026 by the group, which anticipates a non-IFRS operating result close to balance.

By the end of March, the group plans to release the remake of "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," one of its biggest hits, the management game "Anno 117: Pax Romana," and two mobile titles: "Rainbow Six Mobile" and "The Division Resurgence."

Other games will be announced later, and the group promises "the arrival of significant content from its main franchises" by 2028.

Ubisoft also announced a reorganization of its operating model to "ensure superior quality" of its games and "a disciplined allocation of capital," the details of which should be known by the end of the year.

The group intends to continue its cost-cutting plan, initiated in early 2023, by at least an additional 100 million euros over the next two years.

Ubisoft, which has closed several of its overseas studios in recent months, now only replaces one in three employees who leave.

Nearly 3,000 employees have left the group since September 2022, for a total workforce of 17,782 employees at the end of March 2025.

"Keep control"

Above all, the group launched at the end of March the creation of a new subsidiary - which does not yet have a name - bringing together its three flagship sagas: "Assassin's Creed", "Far Cry" and "Rainbow Six".

According to Yves Guillemot, it will bring together approximately 3,000 of the group's employees worldwide. It will not directly own these brands but will pay royalties to its parent company, Ubisoft, for their use.

Valued at more than €4 billion (more than twice Ubisoft's current market valuation), this new entity will be approximately 25% owned by the Chinese giant Tencent, which will provide €1.16 billion in fresh capital.

For Martin Szumski, an analyst at Morningstar, "it was the least binding solution possible, without returning empty-handed to shareholders," while a minority investment fund is trying to unite some of them to demand a strategic shift.

This transaction will also allow Tencent, which acquired a stake in Ubisoft in 2018, to further assert its position within the French company, even though the group's CEO assured senators that he fully intended to "keep control" of this subsidiary.

But, "if Ubisoft does not use the money invested by Tencent in a meaningful way," the Chinese group could "seek to buy the company directly," warns the Morningstar analyst, despite the stated opposition of the Guillemot brothers, who hold the reins.