Ubisoft Barcelona Is Laying Off 51 Staff Who Built AC Black Flag Resynced While the Game Breaks Series Records

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launched today, July 9, to one of the strongest Steam openings in the entire franchise's history. It is also the highest-rated Assassin's Creed game since the original Black Flag came out over a decade ago. The team that built it, Ubisoft Barcelona, spent the day fielding pink slips. Fifty-one people are being cut from that studio by the end of July, and most of them worked directly on the game you are currently downloading or buying.

The Layoffs Were Planned Two Weeks Before Launch

QA lead Isabel Codina Garcia posted about it on LinkedIn. "Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced releases today, the project I have been working on for the past 2.5 years," she wrote. "However, two weeks before launch, the whole AC team at Ubisoft Barcelona was informed of a collective redundancy plan (ERE). Vantage Studios has stated there will not be further mandates for the Barcelona studio, despite the team proposing new AC projects." She also shared a personal note that cut through all the corporate language: "After 7 years at Ubisoft Barcelona, this is not how I imagined it would end. But I am genuinely grateful for the people I have met and everything I have learned along the way."

The launch celebration event for the studio was downgraded to a small catered get-together at the office, according to Insider Gaming. The team that shipped a record-breaking game was handed consolation snacks while the paperwork processed. This is the part that keeps happening in this industry and keeps landing the same way: the people who do the work are the last ones protected when the numbers shift.

A Third of Ubisoft Barcelona Is Gone

Fifty-one employees represents nearly a third of the entire Barcelona office. The Spanish union La Confederacion General del Trabajo called for strikes over the planned termination, pushing for better job protections, the return of work-from-home options, and other workplace improvements that the studio had apparently rolled back. The collective redundancy plan, called an ERE under Spanish labor law, formally kicked off back in June, weeks before the game shipped. Employees say the timing was premeditated, not a reaction to performance or sales data, because the paperwork started before anyone knew how the launch would go.

A programmer from Ubisoft's Paris studio, Mataoui Chakib Souleyman, posted his own statement: "All my thoughts in this Assassin's Creed Black Flag release day goes to my colleagues at Ubisoft Barcelona, who have worked on the game and are undergoing a layoff. Without them the game would not make it to release day." That kind of public acknowledgment from a colleague at a different studio is not common. It signals how sharply the situation cut through the broader Ubisoft workforce.

The Game Itself Is Doing Well, Which Makes All of This Worse

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is being called one of the best Steam launches in the AC franchise's history. IGN described it as "already doing huge numbers for the Assassin's Creed series." Review aggregates put it as the highest-scored AC game since the original 2013 Black Flag. For a publisher that has stumbled through Mirage, delayed multiple projects, and watched Shadows underperform expectations, this was supposed to be a win. And it is a win, just not for the people who built it.

This is not a story about a studio that failed. Ubisoft Barcelona did not ship a broken game, did not miss a deadline, and did not deliver something the market ignored. They shipped a record-breaker. The layoffs are tied to Ubisoft's broader restructuring, which also included closing Ubisoft Winnipeg and cutting across the publisher's global publishing division earlier in June. Vantage Studios, the entity that oversaw the Barcelona work, told the team directly that no new projects were coming their way. So the studio finished the game, shipped it, and then got shut down as a going operation.

This Is a Pattern, Not an Anomaly

id Software lost the majority of its team on the same day the DOOM: The Dark Ages DLC dropped last week. Obsidian Entertainment had a quarter of its staff cut despite shipping Avowed. The industry has spent the last two years making it very clear that commercial success does not protect the people who produced it. Layoffs follow launches because that is when the workforce is no longer needed for the specific delivery, and the next project has not been greenlit yet. The window between shipping and starting over is when publishers consolidate.

Community reaction today has been mixed in a very specific way: people are playing the game, leaving positive reviews, and simultaneously calling out Ubisoft for how it handled the Barcelona team. Several players pointed out the absurdity of buying a game to celebrate a studio that no longer has a future with the publisher. Others argued the best support you can give those developers is buying the game and making sure it sells, since future employers will see those numbers. Neither position is wrong. Both are responses to a situation that should not exist in the first place.

What Happens to the Devs Now

The 51 affected employees have until the end of July. The Spanish ERE process gives workers some procedural protections compared to immediate cuts in other countries, but the outcome is the same: experienced developers who shipped a franchise high point are going to be on the market. Isabel Codina Garcia worked in QA at Ubisoft Barcelona for seven years. That kind of institutional knowledge, the kind that makes games ship correctly, is not easy to rebuild later when a publisher decides it wants a Barcelona presence again.

Ubisoft has not commented publicly on the Barcelona cuts beyond acknowledging the June restructuring announcement. The game continues to sell. The numbers will look good in the next earnings call. The people who made those numbers possible will not be in the office to see it.