Ubisoft workers are on day two of a three-day strike, which started yesterday with at least 1,200 employees participating, mainly in France and Milan (via gamesindustry.biz). The move comes after the publisher implemented a return-to-office (RTO) mandate, revealed plans to cut up to 200 jobs amid a larger shakeup that saw seven upcoming games delayed, and six titles canceled outright — including the long-awaited Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake — and fired a long-time Assassin’s Creed developer for speaking criticizing these decisions on social media. Now, employees are fighting back.
In a joint statement posted on Bluesky on Jan. 28, a group of five French unions called on international Ubisoft staff to join a three-day walkout from Feb. 10-12. Ubisoft employs roughly 17,000 people globally in locations throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. “It is time for our management to understand that they cannot do whatever they want, whether with public money or the work of hundreds of people,” they said in the statement.
Ubisoft’s top brass has demanded that all remaining employees return to in-office work, five days a week. The unions’ statement is particularly critical of the RTO mandate, stating, “We are treated like children that need to be supervised, while our management gets away with lies and breaking the law.”
After this month’s studio closures, project cancellations, and game delays — which Ubisoft referred to as a “major organisational, operational and portfolio reset” — the publisher later confirmed plans to eliminate up to 200 jobs (roughly 18% of the 1,100 workers employed at its Paris headquarters) via a Rupture Conventionnelle Collective (RCC) process: a voluntary, mutual mediation in which unionized employees can collectively negotiate the terms of their termination. Essentially, the unions will help affected staffers negotiate a severance package based on the duration of their employment. Ubisoft referred to this shake-up as an “acceleration of cost-reduction initiatives.” As of January 25, the company’s share price had plummeted to its lowest in 15 years.
The RTO mandate has been especially unpopular, as many Ubisoft employees work remotely and live hours away from the nearest HQ. For these workers, the RTO mandate is an impossible task, and some employees see it as Ubisoft forcing them to resign without having to pay severance.
“Many workers were hired with fully remote contracts and live hours away from the office,” a representative for French union Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses du jeu vidéo (SJTV) said of the RTO mandate (via GameRant). “For them, this policy change means there is no option but to leave.”
Photos and videos of the strike have been popping up on social media, with one bystander in Milan sharing footage of Ubisoft employees dancing in the rain during the strike.
News of the strike first broke via French financial news publication Les Echos on Jan. 27. The unions involved are CGT, la CFE-CGC, Printemps écologique, Solidaires Informatique, and Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses du jeu vidéo (STJV).
