Ubisoft Asks 1 In 6 German Workers To Quit: Is The Gaming Giant Falling Apart?

Ubisoft is cutting staff once again, and this time the axe is falling on its German studios. The French gaming giant has officially opened talks to eliminate roughly 100 jobs across Germany. That represents nearly one out of every six workers the company employs in the country.

Instead of issuing immediate termination letters, Ubisoft management is asking workers to step forward and voluntarily resign in exchange for a buyout package.

The move lands in the middle of a brutal stretch for the company behind Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. Over the past year, Ubisoft has scrapped unannounced projects, delayed major releases, faced employee strikes across Europe, and shut down or reduced staff at several regional offices. Now, its German development teams in Düsseldorf, Berlin, and Mainz are feeling the pinch.

What Is Happening Across Ubisoft Studios in Germany?

Ubisoft currently employs around 600 people across three key locations in Germany: Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Mainz, and Ubisoft Berlin.

According to reports first broken by gaming newsletter Game File and covered across industry outlets like Kotaku, leadership recently held an all-hands town hall meeting with German staff. During the session, management laid out a plan to cut approximately 100 roles.

The company wants to hit that number by offering staff financial payouts to leave on their own terms. If 100 workers take the deal, Ubisoft reduces its German workforce by roughly 16 percent in a single sweep.

More than half of the job losses are expected to come from Düsseldorf alone. Düsseldorf is Ubisoft’s largest base in Germany, housing between 400 and 500 team members. The remaining cuts will be split between the smaller hubs in Berlin and Mainz.

Benedikt Grindel, the managing director for the zone, reportedly told staff that the restructuring is designed to position the German studios for the future by narrowing their focus and tightening their organization. For the workers sitting in those offices, the reality feels much less optimistic.

How Does the Voluntary Resignation Deal Work?

Why is Ubisoft asking people to quit instead of just laying them off? The short answer comes down to German labor law.

In Germany, workers enjoy strong statutory protections. Big companies cannot simply send an email on a Friday morning telling hundreds of employees they no longer have a job. Under German law, companies must work directly with an elected employee group called a Betriebsrat, or Works Council.

A Works Council is elected by the staff to represent their interests, negotiate working conditions, and review operational changes. While not identical to a national labor union, a Works Council has real legal teeth when it comes to job security and operational restructuring.

To avoid long legal battles or messy compulsory redundancy processes, Ubisoft has proposed a voluntary departure plan.

The proposed buyout formula offers employees an exit payment calculated by taking their monthly salary, multiplying it by 1.5, and then multiplying that total by the number of years they have worked at the studio.

For instance, an employee who earns 4,000 euros a month and has spent five years at Ubisoft Düsseldorf would be looking at an offer calculated as follows:

• 4,000 euros multiplied by 1.5 equals 6,000 euros.
• 6,000 euros multiplied by 5 years equals a 30,000 euro pre-tax payout.

While that kind of cash payout can provide a temporary financial cushion, it forces veteran game makers to make a tough choice. They must decide whether to take the cash and enter an unforgiving job market, or stay put in a company that is actively looking to cut expenses.

Discussions between Ubisoft management and the Works Council are still ongoing, meaning the final financial terms and severance rules could shift before signatures hit the paper.

The Studios on the Chopping Block: What Do They Build?

The three studios targeted by this plan are not minor back-office outposts. They carry deep roots in PC gaming history and contribute heavily to some of Ubisoft’s most recognized global brands.

Ubisoft Düsseldorf

Ubisoft Düsseldorf is the historic crown jewel of Ubisoft’s German operations. The studio was originally founded back in 1988 under the name Blue Byte, making it one of the oldest game development teams in Europe. Blue Byte became famous worldwide for classic strategy franchises like The Settlers and Battle Isle.

Ubisoft acquired the studio in 2001. Over the last two decades, Düsseldorf expanded into a massive development hub. It has worked on major virtual reality experiments like Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, built game engine tools, and provided critical co-development support for heavy hitters like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Rainbow Six Siege.

Cutting dozens of roles from this studio signals a sharp pullback from experimental technology and large co-development teams.

Ubisoft Mainz

Located in the historic Rhineland city of Mainz, this studio began life in 1995 as Related Designs before joining the Ubisoft family in 2013.

Mainz is best known as the lead creative force behind the critically acclaimed Anno strategy series, including the massive hit Anno 1800. The team is currently hard at work leading development on Anno 117: Pax Romana, one of the most anticipated PC simulation games on Ubisoft’s upcoming schedule.

While reports indicate that active development on Anno 117 remains on track, trimming headcount at the studio responsible for building the game creates obvious strain for the remaining developers.

Ubisoft Berlin

Ubisoft Berlin is the newest of the three German outposts, opening its doors in early 2018.

The studio was built primarily as a co-development powerhouse. Rather than leading its own distinct franchise, Berlin was set up to work side-by-side with Ubisoft’s flagship teams across Montreal, Toronto, and Paris. Its developers have contributed directly to Far Cry 6, Skull and Bones, and long-term content updates for Rainbow Six Siege.

Because Berlin is smaller, with just under 100 total staff, even a handful of departures can significantly alter team morale and daily workflow.

The Bigger Picture: Ubisoft Is in Deep Trouble

The sudden push for buyouts in Germany does not exist in a vacuum. It is the latest chapter in what many industry observers describe as a slow-motion corporate crisis.

Over the past two years, Ubisoft has been battered by weak game sales, critical reception issues, and growing unrest among its workforce.

Just a few days before the German buyout news leaked, reports emerged that Ubisoft is planning to shut down RedLynx, its Finnish development studio famous for creating the dirt-bike racing franchise Trials. At the exact same time, Ubisoft Singapore—the team that spent a decade steering Skull and Bones through development hell—announced it was cutting around 70 employees.

Those cuts join a long list of studio closures and staff reductions that have swept through Ubisoft teams in Winnipeg, Belgrade, Barcelona, Red Storm in North Carolina, and the company’s central corporate headquarters in Paris.

Ubisoft has also faced severe workplace friction over its corporate policies. When the executive team issued a strict mandate requiring staff to return to physical offices for at least three days a week, thousands of workers pushed back. That decision prompted coordinated strikes and walkouts at studios across France and Italy, with staff arguing that management was breaking remote work promises made during the pandemic. Many affected workers have had to re-evaluate their options and look into how to find full remote jobs outside of traditional corporate studios.

On top of internal workplace friction, the company’s financial balance sheet is taking heavy hits:

• Star Wars Outlaws, launched in late 2024, failed to meet sales targets despite carrying one of the biggest pop-culture licenses on the planet.
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the company’s biggest planned blockbuster, suffered delays as developers scrambled to polish the experience and avoid another launch stumble.
• Ubisoft’s public share price dropped to multi-year lows, wiping out billions in market valuation.
• The company announced a complete structural reset, splitting its worldwide operations into five distinct “Creative Houses” to enforce financial accountability.
• Rumors continue to swirl regarding a potential buyout or private takeover involving the founding Guillemot family and Chinese tech giant Tencent.

When big games miss their targets and company stock slides, executives invariably look for the fastest way to reduce fixed operational overhead. That almost always means shrinking payroll.

A Sickness Affecting the Entire Gaming Industry

While Ubisoft’s troubles are particularly messy, they reflect an uncomfortable truth: the entire video game industry has been contracting at a frightening pace.

Between 2023 and 2026, more than 25,000 video game developers, artists, quality assurance testers, and community managers lost their jobs globally. Giant platform holders and publishers have slashed internal teams across the board.

We saw this play out when Microsoft executed massive staff cuts and studio closures across its gaming division, a topic covered when Xbox restructured and cut hundreds of studio jobs. Even platform giants have watched their hardware and digital numbers fluctuate, as seen when Xbox recorded unexpected revenue drops alongside broader digital changes.

Sony, Electronic Arts, Riot Games, Bungie, and Take-Two Interactive have all carried out similar cost-cutting rounds.

Why is this happening across so many companies at the same time?

During the height of 2020 and 2021, billions of people stayed home and spent record amounts of money and time playing video games. Gaming revenue skyrocketed. Believing that explosive growth would continue forever, corporate executives hired aggressively, opened new branch offices, greenlit dozens of big-budget projects, and acquired smaller development teams at inflated valuations.

Once normal life resumed, consumer spending cooled down. Inflation hit household budgets, interest rates rose, and gamers became far more selective about which titles they bought.

Instead of continuing to buy several 70-dollar titles every month, millions of players concentrated their time on a small handful of ongoing live-service hits like Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto Online. Single-player games and mid-tier releases found it harder to turn a profit.

The industry ended up with too many high-cost studios chasing a pool of player attention that had stopped expanding. As physical retail shrinks and companies contemplate long-term structural changes—like the digital shift away from game discs—publishers are stripping budgets down to the bone.

What This Means for Everyday Gamers

When a publisher trims 100 workers here and closes a studio there, gamers often assume it only affects the people on payroll. In reality, these deep cuts reshape the kinds of games that end up on store shelves and digital storefronts.

Expect Fewer Creative Risks

When budgets get tight, corporate boards stop greenlighting weird, experimental, or original ideas. They want guaranteed returns.

That means publishers double down on established franchises and safe formulas. If a pitch cannot promise millions of guaranteed sales, it gets shelved. Projects with smaller, dedicated audiences get left behind in favor of endless sequels, remasters, and spin-offs.

Longer Waits Between Major Releases

Building modern AAA video games already takes between five and seven years. When teams lose key programmers, animators, and designers, projects do not simply pause; they slow to a crawl.

Fewer hands on deck means studios have to push release windows back to avoid burning out their remaining staff. Gamers should prepare for extended dry spells between blockbuster releases from major European and North American studios.

The Rise of Independent and Mid-Sized Studios

As seasoned talent gets pushed out of giant conglomerates like Ubisoft, many developers are choosing not to return to corporate publishers. Instead, they are forming independent teams or moving toward nimble indie studios.

Some developers are even exploring new workflows and modern toolsets, watching trends like building games with prompt-based development tools to keep production costs low.

Over the next few years, the most exciting games might not come from multi-thousand-person mega-corporations. They are far more likely to emerge from lean, passionate teams who do not have to answer to Wall Street shareholders every three months.

What Should Workers Facing Buyouts Do?

If you work in tech, game development, or digital media, hearing about voluntary resignation plans can trigger serious anxiety. Corporate restructuring can feel sudden, but workers have options when faced with an exit package.

1. Do the Math Carefully

Never accept a voluntary separation package without calculating your net take-home pay after taxes. A buyout number that looks massive on paper can shrink quickly once local income taxes and social security contributions are deducted.

Make sure the payout covers your essential living expenses for at least six to nine months while you search for your next role.

2. Check Your Unemployment Benefits

In many countries, voluntarily quitting a job can temporarily disqualify you from claiming government unemployment benefits.

However, when a departure is signed under an official corporate restructuring program negotiated with a Works Council, exceptions often apply. Speak to a local labor lawyer or an employment office representative before signing any paperwork to ensure you do not accidentally forfeit state assistance.

3. Update Your Portfolio and Network Immediately

Do not wait until your final day on the job to start organizing your credits, design documents, code repositories, and artwork.

Gather your recommendations, reconnect with former colleagues across the industry, and make sure your public profiles show your latest achievements. The job market is competitive, and personal referrals remain the fastest way to get your resume in front of a real hiring manager.

4. Look Beyond Traditional Game Studios

The skills required to make video games—software engineering, 3D modeling, UI/UX design, project management, and audio engineering—are in high demand across multiple industries.

Automotive companies, medical simulation firms, architectural visualization studios, and film production houses regularly hire game engine specialists. Expanding your search beyond traditional gaming publishers can open up more stable, better-paying opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is Ubisoft cutting staff in Germany?

Ubisoft is reducing its German headcount by roughly 100 people as part of a company-wide cost-reduction strategy. Following soft sales for major releases, project delays, and a sliding stock price, the publisher is restructuring its regional teams to lower operational expenses.

Which German studios are affected by the cuts?

The voluntary redundancy program covers all three of Ubisoft’s German locations: Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Mainz, and Ubisoft Berlin. More than half of the departures are expected to come from the Düsseldorf office.

What is the difference between a buyout and a layoff?

A layoff is an involuntary termination initiated by the employer. A buyout, or voluntary departure plan, invites employees to voluntarily resign in exchange for a negotiated cash payment. In Germany, buyouts allow companies to reduce headcount while avoiding lengthy legal procedures with local Works Councils.

How much money is Ubisoft offering employees to resign?

According to internal reports, Ubisoft has proposed a severance package calculated as 1.5 times the worker’s monthly salary multiplied by their total years of service at the company. That proposal is subject to final negotiations with the Works Council.

Will the cuts in Mainz affect Anno 117: Pax Romana?

Ubisoft Mainz is the lead developer behind Anno 117: Pax Romana. While the studio is losing staff under the proposed plan, company reports suggest active production on the game remains ongoing. However, team reductions always place additional workload pressure on remaining staff.

Can Ubisoft force German employees to quit if not enough people volunteer?

If voluntary departures do not hit the target number, Ubisoft could theoretically attempt operational dismissals. However, under German employment law, compulsory layoffs require strict social justification criteria, extensive legal reviews, and formal agreements with the Works Council.

What are Creative Houses at Ubisoft?

Creative Houses are five new operational divisions created during Ubisoft’s recent organizational overhaul. Each division oversees specific franchises and game genres, with individual leadership responsible for project budgets, production timelines, and overall profitability.

The situation unfolding across Ubisoft’s German studios proves that the turbulence inside the video game business is far from finished. Even long-standing studios with rich histories are not immune when corporate priorities shift and financial pressures mount.

As negotiations between management and the Works Council wrap up in Düsseldorf, Berlin, and Mainz, developers across Europe will be watching closely to see how many people take the money, how many choose to stay, and what kind of company Ubisoft becomes on the other side.