Big games are getting bigger — and so are the stakes
Ubisoft is making massive changes to its business: as part of a reorganization, the company will focus its efforts on the large open-world games it is known for as well as live service titles, and it has canceled six games in development, including Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake. It’s all part of a recent trend by the industry’s biggest publishers, including companies like EA and Sony, to make fewer but bigger games to avoid risk.
Under its new structure, Ubisoft games will be developed by five “Creative Houses” focused on specific genres and franchises. Previously announced Vantage Studios, for example, will develop Ubisoft’s biggest franchises to “turn them into annual billion-dollar brands,” including Assassin’s Creed, Far from itAnd Rainbow six. Other Ubisoft studios focus on competitive shooters, live service games, fantasy and narrative “universes”, and casual games.
“We are observing a classic risk aversion strategy”
Ubisoft’s press release lists many familiar series that will live under these studios, including The division, Ghost Recognition, Cell burst, Just danceAnd Prince of Persiadespite the Sands of time cancelation. Even Beyond good and evilthe sequel to which has been in development for over a decade, is included. But Ubisoft says there are only four franchises that are actually new in development – and that it has canceled three ongoing franchises – indicating that it plans to rely more on familiar brands instead of branching out. In addition to the cancellation of games, the new structure has also led to the closure of several studios and will likely lead to more layoffs in the future.
This structure puts more pressure on the success of these games, as demonstrated by the catastrophic failure of the PlayStation system. Concord. This game, in development for about eight years, was apparently expensive to make and was not an immediate success. As a result, Sony took the game offline just two weeks after launch, and a few weeks later permanently shut down the game and developer Firewalk Studios. Ubisoft obviously wants to avoid this kind of fiasco, and by focusing on well-known games and franchises, it reduces the risk of a bomb. And games that probably won’t be very successful, like years of development Sands of Time Remakeit appears that they will not be a major part of the strategy going forward.
“What we’re seeing is a classic risk-aversion strategy,” says Joost van Dreunen, a video games professor at New York University who also writes about the industry. The edge. “When markets become unstable, big publishers fall back on what they know works: their established franchises. It’s a rational response to uncertainty, but it comes with real costs,” he adds, such as recycling proven franchises instead of developing new experiences and potentially raising prices to justify big-budget sequels. “This strategy can work for publishers with extensive catalogs of beloved franchises, but it’s no guarantee of survival,” van Dreunen says. “It’s more about saving time than building a sustainable future. »
Ubisoft’s move is similar to what we’ve seen from other major gaming companies. EA, even before announcing the $55 billion deal to take the company private, had focused more on flagship franchises with large online communities, like Battlefield, EA Sports FCAnd The Sims. After Battlefield 2042′the difficult launch, Battlefield 6 It was a pivotal moment for the series and EA, but also a colossal project, developed by several internal studios. This bet seems to have paid off as the game was a huge success, with EA proclaiming it “the best-selling shooter” of 2025. Like Ubisoft, EA has smaller franchises, like Plants vs. Zombiesbut he also reduced his library, canceling a Black Panther game in development.
Sony is also focusing its efforts on fewer games that largely fall into two distinct groups. Even though Sony has scaled back its live service ambitions and overcome some setbacks, live gaming remains a key pillar for the company – it even announced last year the creation of a new studio, spun off from Fate creator Bungie. Meanwhile, Sony also continues to promote the big-budget single-player exclusives that have become so closely associated with the PlayStation brand. Its current known projects include expansive single-player games that build on what their developers were doing before: Saros follows the good received Back, Marvel’s Wolverine is the next game Spiderman manufacturer Insomniac, and The last of us developer Naughty Dog is working hard on Intergalactic: the heretical prophet.
In Wednesday’s press release, Yves Guillemot, co-founder and CEO of Ubisoft, summed up the problem facing the AAA market: It’s more competitive, has higher costs and presents greater challenges, but blockbuster games have “more financial potential than ever.” The company, like many others, is betting that refocusing on larger, well-known brands, launched at a more regular pace, will be a more stable business. This path can be fruitful, but it is also fraught with pitfalls, from lost jobs to less creative innovation. The future of blockbuster games is unclear, but it will be full of familiar faces. Prepare for even more Assassin’s Creed.
