Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Team Already Facing Layoffs at Ubisoft

July 9th marks the long-awaited release of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. Ahead of launch, the game is sitting at a pretty solid 84 Metacritic rating. Our own review praises it as a worthy return to one of the franchise’s most beloved games. Yet the team that worked on the game is reportedly already facing layoffs, regardless of what’s shaping up to be a successful launch for Black Flag Resynced.

According to Insider Gaming, Ubisoft Barcelona has already announced plans to lay off 51 employees. Many of the impacted employees worked on Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. Rather than getting assigned to another project after wrapping work on the highly anticipated remake, the team was instead disbanded “just days after completing all its work” on the game. Because this decision was reportedly made ahead of the launch, it seems Ubisoft planned to make these cuts regardless of how well the game performed. And that’s not a great sign for the state of the industry.

Ubisoft Barcelona Employees Strike in Response to Layoffs

The layoffs themselves were announced just after work on Black Flag Resynced wrapped. Members of the team who worked on the project were not reassigned to work on a game, and instead are facing losing their jobs entirely. Though the news itself isn’t new for the team at Ubisoft, the situation is thrown into stark relief as the very game these employees worked on celebrates its launch. For many of the people who made this game happen, it’s surely a bittersweet feeling to see their hard work in fans’ hands. No matter how much critics and fans like the game, or how well it sells, their jobs have already been placed on the chopping block.

These layoffs highlight a growing shift in the industry where employment as a game developer is more like a contract gig than full-time work. When projects wrap, teams are often restructured or cut regardless of success or underperformance. The fact that so many of the developers behind Black Flag Resynced were set to be laid off before their game even launched is a stark reminder of this unfortunate reality.

In response to these layoffs, the remaining employees at Ubisoft Barcelona will strike on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from June 30th to July 16th. With the release of Black Flag Resynced falling on a Thursday, the team will be striking on the day of their latest game’s launch. The employees are asking for job protection, both for the 51 employees set to lose their jobs in the layoffs and for the workforce overall. They are also asking for promotions and the ability to work from home to be reinstated, along with an overall adjustment to the salary and benefits package.

The strike is ongoing even as Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced prepares to launch just about an hour from when I’m writing this. Though actual sales data will likely not be available for a while, if Ubisoft releases it at all, the Steam player count should give us an indication of the game’s popularity soon enough.

Will you be playing Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced at launch? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

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