Today, all eyes among gamers regarding Ubisoft should be on the imminent Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced showcase, which will take place at 17:00 BST/18:00 CEST, in a globally streamed event. However, behind closed doors, many eyes are surely on a recent notification that all the company's employees, globally, have received.
According to journalist Albert García López of La Vanguardia, he has received direct reports from Ubisoft employees today stating that management has announced a return to a full in-office working week from 1 October 2026. In other words, all employees must go to the office five days a week. This will, of course, represent a clear breach of the current agreement between management and the company's staff, and a serious disruption to employees' personal lives and work-life balance.
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This move does not come as a surprise to staff. Back in January, Gamesindustry.biz interviewed the studio's senior vice-president of operations, Marie-Sophie de Waubert, who had already hinted at a return to in-person working, thus bringing an end to the model that had been in place since the 2020 pandemic. This measure forms part of a three-year plan to restructure the company (which has already seen redundancies and the closure of various internal Ubisoft studios, such as Halifax and Stockholm).
Do you think this measure will actually improve staff productivity and the quality of their work on future Ubisoft games?