Last week, following a series of layoffs and cancellations, Ubisoft announced a “major organizational, operational and portfolio reset” that… will lead to more layoffs and cancellations via a 200€ million cost-cutting plan. This has not been received well by anyone; the stock market and workers, usually the fiercest of foes, shared a spit take at what seemed to be deep self-inflicted wounds. Now, five French unions representing Ubisoft workers have called for a “massive international strike.”
The unions – CFE-CGC, CGT, Printemps Écologique, Solidaires Informatique, and STJV – intend for the strike to take place from February 10-12.
"The announced transformation [at Ubisoft] claims to place games at the heart of its strategy, but without us, these games cannot exist," the unions wrote in a joint release. "We are told about responsibilities, but those who wield this word so easily do not take any responsibility for the consequences of their catastrophic management, the latest result being the elimination of 200 jobs at Ubisoft's headquarters. We are not fooled: rather than taking financial responsibility for layoffs, they prefer to push us out by making our working conditions unbearable. It's outrageous. Our colleagues carry on, hold fast, endure, out of solidarity, out of love for the industry, and out of passion. But enough is enough!"
Marc Rutschlé, a Solidaires Informatique union representative at Ubisoft Paris, said that on top of everything else, Ubisoft's plan to require workers to be in office five days per week, effectively eliminating remote work, tramples all over a deal unions made with the company last year.
“Solidaires, alongside the other unions, spent the better part of 2025 fighting for a hybrid work agreement at Ubisoft's studio in Paris, after management decided, arbitrarily, that we needed to be in the office three days a week,” Rutschlé told Aftermath. “An agreement was reached – painfully I might add – voted on by the employees, and signed in September [2025]. This agreement, while flawed, ensured that employees that lived far away would be allowed to keep their hybrid work model, and that the rest of us could request special adjustments in certain cases (familial obligations, health reasons, etc). The agreement cannot be reneged on for at least a year. However this announcement by Yves Guillemot just blew away a year of negotiations in an instant.”
Aftermath reached out to Ubisoft for additional details but did not receive a reply as of this publishing.
Guillemot’s decision, Rutschlé believes, will send ripples through Ubisoft.
“Hundreds of employees who felt the issue was over with are now put under an enormous amount of stress again, not knowing if their work/life balance will be compatible with Ubisoft a year from now. We do not know at this time if management will feel flexible towards some of us. All we know is that Yves Guillemot has decided, by himself, that working remotely is an issue that needs to be fixed, against the advice of everyone he's asked. And because he needs to find 200€ million for the coming year, any person who has to quit because of this is a net benefit for him.”
Rutschlé also feels like elimination of remote work is at odds with the central organizing principle of nu-Ubisoft: five “creative houses” that will each focus on specific genres and series.
“It also contradicts the idea that creative houses are supposed to have greater autonomy from HQ,” he said. “Why then, impose this RTO policy to everyone and not let each creative house decide by themselves? In short, this is a lose-lose situation for every person and every project at Ubisoft, but Yves Guillemot seems to think otherwise.”
For now, Ubisoft workers find themselves in an uncomfortable holding pattern.
“No announcement has been made regarding which games are cancelled and which are delayed, and so no one at Ubisoft at the moment knows if they will be affected or not,” Rutschlé said.
This is not the first time Ubisoft workers in France have gone on strike. In 2024, nearly 700 employees across Paris, Montpellier, Annecy, Lyon, and Bordeaux participated in a national strike over substandard pay – one of the largest strikes in video game history. More recently, Solidaires Informatique hosted a smaller half-day strike outside Ubisoft’s Paris office last week following Ubisoft’s reorganization announcement.
The Ubisoft unions hope that February’s strike will be the largest yet, and they’re coordinating with unions outside France to present a globally united front against the company.
"We are hoping that, if enough people join us in the strike, Yves Guillemot and his team will realize that they cannot make games without us,” Rutschlé said. “Our goal is to show them that we will not be bullied into submission and that we are willing to fight for better working conditions. Our goal is to make great games again, without having to look over our shoulder constantly, wondering what the next announcement brings, and who will fall. We are sick of seeing our work conditions be degraded to a point where working at Ubisoft will become untenable.”
“We will not be fooled,” he added. “We see these decisions as a tactic to enact so-called 'soft-layoffs,' and we will not let it happen quietly."
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Nathan Grayson
