Ubisoft Barcelona Workers Strike Over 51 Layoffs

Workers at Ubisoft‘s Barcelona studio launched a series of partial strikes on June 30, 2026, protesting a plan to cut 51 jobs — more than a quarter of the site’s roughly 180-person workforce — as the French publisher works through cost cuts that followed a sharply negative financial year.

The walkouts, confirmed by GamesIndustry.biz, are organized by the Spanish union CGT and scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons through July 17, 2026. They mark the latest flashpoint in a restructuring effort that has already closed two Ubisoft studios outright and touched hundreds of jobs across the company’s global publishing arm.

What workers are demanding

The Barcelona workforce isn’t simply asking Ubisoft to reverse the cuts. According to the union bulletin behind the strike call, staff are pushing for a broader set of commitments from management:

• A binding new mandate guaranteeing the 51 affected employees keep their jobs
• A five-year commitment against further collective layoffs at the studio
• Immediate execution of internal promotions the union says were “unilaterally paralyzed” by the company
• Reinstatement of a 60% work-from-home allowance, after management tightened in-office requirements
• A formal review of the studio’s salary and benefits structure

The work-from-home demand isn’t new. Barcelona unions previously challenged Ubisoft’s return-to-office policy in a labor complaint filed in November 2024, and a related dispute drove a strike at the studio in February 2025. That earlier dispute remains unresolved, which is part of why workers are now asking for binding guarantees rather than fresh promises.

A studio refocused, not closed

The Barcelona cuts stem from a restructuring Ubisoft confirmed on June 10, 2026, when it disclosed it was closing its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios entirely and cutting roles across its global publishing organization, putting roughly 380 jobs at risk company-wide. Barcelona wasn’t shut down, but its mandate was narrowed sharply: the studio, which had supported titles including Assassin’s Creed and The Division, is being redirected to work exclusively on Rainbow Six Siege.

That redirection is the practical source of the layoffs — without a broader slate of projects to staff, Ubisoft says it no longer needs the same headcount in Barcelona. Workers and union representatives dispute that framing, noting the studio has not reported losses of its own.

The numbers behind the cuts

Barcelona’s restructuring sits inside a much larger financial picture. Ubisoft’s full-year results for fiscal 2025-26, published May 20, 2026, showed net bookings — Ubisoft’s preferred measure of game sales, which adjusts reported revenue for licensing and subscription timing — falling 17.4% to €1.53 billion. The company posted an IFRS net loss of €1.475 billion for the year, more than six times wider than the prior year’s loss, and total headcount fell to 16,590, down around 1,200 employees from twelve months earlier.

CEO Yves Guillemot called it a fiscal year “of decisive action,” saying Ubisoft “initiated one of the most ambitious transformations in the company’s history” while warning that the current fiscal year will mark “a low point” in cash flow before an expected rebound. That transformation has been partly funded by Tencent‘s €1.16 billion investment in Vantage Studios, the Ubisoft subsidiary now built around Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six — a deal that strengthened Ubisoft’s balance sheet even as it pares back studios like Barcelona that sit outside that protected unit.

Ubisoft isn’t alone in trimming headcount while protecting its flagship franchises. Electronic Arts has reportedly cut support staff ahead of its own ownership changes, part of a wider pattern of publishers narrowing their organizational footprints around fewer, bigger bets.

What happens next

For now, Ubisoft has not opened formal negotiations with Barcelona’s works council, according to union statements cited in Spanish media. The strikes are structured as partial stoppages rather than a full shutdown, leaving both sides room to negotiate without halting Rainbow Six Siege production entirely — the live-service title Ubisoft’s own earnings materials say it is counting on for renewed net-bookings growth this year.

The bigger question for investors is whether Ubisoft’s cost-cutting program, which the company has described as a “final” round targeting €200 million in additional savings, actually proves final. Barcelona is the latest Ubisoft site to face deep cuts in a restructuring that has already shut down Winnipeg and Belgrade and reduced staff across its global publishing teams this year. Each round narrows the pool of people left to absorb the next one — and raises the reputational and labor-relations cost of squeezing further savings out of an organization that has already lost roughly 1,200 people in a single year.