Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launches to layoffs at Ubisoft Barcelona

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launched today to one of the best Steam debuts in the franchise's history — but the team that built it at Ubisoft Barcelona is being laid off by the end of July.

QA lead Isabel Codina García shared the news on LinkedIn: "After 7 years at Ubisoft Barcelona, this is not how I imagined it would end." She noted the entire AC team at the studio was informed of a collective redundancy plan — called an ERE in Spain — just two weeks before launch, after Vantage Studios confirmed there would be no further mandates for the Barcelona office despite the team pitching new Assassin's Creed projects. García had worked on Black Flag Resynced for two and a half years. Paris-based programmer Mataoui Chakib Souleyman also posted in solidarity: "Without them the game would not make it to release day." According to Insider Gaming, the studio's planned launch celebration was quietly downgraded to a small catered get-together on-site. Spanish labor union La Confederación General del Trabajo had already called for strikes over the planned termination of 51 employees, pushing for better job protections and the return of remote work options. Nearly a third of the Barcelona office will be gone by the end of the month.

The cuts are part of Ubisoft's broader restructuring, which has been grinding on for months. The company announced this round of layoffs back in June alongside the closure of Ubisoft Winnipeg and cuts across its global publishing division — all fallout from delayed releases and weak sales of recent big-budget titles. Ubisoft Barcelona had been a key support studio within the Assassin's Creed ecosystem, and losing a third of its headcount on launch day of a well-received game underscores how disconnected the business decisions are from the creative work.

Black Flag Resynced is already the highest-rated Assassin's Creed game in over a decade, and looks like one of Ubisoft's stronger commercial bets in a thin year for the publisher. The irony isn't lost on the developers celebrating — and grieving — at the same time.