Ubisoft Switches Completely to Autonomous Creative Houses

Ubisoft intends to restructure its business completely, becoming a group of autonomous creative houses. The company announced this reorganisation alongside the publication of its Q1 results, which were slightly below expectations.

Ubisoft has released its sales figures for the first quarter of the 2025-26 fiscal year, covering April to June 2025. The company reported sales of €310.8 million (IFRS 15), which is a 3.9% decrease compared to the previous year. Net bookings for Q1 reached €281.6 million (-2.9%), which was below expectations due to a lower-than-expected performance of Rainbow Six Siege (impact from a pricing exploit), a partnership that is now expected to materialise in Q2, and an unfavourable foreign exchange impact. Net bookings for the back catalogue stood at €260 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 4%, or 6% excluding partnerships.

Ubisoft has announced that it is undergoing a major transformation into a group of autonomous creative entities. Yves Guillemot, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, said: "We also continued to make meaningful progress on Ubisoft's transformation by outlining a new operating model built around business units, called Creative Houses. These units will reflect our diverse types of gaming experiences and will allow for enhanced quality, focus, autonomy and accountability. Over time, each of these Creative Houses will boost creative vision and business performance." Each of these Creative Houses will have its own dedicated leadership team, objectives and roadmap. This change is intended to improve quality, focus, autonomy and accountability, and to foster closer connections with players and promote disciplined capital allocation. The new organisation will be announced by the end of the year. Yves Guillemot continues: "The new Subsidiary announced earlier this year and overseeing our flagship brands - Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six - is the first of these Creative Houses. The recent announcement of its leadership team marks an important milestone as we move toward a more agile and focused organization while ensuring necessary long-term stability and creative vision." Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot have been appointed as co-CEOs of the newly formed subsidiary with Tencent, the first Creative House. The transaction with Tencent is progressing and is still expected to close by the end of 2025, pending regulatory approval.

Assassin's Creed Shadows, released in March, performed in line with expectations and has recently surpassed five million players. Ahead of the holiday season, the game's mid-term potential will be supported by the Claws of Awaji expansion, which is due to be released in Q2 and by the end of September. At the investor conference, it was also mentioned that the game will be released on additional machines.

The Rainbow Six Siege X update was launched on 10 June. Player spending in this quarter was impacted by a pricing exploit involving prepaid currency cards, which temporarily inflated virtual currency wallets. This exploit has since been fixed. Ubisoft: "However, the momentum since launch is encouraging with acquisition levels trending around 5 times above the same period last year. Session Days were up 25% year-on-year in June since launch and 65% compared to the 3-prior week’s baseline. Overall, June delivered the third-strongest MAU performance in the game’s history, trailing only the two peak months during the Covid period in Spring 2020. Session Days have continued to grow 20% in July to date. Despite the one-off pricing setback, in-game spending has also shown positive traction, with the Valkyrie Paragon becoming the highest-performing bundle launch in terms of currency spend."

Tom Clancy's The Division 2 had a strong start to the fiscal year. The launch of Year 7 and the release of the Battle for Brooklyn DLC, as well as the introduction of a new season and the game's inclusion in Game Pass, drove growth in acquisition and engagement. The game reached its highest activity performance since May 2020. Star Wars Outlaws received positive reviews for its second DLC, A Pirate's Fortune. The game is also set to reach a broader audience with its release on Switch 2 on 4 September.

In addition, the shareholders voted in favour of appointing two new independent directors: Axelle Lemaire and André Loesekrug-Pietri. "Ubisoft welcomes them to its Board of Directors and looks forward to benefiting from their respective experiences, which will contribute to support Ubisoft's strategy and its transformation over the coming years. The vote also led to the renewals of Claude France, Ubisoft's Lead Independent Director and Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee, as well as the mandates of Christian Guillemot and Michel Guillemot," the announcement reads.

Net bookings for the second quarter of 2025–26 (July to September) are expected to total around €450 million. This expected growth versus Q1 is driven by strategic B2B partnerships, including new ones, as well as the growing contribution of Rainbow Six Siege X and TV Series milestone-based revenues.

For the full year, the company is confirming its financial targets. It anticipates stable net bookings year-on-year, break-even non-IFRS operating income, and negative free cash flow. Following the completion of the Tencent transaction, the group anticipates maintaining a consolidated non-IFRS net debt position of approximately zero.

The line-up for the rest of FY26 includes: Pax Romana, the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Rainbow Six Mobile and The Division Resurgence. A couple of titles will be announced at a later stage.

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