As part of a recent filing of a strategic report, Ubisoft UK has issued a warning about its yearly revenue continuing to fall in the current fiscal year, which is slated to end on March 2026. In the report, the company has attributed this fall in revenue to slumping sales of games, including sales of physical releases, as well as customers opting to focus on a few larger releases.
In the report, Ubisoft UK called the “traditional model” of selling full games at a premium one-time price point “less ubiquitous”. This has been attributed to the rise of game subscription services like Game Pass, as well as long-running live-service games and free-to-play games.
“The traditional ‘full game’ model of selling a single £50-60 game to a consumer as a one-time purchase continues to become less ubiquitous, with Multi Game subscription services, long running Games As A Service titles, Free To Play games and Cloud Streaming offers all providing new and attractive ways for consumers to access gaming content,” wrote the company in its report.
Due to this, Ubisoft UK believes that consumer behaviour has shifted from buying and playing through many games in a single year to instead playing a few games for longer periods of time. Aside from a few exceptions, the company has noted that many new releases have been struggling to achieve the sales that games used to see in the past.
“Consumers are playing fewer games, playing them for longer, and as a result, outside of a few notable exceptions, many new games are struggling to stand out and achieve the sales they may once have had, whilst the market is more volatile and the potential for any specific title less predictable as a result,” wrote the company. “As a result of a smaller physical new releases schedules in the coming year, Ubisoft Limited expects revenue to fall in FY26.”
It is worth noting that Ubisoft has been trying quite hard to turn even its major single-player releases into live-service games. This could be seen especially clearly with the Assassin’s Creed series which, since the release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, has featured many live-service trappings. The latest entry – Assassin’s Creed Shadows – even goes as far as to include battle passes that players can progress through in order to earn more crafting materials, gear, and cosmetic items.
Along with this, Ubisoft has also been considered a poster child for long-term support of some of its biggest games. The company had a hand in making one of the more popular competitive shooters out there – Rainbow Six Siege X – and has also opted to continue long-term support of other titles like For Honor.
In the meantime, Ubisoft has also opened up a new studio under its banner – Vantage Studios – which is being headed up by co-CEOs Charlie Guillemot and Christophe Derennes. The studio has taken on the responsibility of working on the biggest franchises under Ubisoft – Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six – and has a number of development studios in a host of locations, including Montréal, Quebec, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Barcelona, and Sofia.
