Ubisoft has announced yet another round of layoffs — this time targeting one of its most infamous internal studios, Massive Entertainment, the developer behind Star Wars: Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
The move comes just months after both Disney-owned high-profile titles underperformed critically and commercially, leaving questions about Ubisoft’s long-term strategy and its ability to sustain large-scale AAA development.
The “Voluntary” Layoff Program
In a corporate statement released this week, Massive confirmed it has “realigned our teams and resources to strengthen our roadmap” while launching what it calls a “voluntary career transition program.” The phrasing immediately raised eyebrows across the gaming industry, with many seeing it as corporate doublespeak for layoffs at Massive Entertainment.
Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora studio announces major layoffs pic.twitter.com/w9CfUpn1fH
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“As part of our ongoing evolution and long-term planning, we have recently realigned our teams and resources to strengthen our roadmap, ensuring our continued focus on The Division franchise and the technologies, including Snowdrop and Ubisoft Connect, that power our games,” Massive stated. “To support this transition responsibly, we have introduced a voluntary career transition program, giving eligible team members the opportunity to take their next career step on their own terms, supported by a comprehensive package that includes financial and career assistance.”
While Ubisoft frames this as a choice, developers familiar with these “voluntary” programs know the reality: being eligible to leave is another way of saying you’re no longer wanted. It’s a chance to leave with a cushy severance package or stick around and be fired later.
A screenshot of Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
The restructuring follows an earlier announcement from Ubisoft RedLynx, the Finland-based studio best known for the Trials series. RedLynx will reportedly lay off up to 60 developers as part of a shift toward “small screens,” signaling a renewed focus on mobile and handheld platforms.
A Pattern of Retreat
Massive Entertainment was once regarded as one of Ubisoft’s crown jewels. The Malmö, Sweden-based studio developed the acclaimed Division franchise and built Ubisoft’s powerful Snowdrop Engine, which remains one of the company’s most technically impressive achievements. But recent years have been rough.
A screenshot from Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (2023), Massive Entertainment
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was met with lukewarm reception, while Star Wars: Outlaws was a massive flop, failing to make the cultural or commercial impact Ubisoft had hoped for. Despite dazzling visuals, both titles struggled to capture audiences in a crowded and increasingly risk-averse gaming market.
The company’s statement makes clear that Massive’s future lies not in experimentation or new IP, but in doubling down on familiar ground: The Division series. The studio reaffirmed its commitment to The Division 2, The Division Resurgence, and the upcoming Division 3.
Corporate Language, Real Consequences
Ubisoft’s choice of words—“voluntary career transition”—has become a lightning rod in industry commentary. Critics see it as an attempt to soften the optics of job cuts that would otherwise draw backlash.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
When companies describe employees as “eligible to transition,” it usually signals that those roles are being targeted for removal, regardless of how politely it’s phrased.
Employees who “volunteer” for the program will reportedly receive financial assistance and career support, but it remains unclear how many positions Ubisoft ultimately plans to eliminate in these layoffs. The ambiguity has sparked unease among current staff, many of whom fear further restructuring may be ahead.
RedLynx and the Broader Picture
Meanwhile, Ubisoft RedLynx’s own restructuring sheds light on the company’s shifting priorities. The studio confirmed plans to become “specialized in small screens,” which insiders interpret as a pivot toward mobile gaming, handheld systems like the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2, and PC handheld devices.
“If implemented, the proposed changes would refocus Ubisoft RedLynx from a multiplatform setup to a studio specialized in small screens,” the studio wrote. “This would enable it to position itself for sustainable success and optimize its resources to best leverage the studio’s unique expertise.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
That explanation will sound familiar to anyone following Ubisoft’s recent financial trajectory. Over the past two years, Ubisoft has undergone waves of layoffs, executive departures, and canceled projects, all under the guise of “streamlining” operations.
Just last month, Marc-Alexis Côté, head of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, quietly exited the company following the creation of a Tencent-backed subsidiary focused on Ubisoft’s flagship IPs.
A Studio in Survival Mode
For all of Ubisoft’s insistence that Massive remains a “pillar” of its roadmap, this restructuring illustrates a sobering truth: the developer of Star Wars: Outlaws is being downsized after delivering one of the publisher’s most expensive disappointments.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
The optics are hard to ignore. Ubisoft spent years promoting Outlaws as the first truly open-world Star Wars experience, only for the game to stumble out of the gate amid reports of slow sales and middling player engagement. For a studio once heralded as the future of Ubisoft, this is an unmistakable fall from grace.
As the company doubles down on cost-cutting, the creative risk-taking that once defined studios like Massive and RedLynx appears to be vanishing. Ubisoft is now a publisher caught between nostalgia and necessity—tethered to its aging franchises while struggling to create the next big thing.
The Bigger Picture
Ubisoft isn’t alone in facing this reckoning. 2025 has been brutal across the gaming industry, with layoffs striking nearly every major publisher. But the language surrounding this latest move—masking Massive Entertainment layoffs as “career transitions”—highlights just how far the corporate spin machine has gone to protect optics at the expense of transparency.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
For the hundreds of developers who brought Star Wars: Outlaws and Frontiers of Pandora to life, “voluntary” doesn’t make it hurt less. And for fans, it raises another question: if Ubisoft’s “jewel” studio is being cut down to size, what does that say about the future of its other teams—and the games they make?
How do you feel about Ubisoft looking for voluntary layoffs from the Star Wars: Outlaws studio, Massive Entertainment? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
Soon enough and in just a couple of months from now we’ll hear the exact same good news but with the same ones who made (((A$$a$$in’s Greed $hadow$))) instead.
Gayme journalist shills be like: “bU bU bU bU mUh 5 mIlLiOn pLaYeRs!!!”
And we’ll see the wokest of the bunch failing upwards into leading positions of the next big Studio they are going to ruin.
Hope they understand to put the fries in the bag.
Yes. Until a robot replaces them.
Unfortunately those people keep failing upwards. They probably already have their next position, when their woke trash game hasn’t even come out yet. The ones that actually end up putting the fries in the bag are the skilled devs, who don’t want to put up with woke BS anymore.
DEI / Left wingers are generally a bit thick (and totally out of touch). It’s not surprising they can’t develop profitable games.
What dazzling visuals? We’re we looking at the same games?
Outlaws was a brown smudged mess harkening back to ye old Quake levels of brown. Pandora had the opposite problem with everything getting lost in blown out colors and bloom.
It is too bad. Just like Microsoft and WB insisted studios with a nitche try to create things they weren’t tooled for (Arkane deviating from single player RPGs like Dishonored to make Redfail and RockSteady skipping an Arkham game to make with WB Kills the DC Golden Goose League).
Massive should have stuck with military themed open world loot chaser with just a dusting of story to justify the setting. They are good at those.
Guys it’s just because they have been so successful, that Ubisoft trusts them to recreate the same success with even less people.
It’s like every dying WoW guild I’ve been in kept telling themselves: “We are shrinking back to a healthy size again.” As people kept leaving.
The most encouraging thing about this is that it means gamers are voting with their wallets against DEI, feminism, and alphabet nonsense. Keep it up folks – if they don’t want to course correct, then we can just jettison them from the industry altogether.