Sands of Time remake canceled amid wider Ubisoft shakeup

As part of a wider company restructuring, Ubisoft has canceled six games, including the long-troubled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake. The studio said last year that it’d be arriving in early 2026, and there were rumors of it landing on Jan. 16, but as reported by Jason Schreier via Bluesky, the team was “not happy with the state of the game and decided to cancel it as part of a massive reorganization.”

Alongside the Prince of Persia remake, Ubisoft canceled five other unannounced games, including one on mobile. This is because they “do not meet the new enhanced quality as well as more selective portfolio prioritization criteria,” according to a press release.

Seven other games, of which the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remake is rumored to be among, have also been internally delayed “in order to ensure enhanced quality benchmarks are fully met and maximize long-term value creation.” Ubisoft states its objective is to “return to exceptional levels of quality on the open-world adventure segment and step-change the group’s position in the GaaS-native experiences segment.”

Perhaps surprisingly, there’s still no mention of Beyond Good & Evil 2, the sequel to the cult classic that was originally announced in 2008, then re-revealed in 2017. The last official word on the game came in June 2024, when Ubisoft confirmed it was still in development. Last year, job listings went up to work on the game, implying it has, somehow, not been canceled yet.

“On the one hand, the AAA industry has become persistently more selective and competitive with rising development costs and greater challenges in creating brands,” Yves Guillemot, founder and CEO of Ubisoft, said in a press release. “On the other hand, exceptional AAA games, when successful, have more financial potential than ever. In this context, today we are announcing a major reset built to create the conditions for a return to sustainable growth over time. We are transforming Ubisoft’s operating model to produce exceptional quality games on the two core pillars of our strategy, Open World Adventures and GaaS-native experiences.”

The wider Ubisoft restructuring means the company is now split into five “creative houses,” described as the “operational driving forces.” Those houses will focus on various groups of Ubisoft’s franchises, and are divided into:

• One covers Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six (“Ubisoft’s largest and established franchises”)
• One covers the shooter series The Division, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell
• One covers a “roster of select, sharp live experiences”: For Honor, The Crew, Riders Republic, Brawlhalla, Skull & Bones
• One covers fantasy and narrative-driven series: Anno, Might & Magic, Rayman, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good & Evil
• And the last is about “reclaiming position” for casual games that target families and younger audiences: Just Dance, Idle Miner Tycoon, Ketchapp, Hungry Shark, Invincible: Guarding the Globe, Uno, Hasbro.

March of Giants, the upcoming free-to-play 4v4 MOBA, is confirmed to still be in development, as one of four new IPs that will have their “respective creative home” communicated at a later date.

To support each “creative house,” there will be the “creative network,” which “will bring together a powerful set of studios providing best-in-class production capacity and cross-functional creative expertise.” There will also be the “core services” team, who provide “the backbone of Ubisoft’s ecosystem” and act as “an enabler for the creative houses and the creative network.”

On the financial side, Ubisoft expects to achieve its goal of at least €100 million in fixed cost savings versus FY2024-25 by March 2026, one year ahead of the FY2026-27 target. It has set a new target of reducing its fixed cost base by “an additional €200 million over the next two years,” which will bring the “total reduction in fixed costs since FY2022-23 to around €500 million,” and “€1.25 billion on a run-rate basis by March 2028, compared to €1.75 billion in FY2022-23.”

However, this cost-cutting comes as a result of studio closures. Ubisoft closed both the Halifax mobile and Stockholm studios earlier this month, and has implemented restructurings at its Abu Dhabi, RedLynx, and Massive studios.

The next game coming from Ubisoft, and the only one with a confirmed release date, is Rainbow Six Mobile, due to land on Feb. 23. The Division Resurgence, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, and Might and Magic Fates are all also due in 2026.