Ubisoft has started discussions in Germany on a proposed voluntary departure plan that could reduce its workforce across Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Berlin and Ubisoft Mainz by about 100 people. The proposal is not described as a conventional layoff round: the company is seeking voluntary exits with buyouts, and the terms remain subject to discussions with the employee Works Council.

The scale still matters. The three studios employ roughly 600 people in total, meaning the stated target would represent approximately one-sixth of the combined workforce. For employees, “voluntary” does not make the uncertainty disappear. It means staff are being asked to weigh a negotiated payment against the security, career prospects and personal disruption involved in leaving a company during another period of cuts.

The German proposal follows further retrenchment elsewhere in Ubisoft’s network. Ubisoft intends to close Ubisoft Redlynx in Finland and has cut 70 roles at Ubisoft Singapore. In Germany, the affected studio group had already experienced 185 layoffs in 2025. The latest plan is therefore part of an ongoing effort to lower the publisher’s costs rather than an isolated reshuffle.

What Ubisoft has proposed in Germany

Ubisoft said it began discussions with the Works Council last week regarding a voluntary departure plan covering Düsseldorf, Berlin and Mainz. Its objective is to encourage around 100 employees to resign in exchange for a buyout.

Reported details indicate that the working basis for a payment could be an employee’s monthly salary multiplied by 1.5, then multiplied again by the number of years they have worked for the company. That is a useful outline, but it should not be treated as a final offer: the financial arrangement had not yet been finalized with the Works Council.

In simple terms, a formula of this kind ties compensation to two factors:

  • Monthly salary: higher monthly pay would increase the value calculated by the formula.
  • Length of service: more years at the company would also increase the proposed payment.

A buyout, sometimes called severance in broader workplace discussions, is compensation offered in connection with an employee’s departure. The key distinction here is that Ubisoft is seeking people to opt in. A voluntary departure plan does not necessarily identify in advance exactly which individuals will leave, and its eventual impact depends on both the negotiated terms and how many eligible staff choose to accept them.

That does not mean the plan has no operational consequences before departures happen. Any studio entering such a process faces an immediate period of uncertainty: employees must assess their options, managers must plan around possible losses of experience, and teams may not know how their staffing will look once the process is complete. Ubisoft has not detailed which roles, disciplines or projects might be most affected by the sought-after reduction.

Related coverage includes Ubisoft Opens Talks on Voluntary Departure Plan Affecting 100 Jobs in Germany.

Why the Works Council is central to the process

The negotiations involve a German Betriebsrat, commonly translated as a works council. It is an elected body made up of employees within a company. Its role includes engaging management on working conditions, representing employee perspectives and strengthening employees’ ability to negotiate at the company level.

It is not the same thing as an industry-wide union. The practical difference is important: unions can represent workers across a wider sector, while a works council operates inside a particular employer. In this case, it is the body involved in talks over the proposed departure plan for Ubisoft’s German studios.

Because those talks are ongoing, several important points remain unresolved from the available information. The reported formula is not final, the ultimate number of departures is not established, and Ubisoft has not specified how the target would be allocated among Düsseldorf, Berlin and Mainz. The plan should therefore be understood as a proposal under negotiation, not a completed reduction with all roles and terms already decided.

A German studio map with overlapping names and roles

Understanding the potential impact is made harder by Ubisoft’s layered studio structure. Düsseldorf, Berlin and Mainz remain associated with the Blue Byte name, a company formed in 1988. Blue Byte is known for 1990s series including Battle Isle and Settlers. Its history also intersects with Related Design, the developer associated with Anno that later became Ubisoft Mainz.

That shared heritage does not mean the three locations now sit in one straightforward operational unit. Ubisoft Mainz is part of Creative House 4, a structure Ubisoft has been implementing since January. In that grouping, Mainz sits alongside Milan, Montpellier and Ubisoft Nadeo in Paris. The portfolio associated with this group includes Anno, Rayman, Might & Magic, Prince of Persia and Beyond Good & Evil.

Düsseldorf and Berlin, meanwhile, are in Ubisoft’s Creative Network rather than a Creative House. The Creative Network is the label for studios outside the Creative Houses that support the work of those groups and their projects. This means the sites covered by the proposed German departure plan are connected by geography and Blue Byte history, but are not all positioned identically in Ubisoft’s newer organizational model.

Düsseldorf is the largest of the three, with just over 400 employees. That figure makes it the dominant site in a combined workforce of around 600, although Ubisoft has not said whether the planned 100 voluntary exits would be distributed proportionately, concentrated at one location or determined in another way. There is no basis to infer project-level effects from the current information.

What the plan could mean for development work

For players, a workforce reduction often prompts immediate questions about specific games. The information available here does not establish delays, cancellations or staffing changes on particular titles. It would be premature to attach the German plan to a named project simply because one of the studios is historically or structurally linked to a particular series.

What can be said is that support studios and shared teams can have broad importance inside a publisher. A model in which Düsseldorf and Berlin support Creative Houses means their work may connect to projects beyond a single studio label. At the same time, Mainz’s placement in Creative House 4 places it in a different management grouping from the other two German offices. Those relationships make a headcount target significant, but they also make simplistic conclusions unreliable.

The clearer immediate implication is for staff. A voluntary program can offer a less abrupt route than direct redundancy, particularly when compensation reflects tenure. But it also transfers a difficult decision to workers, many of whom may have specialized skills, established teams and long careers at the company. And if enough people with particular expertise choose to leave, the consequences are not necessarily predictable from an overall target number alone.

Ubisoft’s wider cost pressure remains visible

The German discussions arrive amid continuing pressure on Ubisoft’s business. Recent reductions in Finland and Singapore have added to a picture of a publisher trying to reduce costs across multiple locations. Despite that, the market reaction cited alongside the latest cuts was negative: Ubisoft shares fell below €5, their first time under that level in a month, and were more than 95 percent below their 2018 level.

Share movements do not explain every decision a company makes, nor do they reveal the exact outcome of an employee consultation. They do show that cost-cutting alone has not settled investor concerns. For workers, that can be especially unsettling: a voluntary plan may be presented as an alternative to layoffs, while the company’s broader financial and organizational pressures continue in the background.

Ubisoft’s proposal in Germany is still at the discussion stage, and that distinction should guide expectations. The relevant questions now are whether a final agreement is reached with the Works Council, what terms it contains, how many employees ultimately elect to take it and whether Ubisoft provides more detail about its staffing plans across the affected studios. In a games industry where studio structures can be as complicated as a strategy-game tech tree, the human stakes are much more direct.

The wider business context is also a reminder that industry developments extend beyond releases and hardware. For another recent look at the commercial side of games, see this report on a Clash Royale tabletop Kickstarter.