Ubisoft employees are planning a strike in response to the latest cost-cutting efforts affecting the company's Barcelona branch, having announced as much at the end of June 2026. The protest will take place over several days, although it is structured to avoid completely halting the operations of the Ubisoft subsidiary.
Ubisoft's recent restructuring has already affected several teams in its global network. Earlier in June, the company confirmed further cutbacks, including the closures of Ubisoft Belgrade and Winnipeg, as well as a significant restructuring of its Barcelona branch. The Spanish studio is now refocused around Rainbow Six franchise instead of its previous offering of support work.
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Ubisoft Barcelona workers plan several strike days
Ahead of the latest cutbacks, Ubisoft Barcelona employees now intend to strike on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons between June 30 and July 16, for a total of six partial stoppages over three weeks. The strike is a direct response to the restructuring in early June 2026 that resulted in 51 Ubisoft Barcelona employees losing their jobs. That equates to roughly 28% of the studio's workforce before cuts. The recently announced strike is a union affair, and not the first of its kind in 2026. A more extensive three-day strike was organized by Ubisoft employees back in mid-February, stemming from a coordinated effort by five French unions.
Ubisoft Barcelona's strike demand
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Binding new studio mandate protecting the 51 employees affected by the latest downsizing
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Five-year guarantee against future collective redundancies
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Immediate execution of previously agreed internal campaigns
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Return to 60% monthly work from home
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Review of wage improvement plans and social benefits
The strike requires a focus on stronger job security and improved working conditions. Employees are seeking a binding new agreement that would protect the 51 affected roles, establish a five-year safeguard against future collective redundancies, immediately implement previously agreed promotions, restore work-from-home flexibility to 60% of each month and resume negotiations over pay improvements and social benefits. It remains unclear whether the summer strike at Ubisoft has a viable chance of achieving its goals. However, as the action currently involves a partial stoppage of work through the first half of July 2026, the union organizing the strike appears to be retaining the possibility of wider disruption if management does not respond to its demands.
The demands related to the workhouse model are older than the rest of the logic behind the upcoming strike. Ubisoft has already faced labor tensions over return-to-office policies, with unions representing its Barcelona developers previously suing the company's RTO mandate in November 2024. No public resolution of that case has been reported as of June 2026.
Looking at the bigger picture, the timing of the strike in the summer of 2026 is notable as Ubisoft has sought to present its ongoing restructuring as a path towards greater stability. The company has recently deepened its focus on major franchises through Tencent-backed Vantage Studios, while reorganizing its remaining subsidiaries into largely genre-focused “creative houses,” announced between late 2025 and early 2026. The subsequent strikes signal that workers are now pushing back against what they see as the human cost of the leader, even the human cost of that leader, as the only path to sustainability. the struggling developer-publisher. According to recent management announcements, Ubisoft's studio closures will continue through early 2029, but not necessarily at a steady pace.
