Ubisoft Threatens Legal Action Against “Harassment,” Creates New “Entity”
Ubisoft is preparing for the worst on multiple fronts. The video game developer has had a rough few years, with its stock value dropping 85% since 2021 and the recent disaster of Star Wars Outlaws – a bug-riddled joke of a game that tried to give gamers a female Han Solo – defining its 2024. The road to its next big release, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, hasn’t instilled much confidence in fans or investors, with a string of public relations nightmares – stealing the flag of a Japanese reenactment group, using Chinese architecture and designs instead of Japanese ones – combined with the use of Yasuke, a black man whose history had been fudged to make him a samurai causing several delays for the game, which will finally be released in three days, on March 20. (Reportedly, these delays were also about fixing bugs and gameplay problems, which doesn’t exactly make things better.) Now, with another game looking like it’s going to bomb and investors threatening hostile takeovers, Ubisoft is taking drastic measures to protect itself.
The first comes in the form of a veiled threat. In an interview with BMFTV, a French media outlet (via 80 Level), an unnamed Ubisoft representative said the developer would be watching social media outlets – specifically naming X, Reddit, and most importantly, YouTube – and “respond swiftly to any issues.” The Ubisoft employee also claimed that they have lawyers “on standby” to start suing anyone they deem guilty of “harassment.” Notice how vague those terms are. What “issues” are they going to respond to, and what will that response be? And what qualifies as “harassment”? This feels like more of an attempt to silence criticism than a serious plea for civility. They know bad reviews are probably about to drop, and they want to head them off. They don’t explain what they mean by harassment because video game companies love to call almost anything critical of them harassment; it puts online critics on their guard and makes them second-guess bashing Assassin’s Creed Shadows, even if there’s no way in hell their comments could lead to a viable lawsuit. That goes for the term “issues,” too. How will they respond to whatever these issues are? Again, they don’t say, but in the very next sentence, they mention lawyers and lawsuits. It looks like they’re hoping to head off at least some bad reviews.
What constitutes as “harassment” Ubisoft?
Be clear because you’re apparently creating a task force of corporate surveillance with preemptive legal threats.
While I’m all for protecting your devs from attacks, this sounds like a veiled threat against criticism. pic.twitter.com/8WNHL7QB6F
— Legendary Drops (@ALegendaryDrops) March 18, 2025
At the same time, Ubisoft is getting ready to lose money on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and wants to protect its company as best it can – particularly by protecting its major franchises. Bloomberg reports (via SmashJT) that Ubisoft is setting up a new “entity” to hold its most lucrative (or potentially lucrative, as the case may be) IPs, including Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, and Far Cry. They’re also looking for minority investors to help prop up the entity (anyone else thinking of South Park?), with Chinese company Tencent (which also owns part of Ubisoft) mentioned as a potential stakeholder. This appears to be Ubisoft’s attempt to gird itself from a hostile takeover or some other revolt from its shareholders, keeping its top brands somewhere where it can retain control of them if the company goes under or is wrested from its founders, the Guillemot family – or if they simply sell the company outright. This is the clearest indication yet that Ubisoft is in deep trouble, and they know Assassin’s Creed Shadows is not likely to be the life raft they need. The writing has been on the wall for some time, but seeing the company actually take pains to prepare for the imminent disaster means there’s no misreading this: bad times are coming, and Ubisoft may not be around much longer, at least in its current form.
Let us know what you think of Ubisoft’s attempts to offset an impending disaster in the comments!
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