Despite the success of last year’s Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, Ubisoft has been facing a lot of internal struggles behind the scenes in the last few years. Following an “organisational restructuring”, the studio has confirmed the internal delay of seven upcoming titles and the cancellation of six more, including the long-anticipated Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake.
The restructuring comes after the French publisher completed a €1.16 billion investment from Chinese conglomerate Tencent for the creation of Vantage Studios, a division created between the two to lead the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises. In recent weeks, Ubisoft closed its recently unionised Halifax studio and confirmed the departure of Tom Clancy: The Division 3 director Julian Gerighty, just one week after he was appointed to lead the project.
The newly restructured Ubisoft will centre around five main sectors with different focuses. These include the recently debuted Vantage Studios, a “Creative House 2” dedicated to the Division, Splinter Cell, and Ghost Recon franchises, a third focused on live service games such as Skull and Bones, For Honor, and The Crew, a fourth centered on “narrative-driven universes” such as Rayman, Prince of Persia, and Beyond Good and Evil, and a final focused on casual games such as Just Dance.
With these changes to the company’s overall structure, it is expected to save upwards of €200 million. The “Creative House” structure is expected to come into effect in April 2026.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake’s Turbulent Development History
The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake was originally planned to release in January 2021 after it was first revealed in September 2020’s Ubisoft Forward showcase. The game was originally in development at Ubisoft Pune, marking its debut as a lead developer on a project. This version was ultimately canned following criticisms of its reveal, with Ubisoft later revealing that development would be handed to the game’s original lead developer, Ubisoft Montreal, and rebooted.
The Sands of Time Remake was then confirmed for a 2026 release in June 2023, with Ubisoft’s fiscal report for June 2025 confirming that the game would release by the end of March 2026. Rumours began to circulate that the game was preparing for release on January 16, 2026. This date came by without any announcements or a shadow-drop. Now, it appears that the game was cancelled very late in development.
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