Ubisoft confirms arena battler codenamed Project Q has been cancelled

Ubisoft has confirmed that its upcoming "team battle arena" title, codenamed Project Q, has been cancelled.

The company told Eurogamer that Project Q was one of the three unannounced projects that it cancelled following a holiday sales slump, with the company attempting to reduce costs by around €200 million over the next two years.

"We can confirm we will no longer support the development of Project Q in order to focus on priority projects, to which our teams are being reallocated," said the company in a statement handed to Eurogamer.

Project Q was unveiled in April 2022 by Ubisoft, which share some concept art on social media and invited players to register for upcoming tests.

Details are scarce on how Project Q would've shaped up, but Ubisoft said the title would allow players to "truly own the experience" and wouldn't be a battle royale project, but would rather "feature a variety of PvP moves with one single goal in mind: FUN." The French publisher also clarified that Project Q wouldn't utilize NFT features.

Ubisoft has endured a grueling couple of weeks. After announcing the cancellations mentioned above, CEO Yves Guillemot sent an internal message that placed pressure on workers to deliver projects on time and on budget, and was subsequently lambasted by French workers union Solidaires Informatique over that "catastrophic communication." 

"Mr. Guillemot asks a lot from his employees, but without any compensations," said Solidaires Informatique, which also called for staff at Ubisoft Paris to go on strike in response.

Ubisoft employees are also reported to have pushed back during an internal Q&A session. As reported by Kotaku, staff spoke out against Guillemot over his comments and asked the long-serving CEO why he had mishandled the company to the point that Ubisoft employees around the world have been pressurized into remedying the situation.

Game Developer has reached out to Ubisoft for more information on the cancellation of Project Q and other titles that were in development.