Ubisoft has shifted Assassin’s Creed Shadows’s release date from November 12 to February 14.
Christmas is out, but it’s fit for a Valentine’s Day gift surprise.
Ubisoft said the game had been delayed to give it further polish and to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Star Wars Outlaws launch.
“While the game is feature complete, the learnings from the Star Wars Outlaws release led us to provide additional time to further polish the title,” the developer said.
Star Wars Outlaws is a solid game but its sales were lower than Ubisoft expected. Thegame was criticised for its bugs and generally somewhat unpolished feel.
The release saw Ubisoft’s shares tumble to their lowest value in a decade. This caused consternation among shareholders, calls for a change in strategy, and even a change in leadership.
“Despite solid ratings (Metacritic 76) and user scores across the First Party and Epic stores (3.9/5) that reflect an immersive and authentic Star Wars universe, Star Wars Outlaws initial sales proved softer than expected,” Ubisoft wrote in a financial update released on September 25.
Gameindustry.biz estimates Star Wars Outlaws has sold 800,000 copies, as discussed on the site’s podcast.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows sees the series head to Japan for the first time. We’ve had Assassin’s Creed games in China, Syria, The Caribbean and, of course, London, among others. But Japan has been on fans’ most wanted list since the early days of the Assassin’s Creed games.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, PC, and Mac (for systems with Apple chipsets).
It will be the first full-priced game in the series since 2020’s Assassins’ Creed Valhalla — while Assassin’s Creed Mirage was well-regarded it was a mid-price (£44.99) release and not quite of the same scope as other recent mainline Assassin’s Creed games.
Ubisoft has not announced sales figures for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. But it has said it was the first of the publisher’s games to reach $1 billion (£750,000) in revenue and has attracted more than 20 million players.
But 20 million players and 20 million sales? That’s not the same thing. Still, Ubisoft has not had a hit of that scale since.
Assassin’s Creed Jade is also expected in 2025.
It’s a large-scale open-world game for iOS and Android rather than consoles.
A good-looking trailer for the game was released in August 2023 but we have not heard a great deal about it since.
