
Assassin's Creed Shadows is doing very well. Incredibly well. You wouldn't believe how well it's doing. But despite it all, it's not doing quite as well as AC Valhalla did back in November 2020—Shadows is the second-biggest launch in the series' long history, not the first.
But per an internal Ubisoft email seen by IGN, the company's telling employees that it's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison to compare Shadows and Valhalla. "Valhalla launched under extraordinary conditions," says Ubi's internal comms, smack-dab in the middle of "widespread lockdowns and brand-new console hardware."