Ubisoft has delayed the next big Assassin’s Creed game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, into next year. The new (tentative) release date for Assassin’s Creed Shadows is February 14, 2025. Happy Valentine’s Day, ninjas!
Here is a portion of the official statement posted on X/Twitter:
“Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a dream project for us; finally bringing the series to Feudal Japan with many features developed with our community in mind, such as parkour or the renewed stealth. […] But we realize we need more time to polish and refine the experience, pushing further some of our key features.”
Before the delay, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was originally due out this November. Every main Assassin’s Creed game over the last 15+ years has initially released in either October or November, making this a historical delay for Ubisoft.
In a written update for the quarterly conference call, Ubisoft makes some important points on how to improve Shadows’ release, citing the lower-than-expected sales and review scores for Star Wars Outlaws (a game we really enjoyed):
“Despite solid ratings and user scores, Star Wars Outlaws initial sales proved softer than expected. In response to player feedback, Ubisoft’s development teams are currently fully mobilized to swiftly implement a series of updates to polish and improve the player experience […].” Outlaws will also release on Steam on November 21.
The response to Outlaws motivated Ubisoft to pull the plug on the initial holiday release for Assassin’s Creed, their bread-winning franchise:
“While [Assassin’s Creed Shadows] is feature complete, the learnings from the Star Wars Outlaws release led us to prove additional time to further polish the title. This will enable the biggest entry in the franchise to fully deliver on its ambition, notably by fulfilling the promise of our dual protagonist adventure, with Naoe and Yasuke bringing two very different gameplay styles.”
Ubisoft is going a step further and dropping the season pass model, which has supported previous Assassin’s Creed games with bundled post-launch DLC: “All players will be able to enjoy the game at the same time on February 14 and those who preorder the game will be granted the first expansion for free.”
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will now release on February 14, 2025, on PC, Mac, PlayStation, and Xbox. It’s rated M for Mature.
