Assassin’s Creed has become one of the most iconic franchises in the video game industry. Its next iteration, “Shadows,” is also crucial to Ubisoft. The company is in a tough spot, and how well the game does in the market could determine its future. Now, Ubisoft has delayed—again—the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows to achieve the best possible “release status.”
This is not the first delay that the first Japan-set Assassin’s Creed has suffered. The French company had originally set an initial release date for November 2024. This would have allowed them to take advantage of the momentum of the Christmas campaign to potentially achieve better sales. However, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was embroiled in multiple controversies that made the community look at it with suspicion.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows delayed again, Ubisoft confirms
To try to avoid a possible market failure, Ubisoft announced a first delay to a new launch date: February 14, 2025. Over the next few months, the developers would focus on both implementing changes based on feedback from the public and polishing the game to the max. Some of Ubisoft’s recent big titles have been plagued by bugs, and the community has grown weary of them.
It looks like the team needed a little more time to make sure that Assassin’s Creed Shadows wouldn’t have the same problems. The company has announced a new delay, this time to March 20, 2025.
Ubisoft says that the new release date will give the development team more time to work on community feedback. Some of the firm’s biggest recent bets have had poor performance in the market. This includes AAA budget games based on popular licenses such as Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, although lower budget, also failed, leading Ubisoft to disband the team behind the game.
A potentially unfortunate choice of launch date
Ubisoft really needs Assassin’s Creed Shadows to perform well commercially. This would give them more time to try and change things that will allow them to get back on track and keep shareholders happy. Still, it’s possible that the company made a mistake when they chose the new date for the game’s release. March 20th marks the anniversary of the sarin attack on the Tokyo metro, a terrorist incident that left 14 people dead after the deployment of lethal sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. Considering that many of the pre-launch complaints against the game came from the Japanese public, the choice of date seems unfortunate.
