Until late last month, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was slated to be released in November of this year. Ubisoft subsequently made the surprise announcement that the game has been delayed to early next year. But according to a new report, this was far from a surprise to Ubisoft Quebec, the studio behind Shadows. The developers have reportedly been pushing for a delay for months.
Ubisoft’s announcement stated that Shadows’ new release date was implemented to give the developers more time to polish the gameplay, and because the company wanted to apply the lessons it learned from Star Wars Outlaws’ disappointing rollout–the game has reportedly sold only around 1 million copies thus far. Inside Gaming’s report states that both of those reasons are true, but adds further context by stating that, “[Assassin’s Creed Shadow] is currently not at the stage it needs to be for release.”
There are still adjustments to be made to fix the remaining bugs. However, the larger issues apparently revolve around the desire to shore up the historically accurate aspects of the story. One of the stated reasons for these 11th hour changes is that “historical experts were brought onto the project much later than usual for a project of this magnitude.”
At least one silver lining from Ubisoft’s latest moves was the decision to reverse the company’s stance about releasing new games on consoles and Steam on day one. That was apparently a frequently requested change from some of Ubisoft’s employees.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will hit consoles and PC on February 14, 2025.