Assassin's Creed Shadows Delayed To Feb 2025, Partly Due To Poor Start For Star Wars Outlaws

Since when did 'lessons' become 'learnings'? (bleurgh)

Seems like February is going to be way too busy. Avowed, Monster Hunter, Kingdom Come, and now AC just to name a few. Ironically, Avowed moved to February to be in a less crowded space....

I wonder if this means Avowed will be delayed again considering it was delayed because the holiday season was so packed and now February's looking even more packed.

Well that’s not good release date wise.
Was looking forward to that as a Christmas game.
Had Avowed pencilled in for 18th of February 2025.
Doubt Avowed is ready, but they could bring that forward to November 2024, that would be nice but probably impossible now.

Maybe in the next few months I'll complete Odyssey with all its DLC finally, then back to Origins to finish it all, then Valhalla with LCD, then Mirage and then I'll probably have had enough of AC in 2026-7 🤣

February is starting to look really busy. Having Monster Hunter and Avowed in Feb makes me less likely to get Shadows.

Lmfao Avowed was delayed because “too many games” were coming out and now nothing is coming out in November, but in February we already have AC Shadows, MH Wilds, and Avowed.

Microsoft taking the L as usual.

Ditching the early access? Day one launch on steam? Delaying a game to polish it? Is this truly the fabled Ubisoft W?

I am SUPER BUMMED by this. But I'll be playing Zelda for the rest of the year so when I finish should be right around the time for release. So still a win. Although Valentine's day release is funny. This plus Ghost of Yotei next year is gonna be good though!
Trying Avowed on gamepass so not worried about that.

I guess I will tack on the hidden blade to go with my CE preorder. Probably should get Mirage as well.

I will say in general though it sucks that these companies can't get these games out the door (and if they can't… have something else in the works) on time. Nintendo has enough irons in the fire that delays like Metroid Prime 4 are not as noticeable because other stuff just fills the void.

@Bigmanfan Whoa, launching right to Steam?! That's new. What's next, not tying it to the Ubi launcher?

STILL waiting for Mirage on Steam...

I could feel this coming and it was the only new release this year I was planning on getting at launch, so F me I guess.

Them saying Outlaws plays a part in this is... Strange. Although this is not the first time this has happened for them. But polish is polish, not sure what outlaws has to do with it 'really'.

I didn't get Outlaws, not only because games are expensive, but because it looked hyper boring and conservative to me, so unless that's the "learnings" and they're taking the extra months to make this game less like that game--which they're not, it's feature complete--then I'm really bummed by this news. Finally being able to play Genshin on a console is pretty much the only thing left I have to look forward to this year.

The future survival of Ubisoft as a publisher depends on this game. They need to elevate their approach from the bloated microtransaction/live-service-focused model that is actively aggressive towards the immersion, logical consistency and vibe that helps create an organic emotional connection to a game.

I'm rooting for them, but the last 6 years has seen almost all their series take a step backwards.
Far Cry 6 < Far Cry 5 (2018)
Breakpoint < Wildlands (2017)
Legion < Watch Dogs 2 (2016)
Valhalla < Origins (2017)

@GhanaViking Probably the point. That ways when Shadows does terribly, they can blame the other games that launched.

They knew it was gonna bomb releasing it, hopefully it still bombs in February.

Weird reasoning imho but okay, I guess. The copy/paste mechanics with another world/setting are starting to be a problem for Ubisoft, sales wise?

Well at least we still have.
COD, hopefully a good campaign
Stalker 2
Indy
And all on GPU.

Sure it's star wars fault and the series s id say haha this is to funny 👻

@NEStalgia it's just so silly. They complain their games are doing poorly, but they don't launch it on the most popular gaming storefront. It's just dumb.

"Bad news for anyone who's been looking forward to Assassin's Creed Shadows..."

This game is bad news. Period. 😮‍💨

@Bigmanfan or even an unpopular one, opting only for their own which absolutely nobody voluntarily uses. And still loses steam sales when on steam because of it. Their games don't even show up in the steam mobile app library because they're the only publisher I know of that opts out of family sharing explicitly and the mobile app doesn't show the ones omitted...

At this point they should just throw the games on gog and hope for the best because they literally can't sell any worse....

@NEStalgia "or even an unpopular one, opting only for their own which absolutely nobody voluntarily uses."

I mean... their games are on the Epic store. They moved away from Steam in favor of Epic.

@Lrapsody same for me, last year I finally finished AC Odyssey with all its DLC, so I bought Valhalla deeply discounted and I'm nowhere close to be done with it, I just get distracted by other games and stop playing it for months.

So yeah, maybe by end of 2025 I'll be done with Valhalla and will get around buying Mirage.

@AverageGamer They haven't been consistent with that, either, sometimes only launching on Ubisoft Connect.

Ubisoft got scared after seeing ghost of yotei?

@AndroidBango around the time "detailed" got dropped for "granular"
Words fall in and out of favor

Also of note is that starting with Assassin's Creed Shadows, Ubisoft will no longer be doing Epic exclusivity deals on PC and will also be releasing its games on Steam day one. Perhaps that's one of the lessons it's finally learned: only releasing your games on your own garbage launcher and a different garbage launcher nobody uses will not result in more sales.

In Japan, there is now an unwritten rule that you can't say you like the Assassin's Creed series in public. DEI and the portrayal of Japanese history in the game, which is based on insufficient research, is causing Japanese people a lot of pain.

@NEStalgia Nope. They have been 100% consistent with that.

EDIT: I know this cause that where I've been buying my Ubisoft game for the last couple of years outside of the ones I bought on Stadia and iOS.

@CaptainCluck IDK if it's even a "DEI" thing, but it feels insanely awkward. We play AC to live in this historical settings for a bit, and if we're playing in Japan it stands to reason we want to step into the shoes of a Japanese figure. If we wanted to step into the shoes of an African figure......we could replay Origins. Which is probably a much better game anyway.... We already had AC:Africa. We wanted AC:Japan since AC:Holy Land ended. And they give us AC:Japrica. Still better than AC:London though

It still looks like a fun time once it hits sales, but they definitely short changed what it could have been with some bizarre choices just to differentiate from GoT, IMO.

I'm glad they're giving the game the time it needs. And you know what? I think Yasuke is awesome and I can't wait to experience more of the character.

AC origins was a great change to the formula. AC odyssey is my fav of all the ac games besides the first one. The viking one i have tried so many times and it just doesn't stick for me not sure why. I want it to but it just doesnt.

Since AC Shadows is moving to Feb, does that mean a delay for KKD2 or Avowed, I can see at least one of these being delayed into March or April as Feb is getting very crowded and as much as people are hating on AC Shadows/Ubisoft online it will sell a lot more now with that steam day 1 and impact sales of others maybe except MH Wilds.

@NEStalgia I think both things are true. People play AC to play as someone who fits in with the time and culture. I think it’s obvious to see with Shadows that they chose to tick the DEI box first and foremost and the trailers with American rap music while Yasuke is slaughtering Japanese people dont help, they feel awkward as you say 😂 AC Origins on the other hand is my favourite AC game because it was set in Egypt and Bayek was a likeable, believable character for that time period.

I also think DEI has a wider problem in that it’s become predictable, laughably so. Instead of presenting characters in natural and believable ways, everything has started to look the same. In my opinion it’s starting to have the opposite effect to the one intended.

I am still pre-ordering it. Game looked great in the summer show and I am looking forward to playing as both protagonists.

Perhaps an enterprising modder can come up with something to convert every character in every game in to a gruff, bald Space Marine to keep some people happy…

@freddones
Could it be that people would like to play as native male samurai in a game set in East Asia?

That's too silly. I always have a nagging feeling that any martial arts film set in East Asia would be so much better with a male MC not from that region. Then that MC truly shows the natives how martial arts is done the proper way.

@Fenbops With a lot of companies especially in the gaming sector, you'd be right, but in this case I'm not so sure Ubisoft chose Yasuke for "DEI"/culture war/pandering/projecting reasons. I think that was their attempt to "differentiate" themselves from Ghost, because Ghost was basically the AC:Japan everyone wanted since it was teased at the end of AC1 and for some reason they slept on it until after Sucker Punch beat them to it. So it made this "different", and also I think intentionally sparked outrage and conversation which helped promote the game above the noise, because, without the controversy, it would have seemed like a less interesting Ghost. I think they knew what they were doing. I don't think they were promoting culture wars, I think they were using culture wars as a tool to float their game's mindshare up when it already has a competitor they knew was much more unique.

And for whatever reason, Ubi uses American rap music in ALL their trailers, so I think that's neither here nor there. It's the usual Ubisoft Yves take on what the kids today seem to like.

The internet trying to make it this weird "people hate it because racists don't to play a black assassin" thing is what's really weird though. It ignores that Origins happened and Bayek is one of the fan-favorite characters (I think most would have preferred Origins 2 with more Bayek to this...or Odyssey......or Valhalla....) Also ignores that there's no controversy over Aveligne, even though, that's mostly because few played that game because it was a console port of a Vita game that failed on a dead console. But also because her story fit her time appropriately. Maybe, just maybe the problem here is...people wanted to play AC Japan...with believable characters for Japan. (Yes, I know Yasuke is real, and also was not a famous front lines warrior changing history. They just found something that would cause controversy and ran with it.)

I also agree, the "exclusivity" pushes have mostly pushed things into shining a spotlight on every checkboxed "included" figure just to highlight they've been included so the hecklers don't go nuts. Instead of actually including things as natural it feels like the old circus tents showcasing the 2 headed baby and bearded woman. LOOK EVERYONE, WE'VE GOT A REAL LIVE [insert inclusion demographic individual here] TAKE A LOOK, COME ONE, COME ALL!"

@cardcrusher29 Why have Jackie Chan when you an have Van Damme, amirite?

@NEStalgia I agree with a lot of what you say. I know I would have much preferred an Origins 2 over what’s come since. I did try odyssey and felt the formula was already getting dull after just the one previous game however.

One things for sure whatever is going on at Ubisoft is fascinating right now, even away from the AC Shadows controversies.

@Fenbops Yeah, the Ubisoft scenario is as far as I know, unprecedented. IDK what happened, they used to be amazing. Sometime after ACII took off and they realigned the whole company around cranking AC games out annually to rival CoD, something in the company just broke in a way that never went back together again.

I know a big part of their problems was the Vivendi hostile takeover attempt and their attempts to try to avoid that, and I applaud them for succeeding, and I think things are way better because of it, but I also think in that effort they made a lot of horrible decisions that maybe really were necessary in that moment to do what they needed and keep from being taken over, but in the long term still caused catastrophic damage.

Lesson 1: dont release games in a crappy state.
The bad sales for starwars is their own fault. And also the reason i never preorders or buy their games day one.