To the surprise of very few given yesterday’s news that the game had been pulled from the Tokyo Game Show and had its planned press previews cancelled, the harsh lessons of Star Wars Outlaws‘ disastrous release has led Ubisoft to officially delay the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
This delay was announced on the morning of September 25th by way of a statement authored by Assassin’s Creed series executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté and shared to the Assassin’s Creed franchise’s official Twitter account.
“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, brought by new technology, all set in a beautiful and immersive world,” wrote Côté. “This is an ambitious addition to the franchise, a rich experience that can be lived through the eyes of two unique protagonists – but we realize we need more time to polish and refine the experience, pushing further some of our key features.”
“As such, we’ve made the decision to postpone the release date to February 14th, 2025,” he then announced. “The game will release on a broad range of platforms, including Steam at launch. Additionally, preorders will be refunded and all future preorders will be granted the first expansion for free.”
Drawing the statement to a close, the franchise EP ultimately declared, “We understand this decision will come as disappointing news, especially to those who’ve been waiting patiently for an Assassin’s Creed game inspired by feudal Japan, but we sincerely believe this is in the best interest of the game, and ultimately your experience as a player.”
“Rest assured we are looking forward to the moment you will embark on a memorable adventure with Naoe and Yasuke,” he concluded. “Until then, we thank you for your ongoing support.”
Further, in a separate statement later issued to investors regarding Ubisoft’s updating of its financial targets, the studio’s leadership detailed a number of changes they would be making to Shadows to try and boost its reception among players.
“While the game is feature complete, the learnings from the Star Wars Outlaws release led us to provide additional time to further polish the title,” they added. “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.”
“We are departing from the traditional Season Pass model,” said Ubisoft. “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. The game will mark the return of our new releases on Steam Day 1.”
That all said, it should be noted that while Ubisoft will clearly be working to improve the game during this interim period, whatever improvements Shadows receives will have more to do with its technical and visual aspects rather than its core identity, as at this point it’s just too far along in its general development cycle to realistically scrap and restart it from the ground up.
As noted above, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is now slated to release on February 14th, 2025.
