Assassin’s Creed Valhalla may have started as “just the next entry” in the beloved Ubisoft franchise, but it soon became more than that. The recent Ubisoft financial briefing noted that the game became a huge success. It was released over two years ago, yet by 2022 it grossed over $1 billion dollars in sales across the main game and the multiple DLC packs released for it. Oh, and the cosmetics, you can’t forget that. But, many are wondering if the title will expand its reach further by going to other platforms, including the Xbox Game Pass. There were even rumors that this would happen soon based on certain sights found by gamers.
However, Ubisoft has quickly denied those rumors and revealed:
“This was an error and has been corrected.”
At the least, they were decisive about it and didn’t string gamers along. Something that we’ve all seen over recent years. Typically, the people behind the Xbox Game Pass let fans know ahead of time what games are coming to the much-enjoyed platform. Yet, there have been a few times that a AAA title is surprise dropped for fans to enjoy. Sadly, that won’t be the case with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. But why is that the case? Why wouldn’t they want to put it on the Xbox/PC service?
The answer is many-fold. The first answer is that they likely want to keep reaping the maximum profit possible from it. Again, they’ve made a billion dollars from the title, and if it suddenly goes to Xbox Game Pass, that’s money they’re losing. That’s a big deal.
Second, there are plenty of rumors that the game, and other previous titles, might be getting a Steam release soon. One that will require a Ubisoft Connect account to play, but you’ll still be able to play them on Steam. If that is the case, Ubisoft has yet to deny it, then doing that release while the game is on the Xbox Game Pass would be a conflicting business move.
The final reason might be timing. While the game is two years old, there’s still content released for it. Soon, the last update for the game will arrive. It’ll serve as an epilogue to the main story and thus tie up everything the game set up before.
Ubisoft may want to capitalize on one last surge of players by giving them this free update. That’s not to say the game won’t ever come to the Xbox Game Pass. It’s just that it likely won’t happen this year.
Source: Eurogamer
