Ubisoft has assured the public that there won’t be any more delays for Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, chief corporate finance officer Frédérick Duguet addressed the issue directly, as it came up in their earnings call Q&A. Duguet said this:
“As we mentioned a month ago, AC Shadows was feature complete, so it was close to being launched. We wanted to make sure that the delivery of the experience is impeccable on day one, so that was the purpose of the decision.
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So, we have a good visibility for the game to be delivered with a great experience by mid-February, and with great quality.”
Later on, Duguet did admit that the decision was partly influenced by the reception to Star Wars Outlaws. He said:
“On the back of what we saw with Star Wars Outlaws, we need to really make sure that we come with an impeccable player experience on day one. Of course there are always some bugs, but we’ve been focusing, and we’re continuing to focus on, making sure that the day one experience will be well optimized.”
Assassin’s Creed Shadows faced a firestorm of controversy for various reasons. They recently announced plans to delay the game from its November 15, 2024 release date to February 14, 2025. They also dropped the season pass from the title, with players who pre-ordered getting to play the first expansion free.
Ubisoft had already previously stated that they were confident about releasing the game in 2025, in spite of the sudden announcement of the similarly themed The Ghost of Yotei from Sucker Punch Studios.
The rumors going around was that Ubisoft’s own developers knew that Assassin’s Creed Shadows wasn’t going to be ready this November, and asked their management to allow them to delay the title.
In the past, Ubisoft had forced through the release of these games, even when they launched broken, with the precept that it would be better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Unfortunately, they were proven right on this, as gamers did repeatedly buy their broken Assassin’s Creed games in high numbers.
Of course, with Star Wars Outlaws finally being that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, Ubisoft knew that they were not going to get away with releasing another broken game this year.
And even as we are writing this, we don’t even know if the Guillemot brothers will still be Ubisoft’s owners tomorrow. In the face of all this uncertainty, Ubisoft needed to ground their projects with some certainty, and that’s why they drew a line in the sand with Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ release.
