Video Games

Assassin’s Creed Shadows release delayed to 2025

Ubisoft needs more time

Marco Wutz

Ubisoft

Ubisoft announced that Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the long-awaited next iteration of the series, will not be released on November 12, 2024, as previously planned. Instead, the launch has been delayed to February 14, 2025.

Ubisoft is also changing its early unlock model for the game, for which there will no longer by any sort of early access phase, according to a press release: "We are departing from the traditional Season Pass model. 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 also come to Steam immediately, instead of being exclusive to Ubisoft's PC ecosystem.

Speculation around a potential delay of the title had intensified over the last couple of days due to Ubisoft axing its planned presentation at Tokyo Game Show 2024 shortly before the event. Press events set to take place in the coming days and featuring the game have been canceled as well.

The French developer and publisher saw its share prices plummet after the lacking commercial performance of Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world RPG developed by Ubisoft Massive. Internal critics further exacerbated the issue by publicly calling for leadership changes.

A successful launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadow could ease this pressure on the company and delaying the title to make absolutely sure that it’s well polished at release is one way of raising its chances to impress the audience.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ reveal was marred by controversy around the inclusion of Yasuke as one of the protagonists, which prompted Ubisoft Japan to issue an apology and clarify that anything depicted in the series is not supposed to be historically accurate, but mere fiction.

For more information on the upcoming game, check out our interview with Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ associate game director and read our preview from Summer Games Fest 2024.

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Marco Wutz

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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