Ubisoft confident of avoiding further Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay

Ubisoft has said it’s confident of hitting Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ recently delayed release date.

Last month the company delayed Assassin’s Creed Shadows from this November to February 14, 2025.

At the same time, it announced that it was departing from its traditional season pass model, cancelling early access to the title, and granting players who pre-ordered the game its first expansion for free.

During Ubisoft’s second quarter earnings call on Wednesday, the company was asked if there’s a risk of Assassin’s Creed Shadows being further delayed.

“As we mentioned a month ago, AC Shadows was feature complete, so it was close to being launched,” said chief corporate finance officer Frédérick Duguet. “We wanted to make sure that the delivery of the experience is impeccable on day one, so that was the purpose of the decision.

“So we have a good visibility for the game to be delivered with a great experience by mid-February, and with great quality.”

Asked again if there’s a chance of another delay, Duguet reiterated: “We have a good visibility for the game to come on time and with great quality.”

Later in the call, Duguet said Ubisoft’s decision to delay the game had been influenced by the poor reception to Star Wars Outlaws, which wasn’t as polished as it should have been and has underperformed commercially.

“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 optimised.”

Ubisoft has said that the Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay will result in an extra €20 million ($21.7m) of development costs.

Following the game’s delay, Ubisoft has attempted to play down concerns that Sony’s recently-revealed Ghost of Yōtei, an outwardly similar historical action-adventure game also set in Japan, could eat into Assassin’s Creed Shadows sales now that both titles are being released in 2025.

“I would like to say that there’s a lot of space for very high quality games, and those two games can sell very well,” CEO Yves Guillemot said last month.