Assassin's Creed Shadows delayed to 2025 as Ubisoft try to recover from "softer than expected" Star Wars Outlaws launch

rockpapershotgun.com:

The AssCreed faithful have waited a thousand years for a sequel set in feudal Japan, birthplace of ninjas and samurai. Woe unto ye dreamers of Ubisoft takes on Tenchu, for you must carry that candle for a little longer. Assassin's Creed Shadows has been delayed till next year. It was due to launch on 12th November 2024 - now, it will release on 14th February 2025.

The news comes in the shape of an updating of Ubisoft's targets for the financial year 2024-2025, primarily in response to the "softer than expected launch for Star Wars Outlaws". According to Uncle Ubi, Assassin's Creed Shadows is "feature complete", but needs more time in the oven to accommodate learnings from Outlaws.

"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," the statement reads. "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."

In news that will delight the ears of people who think live service expansion roadmaps are the Devil's downloadables, Ubisoft are also "departing from the traditional Season Pass model", though players who preorder the game will be granted the first expansion for free. Shadows will also now "mark the return of our new releases on Steam Day 1" - it'll launch there rather than being exclusive at first on Ubisoft's own storefront. Makes sense - I'm pretty sure Steam has a larger audience than Ubisoft's own store, given that I'd forgotten they had one.

Ubisoft haven't washed their hands of Outlaws just yet. They're going to update it extensively ahead of the Steam launch on 21st November. "In response to player feedback, Ubisoft's development teams are currently fully mobilized to swiftly implement a series of updates to polish and improve the player experience in order to engage a large audience