Assassin's Creed Shadows release delayed to March as Ubisoft's board consider a company sale

rockpapershotgun.com:

Ubisoft are delaying Assassin's Creed Shadows again, but this time, not just out of concern about the quality of Assassin's Creed Shadows. The French publisher are pushing back release of the new samurai-era open worlder from 14th February to 20th March 2025 while they look into "various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders", with news of a possible major "transaction" to follow.

Quite what this means is open to speculation, but it was recently rumoured that Ubi's First Family the Guillemot brothers have been conspiring with Tencent to buy the company out, while minority shareholders displeased by the company's falling share price have been clamouring for the board to "take Ubisoft private or allow it to sell to a strategic investor". So this could be Big. Bigger than a single video game's delay, anyway.

"Following the strategic and execution reviews initiated by the Executive Committee a few months ago, Ubisoft is taking decisive steps to reshape the Group in order to deliver best-in-class player experiences, enhance operational efficiency and maximize value creation," reads a "strategic update" from Ubisoft, posted this afternoon.

"Ubisoft announced today that it has appointed leading advisors to review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders," it continues. "This process will be overseen by the independent members of the Board of Directors. Ubisoft will inform the market in accordance with applicable regulations if and once a transaction materializes."

Ubisoft have been somewhat up the creek financially for a while, losing almost half their share value in 2024, partly due to the "soft" performance of Star Wars Outlaws. As such they've been cutting back. In December, Ubisoft discontinued PvP shooter XDefiant and laid off around 277 people. According to today's statement, shuttering XDefiant involved the closure of "three production