Assassin’s Creed Shadows Delayed Again
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been delayed again. The newest game in the action/stealth series was originally scheduled to be released on November 15, 2024, but was pushed back to February 14, 2025, less than two months before it was to hit shelves. The reasons cited by developer Ubisoft and the production team were to work out some of the kinks in the gameplay, including new mechanics Assassin’s Creed Shadows would feature. There were other reports, particularly from Endymion, that there was more to it than just fixing buggy gameplay, like taking out some of the more politically charged dialogue (because, of course, a game that takes place in feudal Japan would somehow comment on modern American politics and social issues). Whatever the case, an extra three months doesn’t appear to have been enough time because today, Ubisoft announced that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would not make its February 14 release date and would be postponed to March 20, another month away. You can see the announcement below:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows now releases March 20, 2025. pic.twitter.com/wTPzY0oiHy
— Assassin’s Creed (@assassinscreed) January 9, 2025
They cite catering to fan feedback as the reason for the new Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay, although they don’t specify what that feedback asked them for, so I suspect that’s a smokescreen. I would guess it’s more of the same, and they just need a little longer to perfect the gameplay. After what happened to Star Wars Outlaws, their last major release that bombed big time, I think that’s enough of a reason for them to delay the game. Star Wars Outlaws was notoriously buggy, with atrocious enemy AI, stealth that made no sense, ships that parked inside mountains, and instances of the player being swept clear across the landscape. Ubisoft is not in a good financial place right now, its market cap having declined 85% since 2021 from $12.17 billion to $1.78 billion this month, and their last big release cost them even more money while tarnishing their reputation. (Whatever you may have thought about Ubisoft, good or bad, your estimation went down after Star Wars Outlaws.) On the other hand, Yellowflash thinks it could be something else:
In short, an Indonesian company called Randoville Studios, which did some art and animation work on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and other games, is being accused of abusing some of the women who work there. If that story is true, it’s very disturbing, but I don’t think that’s why Ubisoft is delaying Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Yellowflash’s video is the first I’d even heard of it, and that studio is far enough removed from Ubisoft that it likely wouldn’t impact game sales. I also don’t think it’s Endymion’s earlier reports of removing some of the woke stuff from the game; I imagine he was right about that for the first delay, but at this point, what more can they do on that score? They’re not going to be able to remove Yasuke, the black samurai they’ve made the game’s protagonist, along with a female shinobi Naoe. Yasuke’s role as the hero of Assassin’s Creed Shadows rubbed people the wrong way because it smacked of woke politics; instead of making a Japanese character the hero of the first Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan, they used dubious-at-best history to make a black man the lead – and a samurai – and had him running around Japan killing people to rap music. And while there’s no way they can remove Yasuke as the lead – they’d effectively have to remake the whole game to do that – I think Emdymion is right when he says they spent the previous delay trying to soften the blow, particularly amid the backlash over their many other cultural mistakes. But this time, I think it’s just more gameplay issues, since clearly the Ubisoft crew were not sticklers for giving people a game that actually worked before Star Wars Outlaws became a punchline.
Let us know what you think of the latest Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay in the comments!
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