Assassin’s Creed: Shadows’ Rumored Co-Op Mode Has Been Reportedly Canceled

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In the early 2010s, the Assassin’s Creed games were famous for having multiplayer modes that were just as innovative and interesting as their main story campaigns.

The tradition of competitive, stealth-based multiplayer in Assassin’s Creed began with 2010’s Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and continued in subsequent games until 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Unity. Unity switched gears, offering a cooperative experience where four players, all controlling copies of the character Arno Dorian, worked together on heists and assassinations.

Although not everyone loved the multiplayer modes in Assassin’s Creed, they were unique and exciting, and many players still want to see them return in future games.

While a separate multiplayer Assassin’s Creed game, Assassin’s Creed Invictus, is in development, there were widespread expectations that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would also get a new cooperative story mode for players to enjoy with friends. However, recent comments from the game’s creators indicate this co-op mode might not happen after all.

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows’ Multiplayer Cancellation and Future

Talk about a possible co-op mode for Assassin’s Creed Shadows started circulating in early 2024. This mode, internally known as LEAGUE, was expected to be added to the game after its initial release.

Ever since Shadows came out in 2025, people have been speculating about a cooperative multiplayer mode. However, Ubisoft didn’t confirm anything officially until recently, when the French news site Origami spoke with several Ubisoft employees who wished to remain anonymous.

Sources at Ubisoft told Origami that the Ubisoft Annecy studio was developing a game called LEAGUE. Originally, it was planned as a four-player co-op mode for the game Shadows, featuring story-driven missions similar to the co-op gameplay in Unity.

I recently learned that the team at Ubisoft Annecy was actually developing a game called LEAGUE! Apparently, it started as something they were building to let players team up and play together in Shadows. It’s fascinating to think about how it evolved from just being a co-op mode into its own project!

In 2025, Ubisoft Annecy decided that the planned co-op mode was taking too long and wouldn’t meet their quality standards. Instead, they began working on a completely new, separate cooperative Assassin’s Creed game, also set in feudal Japan and using similar open-world features as Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

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According to sources, Ubisoft Vantage Studios decided to cancel both this new project and the original co-op mode for Shadows earlier in the year after reviewing them internally. However, some of the team members who worked on the co-op features in Annecy are now being asked to brainstorm ideas for co-op modes in future Assassin’s Creed games.

It seems the future of cooperative play in Shadows might be limited, and the game may not receive much new content in its second year. However, Assassin’s Creed fans could soon see multiplayer return, potentially expanding beyond the Invictus mode.

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2026-02-06 02:09