EXCLUSIVE – Context Around the Assassin’s Creed Shadows Delay

As a seasoned gamer with over two decades of experience under my belt, I can confidently say that Ubisoft’s decision to delay Assassin’s Creed Shadows was a wise move, albeit long overdue. The developers have been pushing for this delay for months, and it seems like even the less-than-stellar performance of Star Wars Outlaws has finally convinced the powers that be at Ubisoft HQ to listen.

Just last week, Ubisoft disclosed that the launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, initially slated for November, has been postponed to February 2025. Although this news took many by surprise, within the company, it was anticipated and considered a necessary move.

Ubisoft stated that they’ve postponed the game launch to enhance and perfect the player experience, citing lessons learned from the Star Wars Outlaws release as a reason. In reality, the development team has been advocating for a delay for quite some time, but their requests had gone unheard until the rollout of Outlaws.

In a company-wide communication, Yves Guillemot acknowledged that Star Wars Outlaws’ sales fell short of expectations, with Metacritic reviewers giving it a 76 out of 100 and users scoring it a mere 5.4 out of 10. While specific sales targets for the game within its first month weren’t disclosed, it has now surpassed 1 million units sold. This underperformance seems to have raised concerns at Ubisoft headquarters, leading to the postponement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows until Q1 2025 and the decision to bring games back onto Steam, a move that Ubisoft teams have been advocating for years.

Initially, I’d like to clarify some misconceptions regarding Yasuke – he’s staying put. However, it’s true that the development team has been working diligently to address various historical and cultural issues surrounding Yasuke, which were identified during pre-release playtests and amplified post-launch due to extensive feedback.

Essentially, the problems found in the game should have been spotted internally before its unveiling, given Ubisoft’s rigorous asset-review system. Delving into how these oversights occurred, it’s been shared that historians were not initially involved as early as is typical for such a large project, and there were also miscommunications among teams, along with compromises in the approval process of assets to meet deadlines.

It’s worth noting that the challenges faced by the team aren’t recent developments. In fact, seven developers working on the project have been advocating for a delay for quite some time now. Their concerns have also been acknowledged in other studios within the company. However, the decision to delay is primarily due to a rigid development schedule and the need to address problems stemming from it.

You can watch a video version of this report below:

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