Assassin's Creed Shadows has been delayed again, as part of a "strategic update" that will see it "review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders."
"As part of the renewed focus on gameplay quality and engaging day-one experiences, it has been decided to provide an additional month of development to Assassin’s Creed Shadows," Ubisoft said in a statement.
"This additional time will allow the team to better incorporate the player feedback gathered over the past three months and help create the best conditions for launch by continuing to engage closely with the increasingly positive Assassin’s Creed community. The game is now scheduled for March 20."
"We are all behind our teams’ efforts to create the most ambitious Assassin’s Creed opus of the franchise and made the decision to provide an extra month of development to Shadows in order to better incorporate the player feedback gathered over the past three months that will enable us to fully deliver on the potential of the game and finish the year on a strong note," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said.
A separate statement on the delay from franchise head Marc-Alexis Coté was posted to X.
"Since November, we've been thrilled to share our progress through gameplay overviews, and the overwhelming excitement has truly inspired us," Coté said. "Each week has brought valuable feedback from our community. While we've already made remarkable strides, we believe a few additional weeks are needed to implement that feedback and ensure an even more ambitious and engaging day-one experience.
"We remain committed to delivering a high-quality, immersive experience—fostered by ongoing dialog between our players and development teams. We know you're eager to learn more about Assassin's Creed Shadows, and we're excited to share that more updates will be coming your way very soon!"
"We've seen an increasingly positive reaction from the overall community, so we want to pursue that momentum and to incorporate the latest feedback that will allow us to deliver on our commitment to provide a great experience by the time we launch," Ubisoft CFO Frédérick Duguet said during an investors call held after the delay announcement. "We will continue to fine-tune the game mechanics and the progression balance."
"There's rich communication between the team and the community, and it's really helping them to look at what are the best solutions to some of the problems they have," CEO Yves Guillemot added.
"Rich communication" is certainly one way to put it. Assassin's Creed Shadows has faced very ugly backlash from a small but vocal swath of the game community over its lead characters, specifically the samurai Yasuke, based on a real-life 16th-century figure who was Black. By just about any measure he's an ideal fit for Assassin's Creed, which as PC Gamer's Harvey Randall wrote "has a charming tendency to 'what if' historical figures into larger-than-life versions of themselves." But some gamers have gone so far as to demand that he be replaced entirely by a 'real' Japanese character.
Ubisoft has fumbled its response to that blowback more than once, such as when Guillemot tried to reassure angry gamers that "our goal is not to push any specific agenda," but Coté has been somewhat blunter in his responses: In June 2024 he said Elon Musk's negative comments about the game are "feeding hated," and in November called out "attacks driven by intolerance," and the "lies, half truths and personal attacks" faced by Assassin's Creed Shadows developers online.
Assassin's Creed Shadows was originally slated for release on November 15, 2024, but was delayed in September "to provide additional time to further polish the title."
