Assassin's Creed Shadows - Delayed to March 20

[HiddenX]

The Gamer Social Club reports that Assassin's Creed Shadows has been delayed to March 20:

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Gets Another Delay

Ubisoft’s flagship title has been hit with yet another delay, and a new release date!

It’s fair to say that Ubisofts Assassin’s Creeds Shadows has had its fair share of issues in the past year or so. Between controversial reveals and questions of quality, we get to add delays to the list.

Originally expected in 2024 before being delayed into 2025, today it has been announced via the official Twitter/X account for Assassin’s Creed Shadows that the game is getting another. It will be a short delay from February 14th to March 20th.

[...]

More information.

 

[Gwendo]

Hum... So they weren't confident enough to release near KCD2 and Avowed...

 

[JDR13]

I have the feeling Ubisoft really needs this to be successful. Their more recent releases haven't exactly been home runs.

 

[axellslade]

I have the feeling Ubisoft really needs this to be successful. Their more recent releases haven't exactly been home runs.

Rumor has it that if they don't suceed with this, they will be sold off to the highest bidder.

 

[Vaelith]

I may be the only one that finds interesting that when Gothic Remake gets a delay "it's good that they will polish the game", but when Assassin's Creed Shadows gets a delay "is another negative to add to the list".

When KCD2 gets preorder exclusive content that they explicitely carve out for people who will also pay the full price of the game just a few days later "it's fine, this is standard practice", but if Assassin's Creed does it "they're greedly leeches that are destroying the industry".

I tire of the weighted language that even "critics" use constantly to fit their preferred fabricated narrative.

My honest opinion - I don't have massive expectations for the game either. As a RPG enjoyer I'd love if it was a good game though, as it will give me a lot of hours of fun, like Assassin's Creed Odyssey did, for example.

To me, it feels like a thing of stupidity to undermine a game's reputation and to set oneself against enjoying a game even before anyone has played it; to hope for it to be as bad as possible in principle just so one can confirm their bias to feel good about themselves - to value that above the possibility of getting into a game that may give them 50-100 hours of genuine enjoyment that they would miss otherwise.

As I always say, to each their own, negativity is way too easy to monetize and exploit; but those who try to enjoy life, generally have a better one.

 

[guenthar]

Assassin's Creed Shadows has a much higher budget then Gothic Remake and KCD2 so a delay means either something is wrong or they are doing something wrong since a higher budget means they could have more people working on it and getting it done faster and better.

 

[Vaelith]

How does that fit with BG3 getting 1 year delay from its release projection with a team of ~300 people and still being one of the best RPGs ever made?

Game development is not an exact science, it suffers delays, milestones get shifted, and unpredictable things happen. A lot of things can't be coded in parallel or sped up, no matter if you have 20 or 2 million devs.

Besides, if you're to believe some of the conspiracies, the game got delayed because they are afraid of the competition and it has nothing to do with its development. It doesn't matter, it's always going to be a negative, while nobody has the slightest clue of anything. It's just being toxic for the sake of it.

 

[bjon045]

I think it is just a result of the general mood online rather than factual. AC Shadows has had quite some bad PR vs KCD2, which has mostly been a good news story. I would put it down to human nature. Delays rarely indicate the final product quality.

Delays do certainly increase the production cost and if UBISoft has had a run of poor performing games (I am not stating that as a fact) then it could be putting a fair bit of pressure on them behind the scenes.

 

[Vaelith]

Thanks for the sensible reply. I can't disagree with any of what you said.

I would prefer if we judged games for how good they are as games. The gaming industry gets more and more muddled by those who wish to label everything by virtue and political flags.

I feel that by the time we get our hands on a game these days everyone is already set on whether they'll like it or not based on factors that have little to do with the game - virtue values, political affiliation, size and business model of the company that makes the game, whether they are pro-Russia or Ukraine exiles; just to mention a few.

I am not an extremely nostalgic person, but I miss the time when I had no clue about any of this, I got my box under the Christmas tree and played Zelda for months without ever caring about anything other than the amount of fun I was having, and it was the best fun to be had. The fact that the internet takes that from everyone because everyone willingly partakes of it is extremely sad.

 

[guenthar]

I was talking about how it is viewed. In this case Larian has consistently made good games with few bad ones but Ubisoft has made plenty of crappy games and has ruined entire series (Might and Magic) so has a bad reputation.

Sorry I could have made that clearer.

 

[Couchpotato]

Ubisoft Responds to Damning Reports of Abuse by Assassin's Creed Shadows Studio

Ubisoft has responded to the report made by People Makes Games regarding the abuse at support studio Brandoville.

wccftech.com

An extensive report has been made stating that there has been significant mental and physical abuse at the Indonesian support studio Brandoville, which was providing assistance to the development of Assassin's Creed Shadows before the studio closed in August last year. Ubisoft has since responded to this report. The detailed report was released by People Makes Games and focused on Christa Sydney, who worked at the company from 2019 to 2024, and states that she experienced mental and physical abuse by Kwan Cherry Lai, wife of Brandoville CEO Ken Lai.

 

[Vaelith]

I was talking about how it is viewed. In this case Larian has consistently made good games with few bad ones but Ubisoft has made plenty of crappy games and has ruined entire series (Might and Magic) so has a bad reputation.

Sorry I could have made that clearer.

But that's not what I'm talking about. It's the double standards.

For example, Warhorse Studios made Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is an inherently racist game by design as pointed in several articles that you can easily find in the internet; the devs decided to edit out all traces of any non-white ethnicity, let alone any female role other than "local whore" or "love interest" prior to the DLC, and all while proclaiming themselves a "historically accurate" setting. Even today, a lot of people bought the farce and still somehow believe that the game is actually historically accurate, when it couldn't be further from the truth.

To me, whether the game is accurate historically or not, doesn't matter. It's a videogame afterall. I play it for it being fun as a game, and couldn't care less whether it has Berbers, Ottomans, Mongols, or if it's all some sort of medieval Hitler wet dream. I would prefer if they weren't trying to deceive me with fake claims about the game's historical accuracy, but that's it.

The discrepancy comes when Assassin's Creed Shadows gets massive backlash for including a black character named Yasuke, who may not have been exactly as the game portrays him, but in truth it is historically proven for this black character to have existed in some form in the feudal era of Japan - Ubisoft isn't even claiming that the game is historically accurate, it's just "inspired" by historical events. But certain circles of people do have a problem with this and are extremely toxic about it.

This double standard that speaks foul at every turn, people who willingly deceive themselves as long as it fits their ideals before even considering whether a game is good or not - without even judging the game for how good it is as a game.

It's sad, but it's what it is. As I said in a previous post, toxicity sells the most, so these people can go ahead and get their hate monetized. The world can always use more sheep to keep the treadmill running.

I just want to enjoy games for being games, and I kind of wish everyone were mature enough to do the same.

 

[JDR13]

The kneejerk reactions are strong today.

To assume the comments here are rooted in racism when no one said anything even remotely related to race seems a strange thing indeed.

 

[Vaelith]

It's the double standards, and the manipulation of facts to fit a preferred narrative. And more than that, how it is used to vet media before it gets to the end consumer. The topic can be any, it was just an example. I'm of Caucasian ethnicity myself, incase anyone had any doubt.

Plus Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games have been generally from decent to great, so we can't even say that they get more backlash because they're bad games either. Some were weaker than others, but when you have made 20 games, they can't all be A+.

 

[sakichop]

Valhalla sold 20 million plus copies. I wouldn’t worry about naysayers, shadows will sell like hotcakes.

 

[Couchpotato]

Oh I'm sure it'll sell just because of the name and people who buy every game.

My forecast is it'll sell less then Valhalla though.

Personally my interest is minimal as I've grown tired of these formulistic games.

Also despite that Unbisoft is worried about sales though. After a very rough 2024.

Exclusive: Ubisoft Finances Point To Potential Bankruptcy in 2025

Ubisoft is in financial trouble that could lead to bankruptcy. According to financial reports, the developer could face collapse in 2025.

thatparkplace.com

 

[num4!vr34umu5t4r!]

RIP Ubisoft

 

[Andrew23]

And yet another thread hijack attempt by certain somebody making strong standpoints against discussion practices nobody here attempted.
Welcome back, really missed 100+ post news threads where 99% of discussion is completely irrelevant.

Btw. kinda carefully looking forward to this AC release as I like the setting.
Hopefully its not too bloated by generic filler content.

 

[Philistine]

For example, Warhorse Studios made Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is an inherently racist game by design as pointed in several articles that you can easily find in the internet; the devs decided to edit out all traces of any non-white ethnicity

I was curious if there was any validity to this because we all know @Vaelith is not the most reliable when it comes to factual reality. Googled KCD racism, and beyond random uninformed opinions, a guy on the KCD forums posted a response from an Oxford Professor. LINK
"So then, after watching a very long video for the very short answer to the question…
The conclusion is no Warhorse weren’t racist in their approach, but some people believe it doesn’t matter how accurate they believe they were being they should include non-caucasians anyway, because maybe they were there."
I remember plenty of females characters that were not love objects, for example the ranch widow, and the witches.

 

[Philistine]

And yet another thread hijack attempt by certain somebody making strong standpoints against discussion practices nobody here attempted.
Welcome back, really missed 100+ post news threads where 99% of discussion is completely irrelevant.

Btw. kinda carefully looking forward to this AC release as I like the setting.
Hopefully its not too bloated by generic filler content.

Sorry for being baited, but I was really looking forward to AC: S until they announced the protagonists, and know it's on the back-burner.