Ubisoft just delayed Assassin’s Creed Shadows for a second time. While it was supposed to come out on February 14, the Japan-set action-adventure game will now be released on March 20.
Fully unveiled last May, the last six months of Assassin’s Creed Shadows‘ development have been rocky. After Star Wars Outlaws had a buggy launch and flopped, Ubisoft delayed Shadows from November 2024 to February 2025. At the time, Ubisoft explained that this delay would allow the developers to “polish and refine the experience.” Statements from a strategic update and X post released by Ubisoft today share similar sentiments.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows now releases March 20, 2025. pic.twitter.com/wTPzY0oiHy
— Assassin’s Creed (@assassinscreed) January 9, 2025
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“As part of the renewed focus on gameplay quality and engaging Day-1 experiences, it has been decided to provide an additional month of development to Assassin’s Creed Shadows. 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,” Ubisoft explained in the strategic update document.
Later in the document, a comment from CEO Yves Guillemot states that the company 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.”
This delay moves Assassin’s Creed Shadows out of a crowded February where it also would’ve been competing with Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, Avowed, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and Monster Hunter Wilds. It is also part of a larger Ubisoft effort to “enhance operational efficiency and maximize value creation” and “pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders.” As reporters like Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier have pointed out, accomplishing that would make Ubisoft look much more valuable if the Guillemots plan to sell the company.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will now be released for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on March 20.