Ubisoft has announced its first sales milestone for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which launched yesterday and had notched up more than a million players by the afternoon.
It’s our first indication of how well the game is performing, as a pivotal title not just for the Assassin’s Creed series, but Ubisoft in general – though it is still very early.
“It’s not even 4pm here in Canada and Assassin’s Creed Shadows has already passed 1 million players,” stated a message posted to the official Assassin’s Creed social media account. “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for joining this adventure in Feudal Japan. We are beyond excited to start this journey with you!”
Assassin’s Creed Shadows faces some tough comparisons – the series’ last large launch Valhalla arrived in late 2020, when many of us were at home – and arrives at a time when Ubisoft is reportedly considering a sale or some other kind of reorganisation to turn around its ailing fortunes.
The game was also repeatedly delayed for further polish, following last year’s Star Wars Outlaws – another key title for Ubisoft, but one which significantly underperformed.
How well does Assassin’s Creed Shadows have to do for Ubisoft to consider it a success? The publisher has not said. But it’s worth considering the scope and scale of the game, the number of Ubisoft studios working on it, and the impact of that delay.
For example, Split Fiction notched up 1m sales in just 48 hours last week, but will have cost far less to make and market.
An early look at Steam figures – as the only major platform to share player numbers publicly – shows a peak of 41,412 players overnight. But again, comparisons are difficult – the game is also available on PC via Ubisoft Connect, so this does not paint a full picture.
In other words, it’s likely we’ll have to wait until after the game’s first weekend – and likely more word from Ubisoft itself – before Shadows’ early fortunes become clear.
“Majestic in scope, impressive in detail, Ubisoft’s epic adventure honours the beauty of feudal Japan, even if its strongest moments are saved for the personal stories of its two protagonists,” I wrote in Eurogamer’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows review.