One of the most renowned insiders in the industry is now providing further background information on the recent postponement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows to 2025. According to this, the title is currently nowhere near ready for a release in November.
After previously canceling the appearance at the Tokyo Game Show and press previews, speculation about a postponement began to circulate. A short time later, Ubisoft also officially announced: Assassin’s Creed Shadows will not be released in November 2024 as planned, but will now only come onto the market in 2025.
With Tom Henderson, one of the most renowned and best-informed insiders in the gaming industry is now providing further background on this decision, which at least partly has to do with the poor performance of Star Wars Outlaws. Ubisoft itself emphasized in a statement that it wanted to give the development team more time for fine-tuning and at the same time learned lessons from the flopped release of Outlaws. Both statements are true, according to Henderson, but he provides a little more context.
According to the insider, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has simply not reached a stage that would make the game ready for a November release. In addition, some gameplay mechanics have been changed again – and implementing this properly into the entire game requires additional time.
In addition, the previously expressed criticisms and concerns from Japanese players regarding the accurate representation of Japanese culture and the historical accuracy of the game also play a role. There is probably still work to be done here, but the wild rumors online that Yasuke could be removed from the game are not true.
However, according to the sources, the development team is actually actively addressing many of the historical and cultural concerns raised and implementing changes. The story of Yasuke and how he is portrayed in the game will also be adjusted, as well as some architectural and historical details.
It’s surprising to Henderson that this has happened at all, as such problem areas are usually uncovered internally as part of the asset approval process and resolved before the public could raise such concerns. According to the insider, one background is that in the case of Shadows, historical experts were probably only brought in much later than is usual. There are also said to have been some communication problems.
Ultimately, Henderson says that seven of the developers used as sources alone had pushed for a postponement of the release date much earlier. Apparently it only got through to the management level a few weeks before the planned release.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is now scheduled to be released on February 14, 2025 – unless something comes up again.
Ubisoft has released a new trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, which introduces and presents the game world in Japan in more detail.
