INSIDER-GAMING: EXCLUSIVE – Context Around the Assassin’s Creed Shadows Delay

[Papacheeks]

Last week, Ubisoft announced that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would be delayed from its intended November release date to February 2025. While the announcement was somewhat of a shock publically, internally, it was expected and desperately needed.

Ubisoft announced that the game was delayed “to polish and refine the experience. “ In its earnings update, the company further claimed that the delay was due to “the learning from the Star Wars Outlaws release.” Both claims are true, but beyond a few short words, internally, the developers have been pushing for a delay for the best part of a few months, which had fallen on deaf ears until the release of Outlaws.

ICON THREAD-Tom Henderson: Star Wars Outlaws sold 1 million copies Ubisoft is changing Yasuke story for Shadows​

Yves Guillemot pointed out in an internal memo that Star Wars Outlaws’ initial sales “proved softer than expected,” with Guillemot pointing out that critics rated the game 76 out of 100 on Metacritic (I think it’s important to note that the user score is far lower at a 5.4 out of 10, too). Although I wasn’t given the figure on what Ubisoft anticipated Outlaws to sell within its first month, the game has just surpassed 1 million units sold at the time of writing. Its performance has seemingly caused alarm bells to ring at HQ, which not only led to the approval of Assassin’s Creed Shadows being delayed to Q1 2025 but to finally putting games back on Steam (a request that every Ubisoft team has been pushing for years).

So why was Shadows delayed? It’s a complicated question without a single answer, but it boils down to a strict development timeline, polishing, and addressing the Japanese community’s cultural and historical accuracy concerns.

But first, let me address some of the wild rumors about Yasuke—he’s not going to be removed. However, sources have said that the team has been actively addressing many of the historical and cultural concerns, which started before the game’s reveal following external playtests and were accelerated further following the game’s initial reveal and mass feedback. This includes changing some of Yasuke’s story and how he’s portrayed in the game, fixing architectural details, and ensuring that the game is historically grounded while fitting into the Assassin’s Creed universe.

Fundamentally, though, these are issues that should have been caught internally before the game’s reveal, especially given Ubisoft’s strict asset-approval process. As for how these issues fell through the cracks, I’m told that historical experts were brought onto the project much later than usual for a project of this magnitude and that miscommunication between teams and cutting corners when it came to the approval process of assets to meet deadlines were also at play.

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[ethomaz]

He is trying to cover his ass not saying anything that will be changed.

I mean he tells the Yasuke's story will be changed but we don't know the game's story to tell what is changed.
So anything shipped in February will fit the narrative the story changed

Plus what delayed the game? He throws all the guess any forum poster can make... development timeline, polish, and historical concerns....

About the historical accuracy... I mean why any other AC had any issue with a nonsense story not based in facts but this one has?

 

[Shmunter]

So the woke garbage was sniffed out by early game testers, issues raised and nothing was done. It went public, as predicted, sensible pushback and nothing was done - instead typical Sheild defence disparaging critics. Toxic positivity.

Preorder numbers came - and finally, capitulation.

The market is always right.

 

[Zzero]

Am I really supposed to believe that Ubisoft has a strict asset approval process when the flavor text in the Assassin's Creed 3 remaster still has basic syntax issues caused by the only person proof-reading them not doing his job properly.

 

[All Might]

boom, maybe they will write that massive mistake out of their game and include a pure japanese samurai. Assassin's Creed is no place for historical inaccuracies. How they went from researching the appropriate type of bow to having what is essentially Nobunaga's court jester portrayed as a noble samurai...

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

boom, maybe they will write that massive mistake out of their game and include a pure japanese samurai. Assassin's Creed is no place for historical inaccuracies. How they went from researching the appropriate type of bow to having what is essentially Nobunaga's court jester portrayed as a noble samurai...

JFC the hatred and racism spewing from some of you people is something else. No wonder the hobby's so tainted these days :/

 

[peter42O]

Assassin's Creed Shadows is day one for me regardless of what changes if any are made. More than anything, the game simply needed more time for polishing and balancing. Ubisoft can't afford an AC Unity level disaster.

 

[Shmunter]

JFC the hatred and racism spewing from some of you people is something else. No wonder the hobby's so tainted these days :/

No evidence of racism there

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

No evidence of racism there

No evidence to the contrary, either

 

[ToTTenTranz]

So the woke garbage was sniffed out by early game testers, issues raised and nothing was done. It went public, as predicted, sensible pushback and nothing was done - instead typical Sheild defence disparaging critics. Toxic positivity.

Preorder numbers came - and finally, capitulation.

The market is always right.

Couple them changing Yasuke's story with Ubisoft getting day one releases on Steam and you can tell they're pretty desperate.

No evidence of racism there

Well there was racism in 16th century Japan for sure, especially according to 2024 western values where everything is racist.

As a Portuguese dude who read the original description of their first encounter in old Portuguese, it does seem like Nobunaga's initial fascination with Yasuke stemmed from the fact that he had a never-before-seen skin tone, could speak a bit of Japanese and.. performed tricks. And after Nobunaga paid the Jesuits to keep him, he dressed him on Japanese garments and sent him to walk around town for everyone to see. This is just the literal translation from Fróis' texts.

As for what happened after that, no one knows because so very little was written about Yasuke, there's like 2 paragraphs in Portuguese and another 2 in Japanese. The guy was with Nobunaga for a year before the latter was executed and then he was sent back to the Jesuits, so it's not like there was that much to tell.

Most of the stuff that's been said about Yasuke, like him being part of Nobunaga's inner circle, being made a noble and then being the carrier of Nobunaga's head after his execution, are vague speculations made up by a British dude teaching in Japan University, who was recently fired for doing so.

 

[Shmunter]

Brutal….

 

[Kokoloko]

It was a retarded idea. Lets hope other companies follow quicker. Japan just got the tax memo lae to start all this crap, so it will take a few years before they stop

 

[SLB1904]

This game will bomb and I’ll get for cheap. Woke or not this looks good