Summary

  • Assassin's Creed Shadows has reached over 2 million players, surpassing the Origins and Odyssey launches.
  • The game faced delays and controversies but still saw success and beat the franchise's concurrent player records on Steam.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is enjoying a major milestone, as over 2 million players have jumped into Ubisoft's open-world take on feudal Japan. The apparent success of Assassin's Creed Shadows comes after a wave of controversies and multiple delays as Ubisoft took some extra time to iron out some last-minute issues with the title.

The Assassin's Creed franchise has undergone a major evolution in the last decade, becoming a full-on action RPG with the launch of Origins. Since then, Ubisoft has stuck to a similar formula with most subsequent entries, doubling down on the RPG elements and giving players expansive open worlds to explore.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows Players Want a Cool Bug Turned Into a Feature

The day-one version of Assassin's Creed Shadows features a bug that some players find so cool that they want it turned into a real feature.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows is apparently selling well, with over 2 million players jumping into the game on the weekend of its initial launch. The Twitter post announcing the updated player count numbers contains a piece of promotional art for the game with splash text celebrating the milestone as Ubisoft states that the game has already outperformed two of its previously successful entries, Origins and Odyssey.

Ubisoft Reveals Huge Milestone For Assassin's Creed Shadows' Player Count

Ubisoft did not state which platform the game performed the best on. We do know that Assassin's Creed Shadows has beaten previous entries' concurrent player count records on Steam with over 60,000 concurrent players.

These numbers come following the game's release amid a string of controversies and debates about alleged historical inaccuracies that even got the attention of the Japanese prime minister. The game faced two separate delays in the year leading up to its release to ensure a more complete launch, with a day-one patch removing the controversial ability of players to destroy Assassin's Creed Shadows shrines.

Assassin's Creed Shadows comes at a time of particular turmoil for Ubisoft, which has had some high-profile games fail to meet sales expectations, such as the open-world title Star Wars Outlaws. On top of that, the company also announced the shutdown of its competitive shooter XDefiant, and now, corporate execs are rumored to be looking at selling off some of its IPs to third-party companies.

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9 /10

Assassin's Creed Shadows
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Action
Stealth
RPG
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Systems
PlayStation-1 Xbox-1 PC-1
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Top Critic Avg: 81 /100 Critics Rec: 82%
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Released
March 20, 2025
ESRB
Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
Developer(s)
Ubisoft Quebec
Publisher(s)
Ubisoft
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows Expansion Details Leaked on Steam
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows Expansion Details Leaked on Steam
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows Expansion Details Leaked on Steam
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January 23 is Going to Be a Big Day for Assassin's Creed Shadows
January 23 is Going to Be a Big Day for Assassin's Creed Shadows
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
PHYSICAL
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Genre(s)
Action, Stealth, RPG