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Ubisoft is continuing to trumpet the success of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, saying today that the game has now surpassed three million players a week after its release.
The new big number comes just four days after Ubisoft said Shadows had broken the two million player mark, and points to continued growth for a game the company really, desperately needed to be a hit. More interesting, though, is the mention of money: While Ubisoft has previously stated that Assassin’s Creed Shadows has “surpassed the launches of AC Origins and Odyssey,” it hasn’t (as far as I know) said anything about actual sales.
Now it has: Shadows has put up the “second-highest day one sales revenues in Assassin’s Creed franchise history.” That’s nothing to sneeze at, especially when considering the conditions surrounding the release of the number-one game, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which came amidst the “perfect storm” of the Covid-19 pandemic, when everyone was stuck at home playing videogames at a pace that created an unprecedented boom (and, sadly, bust) for the industry. The release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles at around the same time sure didn’t hurt.
In fact, Ubisoft has told employees not to get too hung up on the comparisons with Valhalla, saying “it’s more meaningful to compare Shadows to entries like Origins, Odyssey, and Mirage—games released in more typical cycles.” And also, as previously noted, games that Shadows has already handily beat.
The success of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, particularly coming amidst a storm of ugly noise on social media (which ultimately amounted to very little in terms of real-world impact), has to be a tremendous relief for Ubisoft, which is still struggling to find its footing amidst a number of underperforming recent releases including Star Wars Outlaws and XDefiant, and a share price that’s been in decline for the past five years.
Ubisoft took what looks to be a big step toward addressing those difficulties today, announcing a deal with Tencent to establish a new subsidiary company that will manage the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises, separate from the rest of Ubisoft’s properties—but still ultimately under Ubisoft control.
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Kurt Indovina
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