Why Assassin's Creed Shadows Succeeded

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the long-awaited newest major instalment of the Assassin’s Creed franchise is off to a hot start now several months since launch. It has exceeded Ubisoft's expectations both financially and critically. It became the second biggest launch of a game in franchise history, only behind 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but that was a much different time when the Covid-19 Pandemic was in full effect and gaming consoles and games themselves were highly in demand as most people were staying at home to quarantine and social distance. Shadows has succeeded in a market where Covid-19 is no longer a major crisis, and now in a world once again where going out to work or school is the usual again. Shadows had that as a minor disadvantage, but its sales records thus far and player count has been a massive success despite a time of uncertainty for Ubisoft and some controversies surrounding the game all the way up until launch. Shadows was a success for many reasons, and was the big hit Ubisoft needed most desperately.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows was the best-selling game in the United States for three weeks straight post launch and is currently the second highest selling game in the US this entire year only behind Monster Hunter Wilds. It is impressive that Shadows was able to produce such strong numbers in a much different gaming market that was the norm for several years and despite controversy surrounding the game for various reasons. A lot of people expected the game to fail, but that has not been the case at all. Ubisoft needed a smash hit like this in a time where their company is facing some serious uncharted territory and needs all the hits they can get with their major new releases after a trend of disappointments in the past years. Shadows in a way was their make or break game. If it didn’t succeed the way it has so far, things would have only gotten worse for the company. Thankfully, the fans and gamers alike have enjoyed the game and their journey into Feudal Japan and the sales reports have proven that Shadows became the hit Ubisoft expected it to become.

Shadows has most recently been announced to have reached five million total players across all platforms. This is a huge success and really goes to show how strong the Assassin’s Creed fanbase is, along with gamers in general who may not consider themselves to be big fans but enjoyed the ride nonetheless. Having such a large player count shows Ubisoft’s strategy of focusing on their top franchises in an uncertain time is paying off. Shadows certainly can credit a good amount of the game's success to its day-one Steam release. Ubisoft had fully skipped Steam since it released The Division 2 in 2019 after striking a deal with the rival Epic Games Store. Multiple gaming companies have gone down this route with PC gaming yet all of them ended up returning to Steam, where it is still the dominant place that the majority of PC gamers play at. Steam continues to break its all time records in player count even decades later into its creation, so the fact that Steam remains the king of PC gaming was clearly a sign for Ubisoft to launch Shadows day one so their game can reach the maximum amount of players as a lot of PC gamers avoid other platforms like the Epic Games Store and prefer to keep all their games in one place on Steam. Ubisoft's choice to return to Steam for the first time in over five years clearly was a smart one.

Ubisoft has a lot more in store for Shadows post-launch, as they have multiple DLC’s, which stands for downloadable content, that are planned to release in the following months that will give players who have already completed the main story and side quests more content to enjoy and new storylines to further expand on the ending of the main game. Fans are highly anticipating the upcoming releases such as the DLC called ‘Claws of Awaji’ that takes gamers to a new location based on Awaji Island near Osaka Bay, which are all in real life Japan as well. This DLC is heavily anticipated as fans cannot wait to continue the story of the two main protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke, and see where their journey leads them next after the events of the main game. Along with this DLC, more add-on content is planned with features such as New Game Plus, which offers gamers a chance to play through the story of the game again but without losing their progress and not having to start all over. This feature has become highly common amongst games released in the previous years. Along with the New Game Plus, an enhanced Photo Mode option is coming in the near future too. A lot of gamers love the feature of the Photo Mode, where they can create digital captures of things they see in game that can be enhanced via the options the game usually gives players to customize their photos like having filters, color changes, and lots of features to make your capture beautifully the way you'd want it.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been everything fans could’ve asked for, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for the developers at Ubisoft who relied on this game to be the hit they expected it to be. The future of the game is bright, and there’s plenty to look forward to for gamers who enjoyed the game that want to see more content for both the story and the gameplay as well. Ubisoft made a very successful game that had fans waiting for a long time for, and this big hit only shows that Ubisoft has truly doubled down on the Assassin’s Creed franchise as a whole and the future of not only Shadows, but the entire series as a whole, is undeniably bright with endless possibilities ahead.