The launch weekend for Assassin’s Creed Shadows is now behind us and the news isn’t great when it comes to the Steam platform. After its disappointing peak hit 41,412 players on launch day, the game increased 56% to peak at 64,825 on Sunday during its opening weekend. Since release, Ubisoft has been quick to announce that Assassin’s Creed Shadows reached certain milestones from 1 million, 2 million, and 3 million players, not sales, as the game struggled on Steam.
While 3 million players is an impressive-sounding figure, it raises a red flag for investors since this is not indicative of how many copies the game has sold. A factor which Ubisoft is heavily reliant on that will most likely chart the company’s course as it has suffered massive failures in 2024, laid off employees, watched its ever-decreasing stock, and hemorrhaging money.
So why is Ubisoft talking about player numbers and not game copies sold?
The most likely answer is that, despite all the positive spin about how Assassin’s Creed Shadows preorders were “in line with those of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the second most successful entry of the franchise,” and that it “has now surpassed the launches of AC Origins and Odyssey,” that AC Shadows isn’t really doing well saleswise as the developer is hoping. If it were, you would be certain that Ubisoft would disclose those figures.
But the company hasn’t done that.
So where do the 3 million players come from if not from copies sold? Well, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been bundled with various products, review copies have been given out, copies that have been given out through contests or to content creators, and the big one is subscriptions through Ubisoft Plus. The subscriptions alone would be where the vast majority of the 3 million figure would most likely come from since, according to the Assassin’s Creed Developer, its platform reaches around 134 million players
As for Ubisoft Plus, the company has never provided specific numbers as to how many people are subscribed to their service. Only that “millions of players” have spent “over 600 million hours” playing. Unsurprisingly, the Assassin’s Creed games are the most played when utilizing that service.
So it is highly probable that a significant portion of the 3 million players consuming Assassin’s Creed Shadows didn’t buy the game, but are able to play it because of their monthly subscription. Which means that, since Ubisoft Plus is available on XBOX and PlayStation, and not just PC, that game copies sold could be far lower than many experts and analysts might expect.
Even so, when Ubisoft announced the game’s 2 million player statistic, that number, if what Insider Gaming Owner Tom Henderson has stated is true, isn’t a big win for Ubisoft. According to Henderson, citing undisclosed Ubisoft sources, the data regarding player numbers on launch day for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Odyssey, and Shadows is as follows,
“Valhalla day 1 player numbers = 2.55M
Odyssey Day 1 player numbers = 430,000 (3.4M during first month)
Shadows day 2 player numbers = 2.2M”
Henderson then went on to state that “Shadows should do about 6M in its first month on its trajectory. Valhalla did 8M.”
Henderson is right if the game’s trajectory continues, but that is highly doubtful. Which is dependent on its reception by gamers and not of video game journalists.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of video game journalists and media outlets were quick to celebrate Ubisoft’s announcement and declare it a win for the developer. Repeating the same lines they said about Dragon Age: The Veilguard and going so far to recycle the “return to form” line and how Shadows has surpassed all other previous games on Steam. However, there are certain things to draw upon, such as Veilguard’s numbers, that can be applied to AC Shadows’ situation.
Like we saw with Veilguard, mainstream media were quick to declare it a success despite the game’s poor performance on Steam. From its launch day numbers (70,414) to peaking at 89,418 during its launch weekend and never going any higher since then.
Playerwise, Veilguard had far better numbers compared to Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the results further show that on Steam. While both Veilguard and AC Shadows were the #1 best selling game on Steam, Veilguard just managed to hit rank #9 of the Top 10 games being played on Steam while Assassin’s Creed Shadows couldn’t even break into the Top 20 games being played.
By these metrics alone, Veilguard has outperformed Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Steam and, overall, turned out to be a failure for BioWare despite being released on all platforms.
Knowing just this, will Assassin’s Creed Shadows sell more copies than Dragon Age: The Veilguard?
Yes.
With Veilguard, the departure from the Dragon Age franchise was immediately noticeable in its design and color palette. While it is true that AC Shadows does stray from the AC franchise, it does so in ways that are only noticeable to fans and gamers, not to the casual gamer and general audience until they actually play the game. Yet, it still provides a way for gamers to experience the core Assassin’s Creed experience.
This is due mostly to the differing playstyles between the game’s two main protagonists: Yasuke and Naoe.
While Ubisoft is not going to be providing any sales figures, there are still indicators and early reports that can help substantiate the argument that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is not selling well by the company’s standards. One of the best factors to consider is the Japanese market and its reception of AC Shadows which is set in Japan.
How does the country feel about Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed Shadows after all of the controversy involving Yasuke, destruction of the shrines, theft of copyrighted material, merchandising of sacred and sensitive structures, and so much more?
Well, according to Famitsu, Assassin’s Creed Shadows only sold 17,701 copies, for the PlayStation 5, in Japan during its first three days. Of course, Ubisoft fans will argue that western-developed games aren’t going to sell well. However, the western-developed Ghost of Tsushima dominated during its first week in Japan by being the #1 seller with 212,815 copies sold on the PlayStation 4 (averaging 30,416 copies a day). So even if we compared only three days of selling between the two, Ghost of Tsushima would have sold around 91,249 copies during its first three days compared to Assassin’s Creed Shadows 17,701 copies – a 415% discrepancy between the two titles.
Like Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ghost of Tsushima is also set in Japan but, unlike Ubisoft’s game, features a Japanese male protagonist who is a samurai. Whereas there is no Japanese male protagonist in AC Shadows.
As already mentioned, Valve’s digital distribution platform Steam also doesn’t paint a pretty picture for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. During its launch day, the action-adventure game peaked at 39,412 players and, during its launch weekend, managed to hit 64,825. While games journalists point out that, for an Assassin’s Creed game, it has smashed the records of previous releases, that doesn’t mean a lot when previous games either had delayed releases on Steam or that the franchise sells better on consoles by a wide margin.
However, when one looks to more recent examples to draw comparisons, BioWare’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the one to look at due to many similarities. Both had long development cycles (AC Shadows was allegedly in pre-development since 2018), changes in direction, and huge budgets. Both games were also released on a Thursday and were the #1 best-selling games on Steam during launch. In fact, Veilguard had a handicap since it was released on Halloween, October 31st, meaning that many potential customers were out partying or trick or treating depending on the age group (or playing other games more appropriate for Halloween).
Even with that handicap, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Steam numbers were far better for its opening day than AC Shadows with 70,414 players and hit rank #9 for most played games (AC Shadows couldn’t break the Top 20). During its opening weekend, Veilguard’s peak player number hit 89,418.
Yet, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a commercial flop even with its far better opening day and weekend performance compared to Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Electronic Arts finally admitted that Veilguard was a flop that had reached only 50% of the company’s expectations while saying that it “engaged approximately 1.5 million players” and had expected that number to be 3 million.
Though, like with Ubisoft, EA provided player numbers and not copies sold.
Despite Veilguard’s better performance on Steam, will Assassin’s Creed Shadows sell more copies than Dragon Age: The Veilguard?
Again, yes.
With Veilguard, the departure from the Dragon Age franchise was immediately noticeable in its design, color palette, gameplay, and scope. AC Shadows does stray from the AC franchise but in ways that are only noticeable to fans and gamers, but not to the casual gamer and general audience.
Until they play the game.
The Yasuke character’s playstyle, as we pointed out in our editorial “Why Should You Boycott Assassin’s Creed Shadows” is that the character is a “betrayal of expectations” for Assassin’s Creed fans. For a game about, and focused on, assassins, Yasuke sticks out like a rampaging elephant charging down the streets of Tokyo. There is no reason to play the character who is a samurai in a game where its main selling point is the assassin-type gameplay and feels more like Ubisoft really wanted to get in on the Ghost of Tsushima wagon with their George Floyd edition.
While AC Shadows has only been out for a week, it’s hard not to look at the Steam Achievements to get an idea of how people playing the game are enjoying it. As of 03/28/2025, 89.7% of Steam players have gone through the Prologue, 39.2% have unlocked A New League Rising, and only 1% have reached the game’s Epilogue. It will be interesting to see how these stats progress.
To provide a benchmark, a month after release Veilguard saw 89.5% of players complete Part 1 and only 25.3% of players reaching Part 14 of the game. Meaning that many gamers may have lost interest in completing it or returned the game for which, surprisingly, there was a huge spike in Steam Refund Requests on release day (399,558 requests).
What is interesting to note is that, five days before Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Steam saw a major spike in refund requests at 726,230. What could have caused such a spike on Steam and could it have been for Assassin’s Creed Shadows in people cancelling their preorders? It’s possible. The news that three former Ubisoft executives heading to court for sexual harassment, racism, and other things could have led to people asking for refunds. Or that, when it came down to the wire, people weren’t convinced that the game didn’t look good enough to spend $70 on.
Even if we ignore the March 15th spike, we still see higher-than-normal requests being made on March 20, the game’s release date, of 434,553 requests. Granted, its far lower than Veilguard’s spike which means that Assassin’s Creed Shadows possibly have sold more copies, but retained more consumers. Or that it didn’t sell as many copies on Steam and still had trouble retaining players.
However, Assassin’s Creed Shadows faces the same issues that Dragon Age: The Veilguard had that was the main reason for why it is a flop: the game’s development budget. Veilguard was in development for a very long time and had a massive amount of money sunk into it. To the point that it needed to sell a ton of copies just to break even based on prior BioWare games. Anthem, for example, sold 5 million copies (2 million launch week), took 15 months to develop and barely managed to break even.
To put it another way, Veilguard took nine years to develop but with a smaller development team and multiple shifts in development. AC Shadows was, allegedly, developed in half the time but with an insane amount of developers and studios working on it for a gaming experience that isn’t cohesive and, as a result, set the bar for success at an insane level.
So imagine how many copies Assassin’s Creed Shadows will need to sell in order to break even considering that it spent at least four years in development (eight if pre-development is included), 3,000 employees across various studios (Ubisoft Quebec has over 600 employees), and a major marketing budget on top of that? The idea that so many people worked on it, which is given credence by the game’s 2 hours worth of credits, points to the sheer, bloated budget of AC Shadows.
Which severely hurts its possibility of being a commercial success. This reason alone, makes it highly likely that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the first flop of 2025 for Ubisoft and the company’s newest one considering that every Ubisoft game in 2024 was a commercial failure.
Sure, 3 million players sounds impressive for the unwitting investor, Ubisoft fanboy, and video game journalists wishing to stay on good terms with a dishonest developer. But there are a number of indications that point to Assassin’s Creed Shadows failing rather than succeeding.
Why Should You Boycott Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Ubisoft Unveils Assassin’s Creed Shadows – A DEI Grift That Is Racist, Sexist, and Exemplifies Cultural Appropriation
Mounting Allegations Against Yasuke Author Thomas Lockley Leads To Departure From Social Media Platforms
Video Game Journalism’s Infatuation With Thomas Lockley’s Yasuke Narrative Is Indicative Of The Industry’s Prevailing Rot
Author’s Note:
Support this site by donating via Paypal or even checking out our merchandise on RedBubble where you can find designs that cater to writers and readers. Money donated and raised goes into paying for this website and equipment.
Check out our Non-BUYnary txt design!
Interested in posting this article, or another article, on your website? Check out our prices to make that happen – https://tinyurl.com/mrxa56pp
