March 24, 2025 by Rhys Elliott

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ lukewarm early sales suggest it’s not the silver bullet Ubisoft needs

Over the weekend, Ubisoft took to social media to announce that Assassin’s Creed Shadows hitting 2 million players.

That’s not copies sold – that’s players. Ubisoft also said Shadows’ players exceeded the launches of 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins and 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

But the ‘’players’’ metric only tells us so much in 2025. Back when those earlier Assassin’s Creed games launched, Ubisoft’s multi-game subscription (Ubisoft+) didn’t exist. For $18 a month, Ubisoft+ lets subscribers play new Ubisoft games, including Assassin’s Creed Shadows, on PC and Xbox at launch.

What’s more, the ‘’players’’ number includes gamers who are sharing a copy of the game, including those who use the PS5’s digital game-sharing trick. This would capture multiple players for just one sold copy.

So the ‘’players’’ metric Ubisoft released only tells part of the story. To shine the spotlight on the game’s performance, we decided to dive deeper into our Steam and PlayStation copies sold estimates.

Copies sold tells a less convincing story for Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ performance

While Ubisoft announced the two-million-players metric on Saturday, the actual copies sold are far lower.

Our data shows that Assassin’s Creed Shadows had sold through one million copies across PS5 and Steam that day (March 22nd), with 711.7 K on PS5 and 288.8K on Steam:

While this is just an early indicator, a million copies is nothing to sniff at, and the game is also available on Xbox and Luna, the numbers do not reflect a smash hit for Ubisoft.

Given the scope and development time of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the title has almost certainly not broken even yet.

This is tough, as Ubisoft has been facing challenges, and Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a make-or-break moment for the iconic company.

Ghost of Tsushima sold twice as much as Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Steam at launch

In the past, Ubisoft chose to forgo launching on Steam. More recently, it’s been experimenting with adding games to Steam after launch, and it’s been closing the gap over time:

• 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla launched on Steam two years after its original launching on other platforms and the Epic Game Store
• 2022’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage came a year after
• 2024’s Star Wars Outlaws came three months after
• And now, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has launched on Steam on day one

But Shadows’ performance on Steam has been largely underwhelming so far, given the legacy of Assassin’s Creed as a franchise.

Another Assassin’s Creed-style game set in Japan performed far better. Ghost of Tsushima, a port of a then-four-year-old PS4 game, sold twice as many copies on Steam as Assassin’s Creed Shadows did at launch (457.3K versus 214.1K):

Want to see Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s revenues or crossover with other games? We’ll show you!

Three days after launching on Steam (on March 23rd), Assassin’s Creed Shadows had sold 310.3K copies on the platform.

• Monster Hunter Wilds had sold almost ten times (3.7 million) Shadows’ number three days after its launch
• Split Fiction had sold almost three times more (882.5K), despite offering all buyers a ‘’friend pass’’ that allows another friend to play for ‘’free’’

And on PS5 (Assassin’s Creed’s lead platform in terms of sales), Shadows had sold through 711.7K as of March 22nd (two days after launch). Monster Hunter Wilds had sold more than double that (1.7 million) on PS5 two days after its launch.

Why is Ubisoft struggling compared to other comparable third-party publishers?

Ubisoft is more hit-driven than other companies. Its closest third-party competitors, like EA and Activision Blizzard (before the Microsoft acquisition), have had live-service juggernauts in their content portfolios. Recurring revenues from these live-service games have been a huge advantage for both companies.

But Ubisoft’s big live-service bets have failed to make a similar impact (Rainbow Six Siege came close, however). Ubisoft’s last live-service experiment, XDefiant was cancelled due to its underwhelming performance after launch.

Ubisoft has some big franchises under its belt, like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. But some of its forays into new IP over the past years – including Riders Republic and Skull & Bones – failed to hit the mark.

What’s more, Ubisoft has been largely chasing trends with its AAA games, mostly leaving innovation to its smaller experiments. And it has also been unwilling to cancel projects whose trends have played out (like an ill-advised NFT game).

Why do players seem less drawn to Ubisoft’s open-world games these days?

In the early 2010s, Ubisoft innovated on open-world mechanics and became a powerhouse in that genre. But Ubisoft’s large AAA games have largely followed a similar blueprint.

Meanwhile, other companies – like Nintendo with Breath of the Wild, Rockstar with Red Dead Redemption 2, and FromSoftware with Elden Ring – built on the open-world foundation that Ubisoft laid out prior.

These companies sold tens of millions of copies each and are some of the highest-reviewed games of all time.

Simply put, the bar has been raised and times have changed. There is no shortage of extremely high-quality open-world adventure games. So it now takes a lot more than releasing a very good one.

Can Ubisoft succeed again in the future?

In Ubisoft’s most recent earnings Q&A, CEO Yves Guillemot claimed that the company will focus on open-world adventure games and live-service ones. But this is the same strategy it has been leaning on for years, to no avail.

The strategy is the main cause of Ubisoft’s challenges. Now the company has almost backed itself into a corner, almost solely reliant on the success of just one key franchise: Assassin’s Creed.

This is a threat to the company if things don’t change.

Instead of following a similar path to the past, Ubisoft should spread risk by:

• Nurturing IP and reviving fan-favourite IP
• Cutting down on the bloat in its games to drive down development timelines
• Chase innovation instead of trends

To be sustainable long term, Ubisoft either needs a new revenue stream, reduce its headcount (sadly), or get significant investment – all three, most likely.

Ubisoft has a track record of supporting new hardware, so perhaps the Switch 2 could provide some temporary solace for the company beyond Assassin’s Creed.

But for now, it seems like challenging times ahead for Ubisoft.

Want to track the ongoing performance of Assassin’s Creed Shadows for yourself? We’ll show you in a demo!