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Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Shadows is finally here, and as expected – given the game's chaotic pre-release phase – the comment war surrounding the series' new chapter has now reached unprecedented levels, with fans and critics alike setting forums and social media aflame with heated debates. In just the first 24 hours since launch, the game has sparked a multitude of newsworthy topics, so let's take a look at some of them and try to figure out whether Ubisoft's last-chance-at-not-getting-consumed-by-Tencent is worth your time and 70 bucks.
Perhaps one of the biggest "comment warzones" related to Shadows can be found in this tweet shared by the official Assassin's Creed page, announcing that the game has attracted one million players in less than 24 hours since its launch.
A notable feat, the player milestone has nonetheless raised some eyebrows, with critics pointing out the careful wording of "players attracted" instead of "copies sold," indicating that the one million figure includes those playing via Ubisoft's subscription service, Ubisoft+, and doesn't necessarily translate into actual profits.
Others have also pointed out the apparent discrepancy between the game attracting one million players while only reaching a peak of 41K concurrent users on Steam – an underwhelming figure by AAA standards and around 30K lower than the launch-day peak of Dragon Age: The Veilguard (also released on Thursday), a game even Electronic Arts admitted had "underperformed" financially. Furthermore, some compared Shadows to Kingdom Come Deliverance II, a game that actually sold one million copies on its first day and had a much more impressive 159K concurrent users on Steam on its release day on Tuesday.
Responding to the criticism, Shadows fans correctly pointed out that SteamDB statistics only offer a rough estimate of the game's overall performance and noted that Ubisoft's games are generally more popular on consoles than on PC, which is also accurate, as according to Statista, the distribution of net bookings generated by the studio in 2023-24 was 56% on consoles compared to 32% on PC.
One way or another, all estimates surrounding the actual sales numbers are, at the moment, just that – estimates – and we'll likely learn the actual number of units sold sometime in the future, either from Ubisoft itself or from studio insiders, depending on whether the game succeeds revenue-wise or not.
Another "digital battlefield" where fans and critics are exchanging blows right now relates to Ubisoft stealthily releasing a day-one patch for AC Shadows, which, among other changes, made it harder to desecrate in-game copies of real-life Japanese shrines and temples by making tables and racks in them indestructible and prevented unarmed NPCs from bleeding when attacked.
The quiet nature of the update was quickly seen by the anti-Ubisoft side as the company's attempt to sweep the debacle under the rug, with them highlighting that the patch came only after Shigeru Ishiba, the Prime Minister of Japan, officially denounced the destruction of religious sites – IRL or otherwise – calling it "an insult to the nation itself," and Hiroyuki Kada, a member of the House of Councillors of Japan, expressed concern that "allowing players to attack and destroy real-world locations in the game without permission could encourage similar behavior in real life."
All in all, the discussion surrounding Assassin's Creed Shadows is a total mess right now, and it seems that for every Ubisoft win, like adding an awesome-looking snow-melting mechanic and nailing the open world as a whole, there's a Ubisoft loss, like mistakenly banning a VTuber and making battle music in a medieval Japanese setting "straight up hip hop," making it insanely difficult for anyone who hasn't played the game to figure out whether they should give it a try.
Given the very nature of the game in question and its creator, recommending it or not seems like a pointless endeavor, since most people have already decided whether or not they want to support Ubisoft with their purchases. However, if you're still on the fence and actually struggling to make a decision, I'd suggest checking out Steam reviews – one of the few places on the internet where you can find genuine feedback on the game without it being overshadowed by politics.
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