We know a little more about the reasons for the ‘last minute’ postponement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which was due to arrive on November 12, 2024 on PC and consoles. These indiscretions, we owe them to Tom Hendersonnever the last to go rummaging in files even classified as experience and correct the last bugs that were hanging around here and there. No, contrary to what was announced in the Ubisoft press release, a wind of panic is blowing strong internally. Indeed, the failure of Star Wars Outlaws (sales are insufficient for an AAAA of its caliber) combined with the increasingly strong backlash suffered by Assassin’s Creed Shadows would have pushed Ubisoft to act urgently to correct certain historical aspects pointed out pointed out by the Japanese for almost 6 months.
If Yasuke will stay in the adventure, it is his history which will be readjusted, and in particular the way in which it is represented. We do not know if his status as a samurai, which is controversial in Japan, will be removed from the adventure, but according to Henderson, in the development process, historical experts arrived late in the production of the game, which explains in particular some wanderings in the veracity of certain symbols that can be found in the trailers and artworks of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. We also recall that a few months ago, the Sekigahara Teppo-tai association had challenged Ubisoft for unauthorized use of their feudal flag. A flag that we find on numerous official illustrations of the game and which will be highlighted in the artbook, already printed in hundreds of thousands of copies we imagine… The association asks Ubisoft to have this flag removed, under penalty of sanction, and this situation has therefore sowed doubt as to the historical rigor of the developers.
Faced with this new surge of anger and the intervention of politicians in Japan, Ubisoft had to react and explain these inaccuracies. In a long message addressed primarily to the Japanese community, Ubisoft apologized for the few elements that could be perceived as a lack of respect or clumsiness. But Ubisoft also wanted to point out that Assassin’s Creed Shadows remains above all a work of fiction, certainly inspired by history, but which remains a product of the imagination of its creators.
But fundamentally, these are issues that should have been caught internally before the game’s reveal, especially given Ubisoft’s strict asset approval process. Tom Henderson’s investigation explains numerous communication issues between teams and shortcuts in the asset approval process to meet the game’s release deadlines. When it comes to game polishing and bug issues, Le The game is currently not at the stage it needs to be for release, and it was whispered to the journalist that there have been some adjustments to the gameplay mechanics that are taking time to integrate. Concerns which were nevertheless highlighted during game tests, but which had not been corrected for the release. We come back to the famous: “we ship first, we repair later”, a philosophy which has plagued the video game industry for many years and which certain publishers have made a specialty of, particularly in France… (I won’t mention the names, editor’s note)
The release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows is now expected for February 14, 2025 and according to Tom Henderson again, if pre-orders are less good than those of Valhalla, they nevertheless remain very strong.