Assassin’s Creed Shadows is one of the top games hitting the shelves this year, no doubt. The game finally takes the Assassin’s Creed franchise to Japan, a setting long requested by fans. But it also comes at a difficult time for game publisher Ubisoft, with the video game company having been through a rough patch in recent times.
Actually, Ubisoft’s situation is dire enough that they might need Assassin’s Creed Shadows to be a hit in order to survive, meaning Shadows could very well end up being the last game to come out of the former video game powerhouse.
But why did things turn so sour for Ubisoft in recent times?
It all started in 2020, when a widely publicized sexual harassment scandal at the company ended with the firing of several senior executives and creative people at the company. Amongst these were renowned video game designer Ashraf Ismail (the man responsible for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag) and Yannis Mallat (producer for Prince of Persia: Sands of Time), amongst others.
The loss of talent was punishing for Ubisoft, with company president Yves Guillemot vowing to change the company’s practices, also hinting that the company would embrace DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) when it came to hiring and treating its employees…
And Ubisoft does have a large workforce (almost 19,000 strong), and mounting debt, which according to an article on website thatparkplace.com could prove unsustainable in the near future, possibly leading Ubisoft to bankruptcy.
There’s also the fact that the company’s shares have slumped dramatically since the glory days of Far Cry 5, one of its most successful games to date. Back then (March 2018) the company’s shares were priced at approximately €70 euros (about $64 US dollars) but are now trading at €12,82 euros (about $11,76 US dollars). This is a more than 80 % fall in price since then, obviously signaling trouble at the French company.
The truth is that Ubisoft’s recent releases haven’t done so well. Its pirate-themed game Skull & Bones (a spin-off of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black) was stuck in development hell for a very long time, arriving last year to poor reviews and underwhelming sales. Also Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, despite gathering high scores on Metacritic, did not do that well. And even Ubisoft games based on big franchises like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the more recent Star Wars Outlaws, did not set the world alight.
Read more: Assassin’s Creed Shadows trailer showcases feudal Japan setting and protagonists
This is why its even more important for Ubisoft that Assassin’s Creed Shadows does well this year, a game that was delayed out of 2024 so that the team at Ubisoft Montreal could polish it more before release. And early signs do look promising for Ubi, with Assassin’s Creed Shadows having logged more than 300,000 pre-orders by mid-February.
According to Ubisoft’s top dogs, this is in line with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, one of the top-selling games of the franchise, meaning Shadows could end up being a hit this year. And it probably needs to do as well as Odyssey in order to get Ubisoft out of hot water, meaning Ubisoft’s feudal-era Japanese game would need to sell at least 10 million copies this year…
It remains to be seen whether the Assassin’s Creed franchise can still draw in so many players and give Ubisoft a much-needed lift, but already the company is looking at creating a spin-off entity to manage its golden IPs like Assassin’s Creed. Chinese company Tencent could be involved is some capacity, so Ubisoft might not actually be behind the next Assassin’s Creed game, at least not directly…
There’s still the possibility that Assassin’s Creed Shadows becomes a huge hit and brings Ubisoft back from the abyss, though. The game has a solid Metacritic score (in the 80s), so maybe, and for Ubisoft’s own good, this is one Assassin’s Creed game fans will pick up when it releases in a couple of days.