Given the vast sums of money that developers and publishers now need to invest into a AAA production to see it through to launch, the sad reality is that games of that ilk usually need to perform extraordinarily well to even be able to justify their existence, something that doesn’t happen under the cloud of negative reception (and sometimes not even with positive responses). But more than just the basics, there’s some significant reasons why the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows probably has more pressure on it than the average AAA game to succeed.
Your first assumption might be that we’re referring to the dire straits that Ubisoft finds itself in, and looking at how things have only gone for the company from bad to worse, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that. But while that is obviously one of the biggest reasons Assassin’s Creed Shadows is under so much pressure to deliver the goods, that’s not what we’re focusing on here. No, we’re looking purely at the Assassin’s Creed franchise itself, the trajectory that it has been on in the recent past, and why Shadows need to arrest what’s been an undeniable decline.
If we’re being entirely honest, it’s a little surprising that that’s where Assassin’s Creed finds itself, because until just a few years ago, the series was probably flying higher than ever. It recovered from its post-Unity dip in convincing fashion by reinventing itself as a massive, open world action RPG experience with 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins. Just a year later, it climbed even to even higher highs with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which continued to expand on Origins’ action RPG formula by adding in choice and consequence mechanics, and delivering what is widely regarded as one of the best Assassin’s Creed games to date. From combat and its sheer scale to its core protagonists, its naval gameplay, and more, there was so, so much to love about the 2018 epic.
Transport yourself back to the months following Odyssey’s release, and you’d likely struggle to believe that Assassin’s Creed would be going anywhere but up anytime soon. After having found its groove once again with a new formula with Origins, and then having built on that formula with a game as good and successful as Odyssey, it seemed impossible at the time that the series wouldn’t remain at that level for at least some time to come.
From a commercial perspective, the series obviously did not slip from that point. When Assassin’s Creed Valhalla launched in 2020, it turned out to be an even bigger success than Odyssey right off the bat. Valhalla remains the biggest Assassin’s Creed launch ever, one of the best selling games in the series’ history, and even one of the highest sellers that Ubisoft has ever put out, which means the game more than did what it was expected to from a commercial perspective. But while Ubisoft will obviously have been ecstatic about Valhalla’s performance, among audiences, the open world behemoth remains quite a divisive game.
“Open world behemoth” is the key phrase there, because as much as that may sound like praise to many, for a large portion of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s player base, it was precisely its size that soured so many people on it. It wasn’t even purely a case of too much of a good thing (although that was certainly part of the problem, given just how big the game was)- for many, it was a far bigger issue that so much of the game just wasn’t designed well enough. The world felt samey and overly massive, to the point where all of it felt blended together, almost like it was procedurally generated. The immediacy and game feel of Odyssey was missing, which made everything from traversal to combat to even simple movement feel a little less snappy. The story was a mixed bag, with just as many people walking away disenchanted as there were those who enjoyed it.
The game had, in a nutshell, its fair share of issues, all of which were exacerbated massively by how unreasonably large and bloated it was. No game is ever perfect, but flaws become much more difficult to forgive when they frustratingly keep cropping up over the course of a 100 hour plus trek across a gargantuan world that just will not stop throwing content in your face. A couple of years before Valhalla came out, even the widely praised Odyssey had caught its fair share of flak for being perceived as bloated by many, so to see its successor doubling down on those tendencies was frustrating, to say the least.
We haven’t had a new mainline flagship Assassin’s Creed release since Valhalla so far, though Ubisoft did release a bunch of post-launch content for the 2020 title (not that it was in need of beefing up), while in 2023, the company also released the smaller, standalone Assassin’s Creed Mirage- which also wasn’t exactly an unequivocal win. Yes, it was smaller and shorter, and yes, it went back to focusing on stealth and parkour in a way that was much more in line with the pre-Origins titles. But though its non-bloated non-RPG-ness was definitely appreciated, many felt that the game itself was solid yet unremarkable.
Again, Mirage did well enough for Ubisoft to be deemed a commercial success, standing tall as one of the few unequivocal commercial victories the company has enjoyed in recent years. In fact, in fairness, it’s not like Assassin’s Creed the series is struggling, and certainly, it’s nowhere near in the sort of trouble when it was in 2014, after the implosive release of Assassin’s Creed Unity. But for fans, it has been some time since Assassin’s Creed really hit the heights that we all know it is capable of hitting when it is firing on all cylinders.
Which is why it’s important that Shadows knocks the ball out of the park. Many have been skeptical of the upcoming action RPG in the lead up to its release, and truthfully, there were times when Shadows’ pre-launch showings were looking a little rougher than you’d like. But with more time in the oven thanks to a couple of delays, it has looked significantly better in recent weeks and months. On paper, all of the gameplay and narrative information that had been revealed for Assassin’s Creed Shadows had sounded conceptually fascinating right from the get go, but now, the gameplay footage and impressions we’ve seen of late has finally looked like it might do justice to those concepts.
Obviously, it’s too early to say anything for sure, especially given how spotty Ubisoft’s track record has been, but cautious optimism that Assassin’s Creed Shadows might do what it needs to do doesn’t seem unwarranted at this point. Of course, Ubisoft has a large number of Assassin’s Creed projects in the works at the same time, which means several more releases are likely lined up for the relatively near future, over the coming years (including, interestingly enough, a remake of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag later this year, if leaks are to be believed). But if Shadows turns out to be yet another miss, it’s only going to send the series’ graph plummeting deeper still- and if that goes on, it might not be long before Assassin’s Creed games stop selling well despite muted or even outright divisive reception.
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