Assassin’s Creed Shadows getting delayed out of 2024 might come as a disappointment to many, and my sympathies are fully with anyone who was already getting hyped to play the game in November. Game delays can often be a good thing, but that doesn’t make them any more fun, and it’s been almost four years since the last Assassin’s Creed game on this scale. For me, however, the delay actually comes as something of a relief, and I feel like I’ll be able to muster up more excitement for the game once its new February 2025 release rolls around.

I’ve been an Assassin’s Creed fan for a long time, although I didn’t begin right when the series did. As is the case for a lot of people, Assassin’s Creed 2 is what hooked me, and I’ve played and enjoyed a lot of the games since. They have their ups and downs, but I’m always happy to wander around historical cities and marvel at the details when all the assassin business isn’t going down, and the promise of a trip to Feudel Japan in Shadows certainly sounds appealing.

I Need A Break Before Assassin’s Creed Shadows

I’m Not Quite Ready For The Huge Adventure

The biggest problem that I’ve been facing with Assassin’s Creed Shadows is simply fatigue. Aside from Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which was a nice change of pace, Assassin’s Creed games have become very, very long. If the structure of side content is handled in an intuitive way, I know I’ll end up getting sucked into way too much of it, and playing Shadows will likely take up the majority of my gaming time for a while after it releases. That’s not going to change in a few months’ time, but at the moment, taking a breather seems nice.

My current course for burnout isn’t really because of other Assassin’s Creed games, but because of Star Wars Outlaws, which I dutifully purchased at launch for the sake of coverage more than anything else. It has its charms, and it isn’t as endless in scale as Assassin’s Creed Shadows probably will be. But there’s also a certain upper limit to how much Ubisoft open-world material I want to be playing within any time span, and I wasn’t looking forward to finishing Outlaws, getting a break for a few weeks, and jumping back into another game designed to consume my time.

Recent Ubisoft games have been making appreciable changes to the formula, especially in abandoning the push for heavy UI hand-holding, but it sometimes feels like too little, too late.

I’d still like to get hands-on with Assassin’s Creed Shadows as soon as I can, and I’m especially eager to see if Yasuke and Naoe feel like genuinely new characters to control, an area where Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s Basim fell a bit short. I’m eager for that taste of gameplay, though, not for the full course. When I know a game is going to be overstuffed, I need to have a real appetite, and an interest in the flavor isn’t going to do it.

Star Wars Outlaws Needed More Time In The Oven

I’ve Had A Rough Go Of It On PC

Custom Image by Katarina Cimbaljevic

Star Wars Outlaws has also been showing me just how frustrating Ubisoft games can be at launch, and it’s not pleasant. My first issue arose before even entering the game, as buying the game directly from the Ubisoft Store webpage failed to actually deliver me a key in time for release despite taking the funds from my PayPal. Customer support helped me out after some back and forth, but it was a clear reminder of why I and many others prefer Steam to other digital storefronts.

I wish I could say that it’s been smooth sailing since then, but while I encountered no game-breaking bugs in Assassin’s Creed Mirage or Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora last year, Star Wars Outlaws has pulled out all the stops. I’ve had to relaunch it repeatedly due to graphical issues that showed up after playing for around an hour at a time, and I lost hours of progress rolling back save files to circumvent a bug blocking main quest advancement. It’s also featured frequent crashes, which are particularly annoying if they come in the middle of a high-stakes game of Sabacc.

I can’t say for sure if Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be in better shape at launch, but with a few more months of development time, I can certainly say that the odds are higher than they were before. The tepid reception of Outlaws seems to be a big factor in the date change, and that’s also manifesting in some other decisions surrounding the launch. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is set to release on Steam, relieving my fears of another customer support ordeal. Refreshingly, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is also abandoning the early access and expansion content incentives for premium purchases.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ New Release Date Isn’t Ideal

A Crowded Month In A Crowded Year

The February slot for Assassin’s Creed Shadows still isn’t ideal, as it’s going up against some competition that calls my name. I’ll definitely be playing Civilization 7, which comes out just a few days ahead of Shadows, and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which trails it by a couple of weeks. Throw in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Avowed, and Monster Hunter Wilds, and a lot of people are going to be making tough choices about priorities.

That might just be how all of 2025 looks, though. Most release dates are still in the ether, but a ton of interesting games are currently tagged with 2025 windows, many of them the result of similar delays that pushed them out of 2024. February could be as good a time as any, and Ubisoft probably needs to get Assassin’s Creed Shadows out well ahead of its most direct competitor, Ghost of Yōtei, which is coming at some point in the year.

At any rate, I’ll be more ready to invest in Assassin’s Creed Shadows in February, and I’m hopeful that the game will be more worthy of my time then that it likely is now. The Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay feels like a last-ditch effort after years of Ubisoft struggling to land a huge new hit, but even if it doesn’t solve all the publisher’s problems, it makes my life just a little bit nicer.