Ubisoft has once again delayed the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, further exacerbating the company’s already precarious financial situation. Initially scheduled for a November launch, the release was first postponed to February 2025 to coincide with Black History Month. Now, the company has confirmed yet another delay, setting the new release date for March 20, 2025.
This decision follows the underwhelming commercial performance of Star Wars Outlaws in 2024. Despite Ubisoft’s high internal expectations, the game failed to achieve significant market success. Ubisoft has cited lessons learned from Outlaws as justification for extending development time and increasing the budget for Shadows, further contributing to the project’s ballooning costs and prolonged timeline.
In October, CEO Yves Guillemot revealed that the game’s delay required an additional €20 million investment to improve optimization ahead of its release. Now, the company faces the prospect of making a similar financial commitment solely to cover employee wages, potentially prolonging development toward an uncertain future.
The game has drawn nothing but criticism for its controversial themes and portrayal of historical events. Set in feudal Japan, the story revolves around Yasuke, a figure Ubisoft reimagined as a Black samurai warrior, sparking debate over historical authenticity and creative liberties. Despite Yasuke’s limited historical footprint, his fictionalized role has been linked to efforts to meet diversity, equity, and inclusion benchmarks, generating overwhelmingly negative reactions.
Since the announcement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, criticism has mounted over perceived inaccuracies and cultural insensitivity. Early previews highlighted elements such as modern socio-political overtones and the unconventional use of rap music in a 16th-century Japanese setting, which many see as being culturally offensive.
Further controversy emerged with Ubisoft’s design choices, including an official game figurine featuring a stylized torii gate, a sacred cultural symbol in Japan, prompting accusations of deliberate disrespect towards the Japanese.
An official figurine for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows featured protagonists Yasuke and Naoe standing beside a broken, one-legged torii gate. In Japanese culture, a torii gate is a sacred structure marking the entrance to a Shinto shrine, symbolizing the boundary between the everyday world and the spiritual realm of kami (gods or spirits in Shinto).
The design sparked outrage among Japanese netizens and international audiences due to its resemblance to the partially destroyed torii gate at Sanno Shrine in Nagasaki—a structure damaged during the atomic bombing in August 1945.
Following the backlash, Ubisoft canceled their appearance at the Tokyo Game Show just a day after the controversy emerged. The figurine was pulled due to its insensitive design.
Ubisoft’s handling of historical narratives also drew additional criticism, particularly for their portrayal of Yasuke as a fictionalized samurai. In another blunder, Ubisoft attempted to market a replica sword from the One Piece manga franchise as an official replica of Yasuke’s samurai weapon during France’s Japan Expo, adding fuel to the fire as it’s just as credible as the claim that Yasuke was a true samurai, according to Jewish-English author Thomas Lockley, who self-credited himself as a reliable source while revising Wikipedia entries on the topic.
From the outset, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has been steeped in controversy. Ubisoft issued multiple apologies last year for incorporating AI-generated material and plagiarizing Japanese historical artifacts in concept art.
Numerous media outlets criticized gamers for questioning Ubisoft’s portrayal of Yasuke as a fictional samurai despite the historical ambiguity surrounding his life. In a curious twist, a former Sweet Baby Inc. employee who had worked on Ubisoft projects reportedly spoke to The New York Times in defense of the game, claiming that Japanese citizens were not offended and framing criticism as the work of Westerners posing as Japanese voices online.
Despite this damage control effort, Ubisoft ultimately withdrew from last year’s Tokyo Game Show after outrage over their controversial figurine spread among Japanese netizens.
Ubisoft stirred further controversy when speaking with Japanese outlet Famitsu, initially stating they deliberately sought a non-Japanese samurai for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. Though that portion was later rescinded, comments made by the games senior writer’s about there being “more than enough games with white male protagonists” didn’t sit well with gamers regarding the cultural authenticity Ubisoft aimed to depict within Assassin’s Creed Shadows and raised questions whether Ubisoft were deliberately trying to antagonize the Japanese with such stunts instead.
With mounting consumer outrage, the game appears destined for financial disaster upon release, mirroring past failures like Star Wars Outlaws, despite its massive marketing budget, and the notorious Skull and Bones. Ubisoft’s stock is now at its lowest point in a decade, with investors pushing for the company to go private amid speculation of a Tencent-led takeover alongside the Guillemot family.
Ubisoft took their circus act up a notch by bumping Shadows from November to February, plopping it smack into Black History Month alongside heavyweight releases like Monster Hunter Wilds, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Avowed, and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Now they’ve delayed it again to March 20, 2025, a date that awkwardly aligns with the 30th anniversary of the Tokyo subway sarin attack. Because clearly, timing is not their strong suit.
The Tokyo subway sarin attack occurred on March 20, 1995, when members of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released the deadly nerve agent sarin on five trains in Tokyo’s subway system during the morning rush hour. The coordinated attack killed 13 people, severely injured 50, and caused temporary vision problems for over 1,000 others.
The attack was intended to disrupt police investigations into the cult led by Shoko Asahara. It stands as one of Japan’s most horrific terrorist acts, exposing vulnerabilities in urban security and shocking the nation to its core. The tragedy led to the capture and prosecution of cult members, including Asahara, who, along with several others, was sentenced to death.
The event remains a grim reminder of the perils posed by domestic terrorism and the threat of chemical weapons.
In light of this somber history, Ubisoft’s repeated blunders with Assassin’s Creed: Shadows are raising uncomfortable questions. The highly offensive depiction of a damaged torii gate figurine, combined with the promotion of a replica sword lifted from a globally recognized manga franchise, suggests either a reckless lack of oversight or a deliberate bid to stir controversy.
Given Ubisoft’s notorious alignment with ESG social and ethical standards, many suspect their corporate virtue-signaling is backfiring spectacularly, insulting the very country the game seeks to depict.
Despite Ubisoft’s frantic attempts to repair their battered reputation, by delaying the game to continue development to provide additional polish alongside baseless claims of consulting authentic historical experts, the mounting coincidences paint a grim picture. Japanese consumers and critics alike see the game’s missteps as yet another instance of tone-deaf corporate meddling, prioritizing global social agendas over cultural respect and historical integrity.
With competition from major gaming titles looming, and Ubisoft’s shares in freefall, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows seems poised to be a catastrophic failure both financially and reputationally. As the game limps toward its delayed release date, one thing is clear: Ubisoft’s gamble on this project has turned into a cautionary tale of corporate hubris and diabolical mismanagement that may likely sink the company that designed it providing that the game isn’t delayed further.