Ubisoft is postponing Assassin’s Creed Shadows again and here is the explanation from the experts.
Kilian FICHOU / afp
More “Entertainment”
Initially scheduled for November 15, 2024, the next episode of Ubisoft’s main series, Assassin’s Creed Shadowshad been postponed for the first time to February 14, 2025. Its release is now set for March 20, a few days before the end of its fiscal year.
“Although an additional month may not seem like much, it will allow our teams to better integrate player comments collected over the last three months,” argued the group’s CEO, Yves Guillemot, in announcing this postponement. Initial videos had raised doubts among certain players as to the final quality of the title, particularly in terms of character animation. But, since the announcement of the first postponement, new images have been more reassuring.
“We want to continue this momentum and (…) refine the game mechanics and the balance of progression”
Frédérick Duguet, financial director of Ubisoft
“A lousy game is lousy forever”
Postponing an exit “is not rare” and can be “clearly beneficial,” assures consultant and content creator Benoit Reinier, known under the pseudonym Ex Serv on the internet. According to him, “the last moments of development are the most important.”
“Developers will be able to remove bugs or refine small animations. It doesn’t seem like much but, reflected over dozens of hours of play, it makes the difference between a good game and a great game.
Benoit Reinier
“A delay is only temporary, a draw is forever”warned the president of the American studio Valve, Gabe Newell, in a documentary on the 25 years of the game Half-Life in 2023, taking up a well-known adage in the industry. However, such a decision is rarely taken lightly since it can have significant consequences, particularly financial.
The first three-month postponement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows for example cost some 20 million euros to Ubisoftaccording to Yves Guillemot. And, if developers benefit from a little more time to refine their title, they may also experience a longer “crunch”, as this period of intense work preceding the release of a game is called.
“Everyone prefers to release a good game,” underlines David Rabineau, head of the independent French studio Homo Ludens, but “for the teams, it depends enormously on the quality of the basic working environment.”
A question of image
For Ubisoft, it is also a question of image: the publisher is regularly accused of releasing poorly polished titles, despite the publication of updates correcting certain bugs from the day the game is released, a practice now widespread throughout the industry. This was also one of the criticisms addressed to Star Wars: Outlawsreleased at the end of August, whose sales were disappointing.
“Players are extremely demanding and that’s what pushed them to delay +Assassin’s Creed Shadows”
Benoit Reinier
For him, the stakes are high: “it’s the last chance game” for Ubisoft. In the midst of stock market turmoil and while a takeover risk has emerged, a commercial success for Assassin’s Creed Shadows is in fact essential to give the company a little fresh air and enable it to negotiate its future more calmly.
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