Ubisoft has delayed Assassin’s Creed Shadows from February 14th, 2025 to March 20th, 2025. This is the second time the game has been pushed back, as it was originally set to launch in November 2024.

In a statement posted to the official Assassin’s Creed social media accounts, Ubisoft says “a few additional weeks are needed” to implement player feedback and “ensure an even more ambitious and engaging day-one experience.” The company says more updates on the game are coming “very soon.”

Assassin’s Creed Shadows now releases March 20, 2025. pic.twitter.com/wTPzY0oiHy

— Assassin’s Creed (@assassinscreed) January 9, 2025

Beyond giving developer Ubisoft Quebec and its global partners more time to polish the highly-anticipated feudal Japan action-adventure game, this delay out of February will also give it a bit more room to breathe. Next month, several notable games are set to launch, including Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (February 4th), Civilization VII (February 11th), Avowed (February 18th), Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii (February 21st) and, biggest of all, Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds (February 28th). March, by comparison, is currently a quieter month for gaming.

The Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay also comes as part of a broader “strategic update” from Ubisoft. In it, the company says it’s “appointed leading advisors to review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders.” As Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier notes, this likely means exploring a potential sale of Ubisoft by its owners, the Guillemot family. In recent years, Ubisoft’s market value has plummeted amid commercial disappointments like Star Wars Outlaws, XDefiant and Skull & Bones as it continues to toil away on live service titles for the likes of Assassin’s Creed. This has led to reports of conglomerates like Tencent potentially eyeing a Ubisoft acquisition.

It remains to be seen what will happen with Ubisoft as a whole, but naturally, this only puts greater pressure on Shadows to deliver. This will be the first Assassin’s Creed game since 2023’s Mirage, which was a smaller-scale title, and the first full-sized entry in the series since 2020’s Valhalla. It also finally brings the series to feudal Japan, a setting that fans have been highly requesting for years.

Shadows features two playable characters: Yasuke, an African samurai inspired by the historical figure of the same name, and Naoe, an original female shinobi. Yasuke’s playstyle emphasizes combat and brute force, while Naoe focuses on stealth and parkour. Earlier this week, a detailed breakdown of the game’s overhauled parkour system was also released on Ubisoft’s blog.

Image credit: Ubisoft

Source: Ubisoft