Assassin's Creed Shadows' delays were mostly used to polish the RPG, creative director confirms, not for deeper changes brought about by Star Wars Outlaws reaction

Yasuke riding through a lush green field on horseback in Assassin's Creed Shadows
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Star Wars Outlaws had a less than stellar launch, with the game underperforming critically and commercially. This, in turn, had knock-on effects for Ubisoft's next big open-world game, Assassin's Creed Shadows, which had its release pushed back weeks after Outlaws launched with the company citing "learnings from the Star Wars Outlaws release" as the reason for the delay. However, the game's creative director, Jonathan Dumont, told 12DOVE that the delay wasn't that deep.

When asked if there were any deeper changes to Assassin's Creed Shadows based on the reception to Star Wars Outlaws, Dumont said, "Not really. We were basically trying to make the most polished game that we [can]" adding, "our game was there, so just making sure that we don't have bugs and that the experience is clean for people." Due to the dynamic weather system (which is extremely impressive to Ubisoft's credit), Dumont also mentioned that "there's a lot of things that we needed to take a look at."

Although even if the majority of delay time was dedicated to polishing what was there, Ubisoft did add "a couple bits of narrative here and there." When the team was playing the game following the delay, there was a realization that "this is a place where we could reinforce the relationship" which resulted in the scene where Yasuke and Naoe are gazing into the clouds and speaking about their futures. "We had a few already, and people love those things. So alright, let's try to get a little bit more in there."

But even when the game was delayed so close to launch, it actually didn't bother Dumont and the Assassin's Creed Shadows team too much, as they said, "It's kind of cool also that we were close to launch, and then we get this extra time to do the things that typically you're doing at the end."


Speaking of Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft has teamed up with Tencent to create a subsidiary to spearhead development on new Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six games.

Scott McCrae
Contributor

Scott has been freelancing for over two years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on 12DOVE in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.