After many rumors and supposed leaks claimed that Tencent was preparing a buyout of Ubisoft, it seems as though an alternative solution was reached, with Ubisoft today announcing that it has created a new subsidiary to house some of its biggest gaming franchises. According to the announcement, the new business entity is "based on its Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six brands," and it received initial funding from Tencent, which owns a 25% stake in the new business. Tencent's investment in the new subsidiary is to the tune of €1.16 billion.

The announcement also gives us an indication of what to expect from these game franchises going forward. For starters, Ubisoft mentions that the new subsidiary—and likely the capital injection from the Tencent investment—is part of a new business model that would allow it to invest more in increasing the quality of its creative outputs. Supposedly, it will focus on quality story-driven solo games and growing its multiplayer offerings with more frequent content updates, more social features, and introducing "free-to-play touchpoints." The acquisition comes after a series of delays marred the lead-up to the launch of the latest Assassin's Creed Shadows, which ultimately seems to have been a commercial success. In keeping with other trends, Ubisoft mentions in the press release that the move to split off these gaming IPs will also help accelerate its recent moves to make these gaming franchises multi-platform. Recently, Ubisoft has repeatedly stated that its strategy moving forward would include more multi-platform day-one launches, as opposed to console exclusives and timed exclusives.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is out now on Steam, inviting you on a journey with the stealthy shinobi Naoe and powerful samurai Yasuke as they explore Feudal Japan and discover a shared destiny. As you recruit allies, expand your Hideout, and use your network to gather knowledge about the world, Steam offers a number of additional ways to enjoy the game—let's take a look at what you need to know about playing Assassin's Creed Shadows on Steam.

Achievements
There are many Steam achievements available for Assassin's Creed Shadows and all of them can be earned in a single playthrough, regardless of story choices or difficulty level. They are earned not only by playing through the main story, but also by exploring the world, completing different activities, upgrading the Hideout, meeting allies, and more. Check the full list here.

Time to sharpen the blade. GeForce NOW brings a legendary addition to the cloud: Ubisoft's highly anticipated Assassin's Creed Shadows is now available for members to stream. Plus, dive into the updated version of the iconic Fable Anniversary—part of 11 games joining the cloud this week.

Silent as a Shadow
Explore 16th-century Japan, uncover conspiracies and shape the destiny of a nation—all from the cloud. Assassin's Creed Shadows unfolds in 1579, during the turbulent Azuchi-Momoyama period of feudal Japan, a time of civil war and cultural exchange. Step into the roles of Naoe, a fictional shinobi assassin and daughter of Fujibayashi Nagato, and Yasuke, a character based on the historical African samurai. Their stories intertwine as they find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict.

Despite some minor complaints about in-game performance and optimization, it's plain to see that Monster Hunter Wilds has been a successful launch for Capcom, but it has now been confirmed that Monster Hunter Wilds is topping both sales charts for February and 2025 so far. This is according to a report by Circana (via VG247), which claims that Monster Hunter Wilds managed to secure the top spot in February's and game sales across all the platforms where it is available, at least for the US market. Given the game series's popularity in Asia, it's likely a similar story played out there. SteamDB's data indicates that Monster Hunter Wilds has sold between 4.47 million and 5.96 million copies on Steam alone, with the peak concurrent player count reaching a whopping 1,384 608 players. Still, Wilds is currently in eighth position on the Steam Charts top sellers list or fourth if you consider the year to date. Previously, Monster Hunter Wilds also managed to surpass 8 million copies sold in just 3 days after release. All that said, these records are unlikely to last, since 2025 is stacking up to be a monumental year for gaming.

Both GTA VI and Borderlands 4 are slated for launch later this year, and while Borderlands 4 itself is hotly anticipated, GTA VI's announcement trailer broke YouTube's view records in the first 24 hours when it was first published. Since then, GTA VI's trailer has attracted 245 million views on YouTube. While GTA VI is slated to launch sometime in late 2025, it will be a console exclusive, meaning Monster Hunter Wilds and Borderlands 4 will likely be some of the biggest franchise launches for Steam this year. GTA VI has been rumored to be launching on PC in early 2026, although it's unclear if it will be launched to Steam at that time. Ubisoft also just launched Assassin's Creed Shadows to a somewhat mixed reception. While it remains to be seen how sales play out for Shadows, it is currently second on the top sellers chart on SteamDB.

Get ready to take your gaming to the next level and explore the thrilling world of Assassin's Creed Shadows—on us! MSI is proud to partner with Ubisoft to bring gamers an exclusive offer. Starting March 20, 2025, purchase select MSI products and receive a free game code for Assassin's Creed Shadows. MSI's cutting-edge products are designed for an exceptional gaming experience, offering breathtaking visuals, seamless performance, and unmatched reliability. Whether you're navigating ancient cities or engaging in epic battles, MSI has the gear to ensure your adventure is legendary.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows is launching March 20 on Steam, but you can pre-load the game as early as March 17 at 9:00AM PST (4:00PM UCT). Check out the exact time you can start the game on March 20, wherever you are in the world—with our "Global Release Timings" chart (below).

Don't forget to wishlist or pre-purchase Assassin's Creed Shadows today so you can pre-load on March 17 and dive in as soon as the game is live on March 20. Those who pre-purchase Assassin's Creed Shadows will receive at no additional cost the Thrown to the Dogs bonus quest at launch, as well as the Claws of Awaji expansion when it launches later this year.

Time flies and as we enter the latter half of March, we have a AAA release from a popular franchise that involves murder by another name. This is followed by a rather weird party game, a 33 player co-op game (good luck finding enough friends), some casual ski resort fun, an anime based game that appears to be related to chemicals and finally some alternative 20th century strategy gaming.

Assassin's Creed Shadows / This week's AAA release / Thursday 20 March
Become Naoe, a shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a legendary samurai, as you experience their riveting stories and master their complementary playstyles. As Naoe, use stealth to avoid detection and agility to confound your enemies. As Yasuke, strike your foes with lethal precision and power. Steam link

On more than one occasion, Assassin's Creed Shadows developer, Ubisoft, has assured gamers that the upcoming Assassin's Creed title set in feudal Japan would be playable on the Steam Deck and, by extension, desktop Linux, via Valve's Proton. Ubisoft, however, was seemingly convinced that Shadows would not get the official Steam Deck Verified rating in time for release. In mid-February 2025, Ubisoft confirmed via a Steam Community post that the Steam Deck did not meet the minimum hardware requirements necessary for a smooth gameplay experience, but today, Ubisoft announced that Assassin's Creed Shadows will be Steam Deck Verified on launch day.

This comes after Ubisoft also announced that Assassin's Creed Shadows will also support day-one Steam Achievements, as opposed to other Assassin's Creed games, which only got Steam Achievements later on. According to the post announcing the Steam Deck Verified status, Ubisoft's development team had to put significant work into optimizing Assassin's Creed Shadows to get it to run properly on the Steam Deck. Perhaps somewhat frustratingly, it seems as though Ubisoft is forcing Steam Deck players into a pre-determined set of graphics settings, with no ability to tweak them at launch on the Steam Deck. There will apparently be multiple upscalers from which players can choose, although Ubisoft did not specify what the options would be.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is just around the corner, launching on March 20 for Steam. To celebrate, the team released a new CGI trailer teasing Naoe and Yasuke's motivations on their journey through feudal Japan. Check it out below. Wishlist Assassin's Creed Shadows or pre-purchase it today! Everyone who pre-purchases the game will receive free bonus content, including the Thrown to the Dogs quest at launch, and the Claws of Awaji expansion when it releases later this year. You can also check all our recent Steam news, including more details about the Steam achievements and badges + trading cards available day one!

ENTER FEUDAL JAPAN
Explore the captivating open world of feudal Japan, from spectacular castle towns and bustling ports to peaceful shrines and war-ravaged landscapes. Adventure through unpredictable weather, changing seasons, and reactive environments. Become Naoe, a shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a legendary samurai, as you experience their riveting stories and master their complementary playstyles. As Naoe, use stealth to avoid detection and agility to confound your enemies. As Yasuke, strike your foes with lethal precision and power.

Gaming on Mac has been in somewhat of a weird situation lately. On one hand, there seems to be a ton of true AAA titles making their debut on macOS, but on the other hand, sales on the platform have been extremely disheartening in many of the cases. Now, it has been revealed that Assassin's Creed: Shadows, which is set to debut on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation on the 20th of March, will also be available for Mac users on the same day. While that may sound like great news for interested folks, there is a catch - like many of the titles, AC Shadows will be available exclusively on the Mac App Store for a cool $70.

And this is exactly where we hit a major roadblock. For whatever reason, Steam will not include binaries for both Mac and Windows platforms, forcing people with both Mac and Windows PCs to buy the expensive game for both the systems - and this, in my opinion, is the major reason why adoption has been poor. There are plenty of folks with both Macs and PCs - but getting them to pull the trigger for the same game two times is a hard sell. According to the App Store, the game will be playable on Macs powered by the M1 and higher SoCs, and needless to say, support for modern ray tracing goodness will be limited to M3 onwards. It is unclear, as of this writing how the performance is going to be, but there is no denying that the GPUs found on the Pro, Max, and Ultra SoCs in recent years are more than capable of handling even the most demanding of titles with playable framerates.

Hello everyone, Assassin's Creed Shadows launches on March 20 on Steam, and it's bringing a full list of achievements with it. Available on day one, these Steam achievements (which are the same as the Xbox achievements and PlayStation trophies) can all be earned in a single playthrough, meaning no achievement can be missed regardless of what story choices you make. And don't worry - your Leap of Fail will look just as spectacular whether you're playing on story mode or on expert level, as all achievements are unlockable regardless of difficulty level.

The development team built this list to cover a variety of game content - not just the main story, but also the additional content players can find in the world. As a result, achievements are tied to exploration, activities, the hideout, meeting allies and more. The team also wanted to add puns and references to other games, more particularly to other Assassin's Creed games. How many can you spot?

Assassin's Creed joins Balatro as part of the rogue-like poker game's free Friends of Jimbo 4 collaboration pack. As part of the update, players can swap out the traditional King, Queen, Jack of Spades with Assassin's Creed protagonists throughout the ages: Ezio Auditore; Jacob Frye; and , a stealthy shinobi and one of Assassin's Creed Shadows two playable characters.

Play as Naoe in Assassin's Creed Shadows when it releases on March 20 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, Mac, and PC through the Ubisoft Store, Ubisoft+ Premium, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Pre-order the game today to receive the Claws of Awaji expansion and Thrown to the Dogs bonus quest for free.

Assassin's Creed Shadows launches on March 20 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, Macs with Apple silicon via the Mac App Store, and Windows PC through the Ubisoft Store, Steam, and Epic Games Store. Set during the late Sengoku era in Japan, players will play as both the stealthy shinobi Naoe and the formidable samurai Yasuke. No matter who you're playing as, the development team wanted to ensure that as many people as possible are able to enjoy everything that Assassin's Creed Shadows has to offer. To learn more about the team's approach to accessible design, we spoke with UX Director Jonathan Bedard.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is an evolution for the franchise, with many elements being rebuilt from the ground up. In what ways did that allow you to change your approach to accessibility?
Jonathan Bedard: Having changed the way we built the game, we had to redo many things, and it allowed us to revisit some elements that weren't working as well as we'd hoped. Certain features benefited from this by being retooled or by simply changing the interface itself - or in some cases, the functionalities - to elevate our offer and our experience to higher standards. One example of that is our input remapping. Not only can you adjust the inputs of any of the buttons, but you can adjust the action of that input, whether you want it to be a hold or a press.

Hello everyone, following the release of our PC specs for Assassin's Creed Shadows, we wanted to share additional insight directly from our tech team on the use of ray tracing in the game. Assassin's Creed Shadows features three distinct ray tracing modes on PC.

Selective Ray tracing
This mode uses ray tracing only within the Hideout portion of the game. The reason behind this, is that the Hideout allows extensive player customization at a level never seen before on Assassin's Creed. Because of that, we cannot use traditional, pre-calculated, global illumination techniques, and therefore need to adopt a real-time approach with ray tracing. In all other gameplay situations, such as in the open world, ray tracing will not be used.

Hi everyone, Assassin's Creed Shadows is launching March 20, inviting you to experience the intertwined stories of Naoe, an adept shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a powerful African samurai. Today, you can pre-order the game on console and PC, and read up on Shadows' upcoming expansion, Claws of Awaji, which brings 10 hours of additional content free with your pre-order.

For those of you playing on PC, we've got all of Assassin's Creed Shadows' recommended PC specs listed in this article. Assassin's Creed Shadows will support raytraced global illumination and reflections, and will feature an in-game benchmark tool for performance analysis, ultra-wide resolutions, an uncapped framerate, and more. Check out all the specs chart below.

Ubisoft announced earlier this month that it would be sunsetting its free-to-play first-person shooter, XDefiant, on June 3, 2025, after dwindling player counts made it unfeasible to continue supporting the live-service game. Despite the game being shut down by Ubisoft, the game's development team at Ubisoft San Francisco apparently still wanted to follow through with some of the content it had in the game's pipeline. In an announcement on X, the game's executive producer clarifies that much of the content that is being delivered in what he calls the last patch contains all the content that was planned for Season 3 along with some content from future seasons of the game, including Season 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Some major highlights in the new patch, are 13 new maps, three new factions, including the Assassins—from Assassin's Creed—six new weapons, and five new game modes. Along with the slew of new content, XDefiant received a handful of gameplay and QoL fixes for both competitive and casual play. The new maps consist of eight new arena maps, four new linear maps, and one new tactical map. XDefiant also got a new progression system that allows players to unlock cosmetics, badges, and other rewards for character progression. The developer also introduced daily rewards and "Credits," the game's new in-game currency that allows players to buy skins and other items from previous seasons.

Ubisoft recently, and after a long period of reluctance, decided to add Steam achievements to some of its Assassin's Creed games it had launched on Steam. This comes shortly after Ubisoft launched Assassin's Creed Mirage to Steam with achievements already baked-in. Now, Assassin's Creed Unity, Black Flag, Revelations, and Syndicate all join AC Mirage in the Steam Achievements family. Putting the cherry on top of the achievement pie, any achievements already earned while playing the Steam versions of these Assassin's Creed games will retroactively apply to your Steam account.

The recently added Steam achievements are all pretty standard fare, with each game getting in the neighborhood of 50-60 achievements, except for AC Revelations, which only has 48 achievements. Where Ubisoft previously almost spitefully neglected its Steam audience, with many Assassin's Creed and other AAA games only coming to Steam long after their initial launch—largely without support for achievements and other advanced features—the game developer has seemingly realized the value of Steam as a platform.

After the fiasco surrounding the cancelled press previews and delayed upcoming launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows, it appears that Ubisoft is doing something of a redemption tour in order to garner hype for the latest installment in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Previously, news about AC Shadows's simultaneous console and Steam launch was quite positively received. Now, Ubisoft has given us a full overview of what's to come regarding the combat mechanics in Assassin's Creed Shadows. While the weapons and unit types in Shadows are certainly interesting, perhaps the most important take-away is that timing will be an important aspect to combat.

One of the most important mechanics behind Assassin's Creed Shadows's combat seems to be the character and weapon choices. The samurai, Yasuke, and the shinobi, Naoe, will supposedly come with their own versions of stealth, defensive, and offensive attacks, and each will have their own weapons, to bring some diversity to the gameplay of each character. It looks like each of the different weapon classes will be locked to either character and play style. At launch, Naoe will have three weapons to choose from, and Yasuke will have a broader selection of five weapons to choose from.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is seemingly not out of hot water with gamers just yet, although this time, the flak seems to have been mostly unwarranted. Earlier this week, rumors popped up on Reddit claiming to reveal the Assassin's Creed Shadows Animus Hub, which was supposedly the upcoming RPG's dedicated launcher, and a host of in-game season passes and rewards. The leak purports to detail the first free battle pass, which is referred to as "Eye in the Dark" and will consist of 20 reward tiers. Completing the battle pass allegedly rewards 9,050 Isu coins, which can be used to purchase various cosmetics in the form of character, weapon, and mount customization options. Somewhat comically, there appear to be in-game collaborations with the likes of VISA, Red Bull, Intel, BAPE Clothing and Sprecher, although how these will play out in the game is a mystery. This news made quite a stir when it was first announced, since Ubisoft was very clear when it confirmed the game's delay last month that there would be no season passes in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

As it turns out, though, the rumors were kicking up enough speculation about the return of paid subscriptions, battle passes, and season passes that Ubisoft took to its official Discord server to address the rumors directly. Although Ubisoft confirmed that the Animus Hub is a piece of software it has been working on, all the content and rewards offered in the Animus Hub will be free content. Ubisoft was, however, careful with its words, not denying the existence of season passes and battle passes, instead only commenting that those passes will not be paid. Additionally, Ubisoft confirmed that there will be additional in-game content available for free in the Animus Hub.

Assassin's Creed Shadows has had a bit of a rough time of late, with Ubisoft initially pulling out of the Tokyo Game Show entirely and delaying the launch of Shadows to February 2025, attributing its absence at the show to the buggy, incomplete nature of the 2025 entry into the Assassin's franchise. In the announcement confirming the launch delay and the Tokyo Game Show Absence, Ubisoft also communicated that it would be shaking up the Assassin's Creed launch and monetization strategy significantly. Apparently as part of that monetization switch-up, Ubisoft has also changed the price of the Assassin's Creed Shadows Collector's Edition, cutting it by a whopping $50.

Ubisoft confirmed the price change on Discord in an official Q&A, announcing that, due to dropping the three-day early access that Collector's Edition buyers would originally have received, the Collector's Edition would now cost $229.99 instead of the previous price of $279.99. Meanwhile, the Collector's Edition will still include all the other paraphernalia and real-world loot that it originally bundled. The aforementioned delay and changes to the monetization strategy not only saw the cancellation of the Season Pass model previously used by Ubisoft, but it also meant that all Assassin's Creed Shadows players would also get the game's first expansion for free along with the base game.

After the drama and negative press surrounding the recent Assassin's Creed Shadows delay, fans of the franchise might be happy to hear that, after more than a year on other platforms, Assassin's Creed Mirage has finally received a PC release date. Additionally, Ubisoft guarantees that Assassin's Creed Mirage will be playable on the Steam Deck at launch, even though it won't ship with the "Playable" logo.

According to the announcement, Assassin's Creed Mirage will launch on Steam on October 17, 2024. When the game launches on Steam, it will feature 50 in-game achievements that will "range from completing missions or ranking up, to performing specific actions." Despite having Steam achievements and Steam Deck compatibility at launch, AC Mirage players will still have to install UbiConnect, Ubisoft's first-party game store and launcher—a move that's unlikely to sit well with many gamers.

There have been a slew of changes for the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows launch, and the latest announcement out of Ubisoft promises some serious changes to the game's launch strategy. Not only will the game be delayed by almost four months, but it will now launch on PC via Steam at the same time as PS5 and Xbox consoles, and Ubisoft is apparently ditching the season pass model that it previously resorted to for major game launches.

In a previous article, we detailed the delays to Assassin's Creed Shadows, but further information was revealed in a Ubisoft trading update (PDF):

We are departing from the traditional Season Pass model. All players will be able to enjoy the game at the same time on February 14 and those who preorder the game will be granted the first expansion for free.

Ubisoft and the Assassin's Creed game franchise have had a bit of a rough time of late, with recent installments to the franchise largely having received a lukewarm or even negative reception. Now, just two months ahead of the official launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows—which is slated to revive much of the allure of some of the older Assassin's Creed games—Ubisoft is reportedly pulling out of the Tokyo Game Show and cancelling early media previews of the game.

Ubisoft Japan broke the news via a post to the company's official X account, although it doesn't reveal why it cancelled the September 26 broadcast, citing only "various circumstances" for the cancelled appearance. Alongside the cancelled Tokyo Game Show showcase, Ubisoft has also reportedly cancelled the subsequent Assassin's Creed press previews, which were scheduled for next week. The cancellation of both of these events has led fans to speculate about potential launch delays for the next Assassin's Creed game.

Assassin's Creed Shadows, launching on November 15, revealed 13 minutes of brand-new gameplay footage at Ubisoft Forward. In the walkthrough, Yasuke arrives in Fukuchiyama to track a corrupt daimyo. His trail leads him to confront a samurai who is abusing his power, and it's here that Assassin's Creed Shadows showcases its new combat, featuring destructible armor, devastating but risky posture attacks, and multiweapon combat. Yasuke crushes his foes with massive swings from his powerful kanabo before dispatching the samurai in a duel of katanas.

When the time comes to assassinate the daimyo inside his castle, players will be able to choose between Naoe and Yasuke; in the walkthrough, we see Naoe take the lead on infiltrating the towering complex. The stealthiest Assassin yet, Naoe has a host of tools at her disposal that allow her to strike silently and move about unseen. She can go prone and crawl through tall grass, peek around corners, or extinguish lights to hide in the shadows. She can swing and climb using her grappling hook, knock out NPCs, assassinate targets from a distance using her kusarigama, and more.

Assassin's Creed Mirage was envisioned as an homage to its franchise—a celebration of how it began and what it accomplished between 2007's Assassin's Creed and 2023's Mirage. Beginning as an idea for a DLC expansion that would take Eivor to the Middle East, it grew into a standalone prequel starring Basim, the enigmatic Hidden One from Valhalla. Developed as a shorter experience by Ubisoft Bordeaux, the return-to-roots game presented a distinctive set of challenges, which are explored in the March 22 GDC talk "Between Legacy and Modernity: Creating an Homage Game to the 15-Year-Old Assassin's Creed Franchise."

During the talk, Creative Director Stéphane Boudon and Lead Producer Fabian Salomon discuss the game's beginnings, its growth into a "remoot"—that is, something between a remake and a reboot - and how a streamlined approach helped them make tough choices and focus the game on the Assassin experience. To find out more, we spoke with Boudon and Salomon about some of the early concepts behind the game, a few features that didn't make the cut, and how Mirage re-introduced and redefined stealth as a gameplay pillar.