In Assassin's Creed Shadows, players will explore feudal Japan as the fierce samurai Yasuke and stealthy shinobi Naoe. Ubisoft and gaming-peripheral maker Lexip have teamed up to help you play Assassin's Creed Shadows in style with a gaming accessory collaboration featuring six custom items and unique bundles that will include the game itself when it launches on March 20 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, macOS, and PC via Steam, the Ubisoft Store, and Epic Games Store.

Engraved Wireless Headset
Enter a new era with Lexip and Ubisoft's immersive headset. Proudly embody the very essence of feudal Japan, with its ancestral motifs and superior sound quality. Ultra-low latency and cross-platform compatibility.

A new era of Rainbow Six Siege will be revealed on March 13 at the Siege X Showcase. A teaser shown during the championship weekend of the Six Invitational offered glimpses of the biggest transformation in the game's history, including graphical and audio upgrades, deepened tactical gameplay, and new ways to play the game. Tune in live for the showcase on March 13 at 10AM PT / 6PM CET on the Rainbow Six Siege Twitch channel, and learn more about how you can attend the event in-person in Atlanta, GA.

Year 10 of Rainbow Six Siege will also kick off soon with the launch of the first season: Operation Prep Phase. A new Operator named Rauora will join the Attackers and use her D.O.M. Launcher to deploy bulletproof panels in doorways, helping her team reshape the battlefield and dictate the flow of combat. Rauora will be available at the start of the season with the Operation Prep Phase Battle Pass, and unlockable two weeks later with Renown or R6 Credits.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of its GeForce Game Ready drivers. Version 572.16 WHQL comes with support for the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 "Blackwell" graphics cards, along with all the software framework needed for DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation. DLSS 4 and its updated Transformer-based models for super resolution, ray reconstruction, and frame generation are even available to older generations of GeForce RTX GPUs depending on their hardware capability. The updated super resolution model is available across the GeForce RTX series, the updated ray reconstruction to RTX 40-series and RTX 30-series; and the updated frame generation model to the RTX 40-series. Multi frame generation is exclusive to the RTX 50-series.

A bug that caused G-SYNC compatible monitors to flicker when framerate drops below 60 FPS has been fixed. Micro-stutters noticed with "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" with V-sync disabled, has been fixed. Stability has been improved for Ubisoft games that use the Snowdrop game engine. The list of games with DLSS 4 multi frame generation support can be found in the table below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 572.16 WHQL

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.

It's no secret that Ubisoft hasn't had the best year, with the gaming giant having had to shut down multiple live-service and single-player games this year as a result of disappointing player counts and sales figures. Now, according to a series of rumors, Ubisoft is in talks with Chinese conglomerate Tencent with the intention of a buy-out. Curiously, though, Yves Guillemot, who currently sits as CEO of Ubisoft, wants to sell at least some of the Guillemot family's shares to Tencent, effectively giving Tencent a controlling stake in Ubisoft, but the Guillemot family wants to do so without losing control of the company it helped found.

According to Reuters, inside sources claim that the Guillemot family, who are the founding shareholders and currently have a controlling stake in Ubisoft, would like to maintain a controlling position in the company after whatever potential buyout deal is being discussed. Apparently, the Guillemot Family's desire for continued control has thus far been a sticking point for Tencent, who has as yet opted not increase its stake in the French game developer and publisher, instead holding out for a more favorable deal. Tencent already has around a 10% stake in Ubisoft, but the inside sources claim that Tencent wants greater control over the company before agreeing to a buyout of Guillemot shares.

Ubisoft this week announced that XDefiant would be joining the recently axed Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. As of December 3, the free-to-play first-person shooter will no longer be available to download, and no new players will be allowed to create an account. On June 3, 2025, XDefiant's servers will officially be shut down, making the game unplayable for old and new players alike. Along with the announcement of the closure, the development team behind XDefiant will also see significant changes, with 277 developers being laid off as a result of the shut-down, according to Stephen Totilo on BlueSky.

The remaining development team will be kept on to manage the game throughout its sunsetting until June 2025. It's not really a surprise that XDefiant is shutting down, despite the game's executive producer vehemently denying the allegations of the same as recently as October this year. While the exact reason for the game's closure wasn't revealed, news broke about XDefiant's struggles soon after its March 2024 launch, and it appears that the staunch competition in the space and the difficulties of monetizing a free-to-play game, even one that tries to break the mold, was just too much for XDefiant and its developer team.

Steam is highly valued by many gamers, not only for being a fairly inexpensive, easy way to buy and manage games, but also because it provides statistics on player count and play times, via tools like SteamDB, which are a neat way for gamers to see how the community is participating in games before buying them. According to a post on the FandomPulse Substack, however, Ubisoft has taken issue with Valve's player statistics.

The Substack post quotes Ubisoft insiders who claim that the game developer and "other companies" want Valve to disable or restrict the APIs used by tools like SteamDB and Steam Charts as a direct response to the disappointing performance of Star Wars Outlaws. This news also comes ahead of the early 2025 launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows, which has already caused significant apprehension as a result of game previews. The claims also mention that Ubisoft seeks to control the narrative of its games and potentially present a rosier image to its investors. If Ubisoft has its way, the gaming industry would lose even more transparency, since tools like SteamDB are often used by game journalists to evaluate the popularity and commercial success of games.

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.

Even post-spooky season, GFN Thursday has some treats for GeForce NOW members: a new batch of 17 games joining the cloud in November. Catch the five games available to stream this week, including Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the highly anticipated next installment in BioWare's beloved fantasy role-playing game series. Players who purchased the GeForce NOW Ultimate bundle can stream the game at launch for free starting today.

Unite the Veilguard
In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, take on the role of Rook and stop a pair of corrupt ancient gods who've broken free from centuries of darkness, hellbent on destroying the world. Set in the rich world of Thedas, the game includes an epic story with meaningful choices, deep character relationships, and a mix of familiar and new companions to go on adventures with. Select from three classes, each with distinct weapon types, and harness the classes' unique, powerful abilities while coordinating with a team of seven companions, who have their own rich lives and deep backstories. An expansive skill-tree system allows for diverse character builds across the Warrior, Rogue and Mage classes.

Destiny's Guardians are joining the battlefield in For Honor for an all-new Halloween event called Light of the Guardians. From October 24 to November 14, players will have access to a frightening Dominion-inspired game mode, Destiny 2-themed skins, an exclusive event pass, and more. Additionally, two new Destiny 2 skins will be available - The Violet King (Lawbringer) and The Crucible Lord (Centurion) - inspired by Destiny 2's Saint-14 and Lord Shaxx, respectively.

The limited-time game mode puts a spin on Domination by removing minions from player teams as they fight to capture points while facing off, not only against the enemy team, but also the terrifying Scorn Baron and his minions who lurk inside the Cathedral map's walls. Light of the Guardians also comes with a free event pass, letting players unlock exclusive rewards including a mood effect, ornament, and Battle Outfit. Players will be able to earn free Destiny 2 themed weapons as post-match loot and purchase even more Destiny 2-themed items from the in-game store, including emotes, a podium, an Illustrious Outfit, and more. The Destiny 2 items will remain available for purchase even after the event ends.

The latest game to come out of the Prince of Persia series was Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, which launched in January 2024. Now, after just 10 months on the market, Ubisoft has reportedly disbanded the development team behind the project, effectively ending all future development for the game and scrapping any planned sequels and DLC that was meant to be added to the game. The news has officially been acknowledged by Ubisoft, who published and developed the Prince of Persia game, and in its response, the game studio said that most of the developers involved with The Lost Crown have already moved to "other projects that will benefit from their expertise."

Since its launch in January this year, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown has been a bit of a commercial flop, garnering a mere 1,446-player peak player count on Steam, according to SteamDB. Insider Gaming reports that The Lost Crown sold as many as 1 million units across its PS5, Xbox, and PC releases, leading Ubisoft to classify it as a commercial failure. Despite basically acknowledging that The Lost Crown wasn't profitable enough, Ubisoft seemingly wants to leave the door open for future installments in the Prince of Persia franchise, saying "We know players have a love for this brand and Ubisoft is excited to bring more Prince of Persia experiences in the future."

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.

It's time to mana-fest the spirit of adventure with Square Enix's highly anticipated action role-playing game, Visions of Mana, launching today in the cloud. Members can also head to a galaxy far, far away, from the comfort of their homes, with the power of the cloud and Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws, with early access available on GeForce NOW. Plus, be among the first to get early access to the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Open Beta on GeForce NOW without having to wait around for downloads - early access runs Aug. 30-Sept. 4 for those who preorder the game. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will join the cloud when the full game is released Oct. 25. These triple-A titles are part of 26 titles joining the GeForce NOW library of over 2,000 games this week.

Cloudy With a Chance of Mana
Visions of Mana details a whimsical journey through the enchanting world of Mana. Step into the shoes of Val, a curious young man on an epic quest to escort his childhood friend Hina to the sacred Tree of Mana. Along the way, encounter a colorful cast of characters and face off against endearing yet formidable enemies. The game's combat system blends action and strategy for real-time battles where party members can be switched on the fly. Different party members offer unique skills, such as Val's powerful sword strikes or magical spells cast by Careena's dragon companion Ramcoh. Plus, traverse the game's expansive, semi-open world on Pikuls - adorable, rideable creatures that can also ram through enemies.

Take on high-risk, high-reward missions as the galaxy's most wanted in Star Wars Outlaws and marvel at iconic ray-traced Star Wars locations, enhanced with NVIDIA DLSS 3.5's AI-powered graphics, using the power of the GeForce RTX 40 Series to deliver an unparalleled PC experience. And gain the upper hand in thrilling dogfights with The Empire thanks to NVIDIA Reflex and its unbeatable responsiveness. As the Galactic Empire relentlessly pursues the final defeat of the Rebel Alliance, the criminal underworld thrives. Fans will play as cunning scoundrel Kay Vess and her loyal companion Nix, as they attempt one of the greatest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen. Seeking the means to start a new life, players will join Kay and Nix as they fight, steal, and outwit their way through the galaxy's crime syndicates and join the galaxy's most wanted.

As part of our collaboration with Ubisoft, Massive Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games on Star Wars Outlaws, we're today introducing a new Star Wars Outlaws GeForce RTX 40 Series Bundle, available until September 19th. Buyers of eligible products from select retailers and etailers, including GeForce RTX 4090, 4080 SUPER, 4080, 4070 Ti SUPER, 4070 Ti, 4070 SUPER and 4070 graphics cards and desktop PCs, and laptops with a GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, or RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, will receive a digital copy of the Standard Edition (valued at $69.99) to play when released on August 30th.

Calling all gamers and Star Wars enthusiasts! Get ready for an extraordinary adventure across the stars as MSI proudly introduces the Star Wars Outlaws Game Bundle in collaboration with Ubisoft. This thrilling collaboration includes a copy of Star Wars Outlaws along with MSI's top-notch gaming hardware, offering an experience that will transport players to a distant galaxy.

Featuring MSI's cutting-edge gaming hardware, the Star Wars Outlaws Game Bundle invites players to dive deep into the heart of the Star Wars galaxy like never before. This bundle offers an array of exhilarating adventures that will leave players on the edge of their seats. Risk it all as scoundrel Kay Vess, seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix.

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.

During Ubisoft Forward showcase, we got a whole new gameplay trailer showing off a lot of details for the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws open-world game that is set to launch on August 30th. In addition, Ubisoft also released the new overview trailer, showing off some of the locations and missions that you will be able to take in the game.

The new gameplay trailer focused on locations and encounters, including Tatooine and Mos Eisley. It follows the protagonist, Kay Vess, on a mission to Mos Eisley, where he needs to track an expert gunslinger. The trailer shows off dogfights, and what to expect from the dynamic side, including stealth aspect of the game. It also reveals how you would be able to gain skills.