Ubisoft is returning to Day 1 Steam releases starting with the recently-delayed Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a move that is seemingly in response to softer-than-expected sales for Star Wars Outlaws.
The shift reflects the dominance of Steam as well as some pretty major changes that are happening within Ubisoft. Earlier this week, Steam broke its record for PC players online, hitting 38,366,479 concurrents. The move is seemingly an acknowledgment that any PC game that doesn’t launch on Steam is going to leave behind a significant portion of the audience.
Ubisoft isn’t the only company embracing Steam. Blizzard, which once kept its exclusively on Battle.net, announced that Diablo 4 would be coming to Steam almost exactly one year ago.
Ubisoft will hope that the the move gives a boost to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which was delayed “further polish the title” and implement “the learnings from Star Wars Outlaws.” Star Wars Outlaws, for its part, is headed to Steam on November 21.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.