Assassin’s Creed Shadows Crosses 1 Million Players on Launch Day, Ubisoft Says

Assassin’s Creed Shadows saw over 1 million players on launch day, Ubisoft has announced.

The game released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S on March 20, and just before 4pm in Canada, Ubisoft took to social media to say it had crossed the 1 million player mark.

“It’s not even 4pm here in Canada and Assassin’s Creed Shadows has already passed 1 million players!” Ubisoft said.

“Thank YOU from the bottom of our hearts for joining this adventure in Feudal Japan. We are beyond excited to start this journey with you!”

While 1 million players on launch day is an impressive achievement, it’s difficult to gauge success when Ubisoft itself hasn’t offered a sales figure or indeed a sales target.

What we do know is that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the top-selling video game globally on Steam right now. Valve’s chart sorts products by revenue, so we can say Ubisoft’s game is currently bringing in more money than any other on the platform.

We also have early days Steam concurrent figures. According to official stats from Valve’s platform, Assassin’s Creed Shadows hit a peak player concurrent figure of 41,412 on Steam on launch day. Assassin’s Creed Shadows released on a Thursday, so it is expected that that figure will grow as we head into the game’s first weekend on sale. We’ll have a better picture of its performance on Steam next week and in the weeks ahead. Neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public.

For some context, BioWare’s single-player RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard launched on Steam on Thursday, October 31, 2024, and saw a peak of 70,414 players on Valve’s platform.

There is enormous pressure on Assassin’s Creed Shadows to do well for Ubisoft globally after a number of delays and the sales failure of last year’s Star Wars Outlaws. Indeed, Ubisoft has suffered a number of high-profile flops, layoffs, studio closures, and game cancellations in the run up to Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ release.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has also endured a number of controversies, not least in Japan. Yesterday, IGN confirmed that Ubisoft had quietly released a day-one patch for Assassin’s Creed Shadows that made a number of important changes seemingly in response to concern from some Japanese politicians about in-game temples and shrines.

In a remarkable exchange this week, Japanese politician and member of the House of Councillors of Japan, Hiroyuki Kada, raised the issue of Assassin’s Creed Shadows in an official government meeting, and Shigeru Ishiba, the Prime Minister of Japan, responded.

On Steam at least, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is going down very well with players. It has a ‘very positive’ user review rating, with 82% of the near 4,000 user reviews marked as positive. IGN’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows review returned an 8/10. We said: “By sharpening the edges of its existing systems, Assassin’s Creed Shadows creates one of the best versions of the open-world style it’s been honing for the last decade.”

Ubisoft’s founding Guillemot family and largest shareholder have reportedly been exploring talks with Chinese mega-corp Tencent and other investors on a buyout deal that would let them preserve control.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.