Ubisoft says don’t compare Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ success to Valhalla: The latter launched in Covid’s ‘perfect storm’ and feedback on platforms ‘less affected by review bombing’ is stellar

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is doing very well. Incredibly well. You wouldn’t believe how well it’s doing. But despite it all, it’s not doing quite as well as AC Valhalla did back in November 2020—Shadows is the second-biggest launch in the series’ long history, not the first.

But per an internal Ubisoft email seen by IGN, the company’s telling employees that it’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison to compare Shadows and Valhalla. “Valhalla launched under extraordinary conditions,” says Ubi’s internal comms, smack-dab in the middle of “widespread lockdowns and brand-new console hardware.”

The former of those two things kind of sucked for you and me, but they were great for entertainment businesses. “It was a perfect storm we may never see again,” says Ubisoft.

So what does that mean for how the company is thinking about Shadows? “It’s more meaningful to compare Shadows to entries like Origins, Odyssey, and Mirage—games released in more typical cycles,” it says, and if you look at Shadows’ performance from that angle it’s “already setting a new bar.”

And while companies are always gonna spin their latest thing as a mondo-success, this seems pretty fair to me. It’s undeniable that the videogame industry as a whole got absolutely zooted, just tremendously high on the hog from all the cash that poured in when we were all locked indoors over 2020 and 2021. It’s a bit of a statistical outlier: not necessarily something to look to when you’re trying to figure out your actual long-term trends.

For its part, Ubisoft talks up ‘player engagement’ in the email. “Feedback across moderated, verified platforms—those less affected by review bombing—remains incredibly positive,” it says. In fact, it’s at “record levels,” which I’m sure is quite nice, even if it’s gonna be money earned, not attention paid, that ultimately decides where Shadows ranks in Ubi’s history books.

Oh, and Ubisoft once again emphasises that not keeping all its games off of Steam for a ridiculously long time was a good idea: the stats it’s seeing “are a strong validation of our decision to return to the platform.” No kidding.