The Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay worked out so well for Ubisoft its CEO decided, hey, let’s do a couple more for the road—and save 100 million more euros while we’re at it

Assassin’s Creed Shadows was delayed until 2025. At the time, this was considered to be a bit of a blow to a floundering Ubisoft. Fortunately for the developer, it seems like that gambit paid off in the end. The game sold well enough, making it the second-highest Assassin’s Creed seller (on day one) in Ubisoft’s history.

Being pleased as punch about this, CEO Yves Guillemot announced in an investor call (thanks, Eurogamer) that the company’d be delaying a couple more of its mainline titles. As a treat.

The delay that came for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which Guillemot calls a “good decision to deliver a really strong quality” is to be mirrored in some of its other top brands. “After a review of our pipeline, we have decided to provide additional development time to some of our biggest productions in order to create the best conditions for success.”

Guillemot says that 2026, ’27, and ’28 are going to be big years for Ubisoft, implying that 2025 will stay relatively humble. And hey, surely this is good news for the studio’s developers, right? Ubisoft’ll be giving them more time to develop their games, right? No more layoffs for cost-cutting, right?

Well, Guillemot is glad Ubisoft managed to save €200 million last year—and has henceforth pledged to save another €100 million: “We also completed our initial cost savings program ahead of schedule. We are committed to going further, with additional savings of at least €100m over the next two years to drive structural efficiencies and reinforce the foundations of our organisation.”

It might just be the cynic in me, but given how cutthroat the industry’s gotten, I would be shocked if this was the end of Ubisoft’s shareholder-mandated march towards cut costs and infinite growth, while developers pay the bill. The two years of “cost savings” also involved laying off over 700 people since 2023, and the closure of entire teams. I seriously hope I’m wrong.

As for what’s being delayed, that’s yet to be announced—but I shall hold onto my nugget of hope and believe against belief that Ubisoft is merely being sensible in taking its time.