
With digital becoming an increasingly popular method for people to purchase games, PS Store sales records really matter.
Ubisoft will be elated to learn that Assassin’s Creed Shadows set a new launch day record for the publisher on Sony’s storefront, then – according to data seen by VGC.
We already reported on how the title has secured the second-best launch in series history, behind only Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which released during the holidays at the height of the pandemic.
But we figured it was worth pointing out the feudal affair appears to be Ubisoft’s best-ever day one PS Store performance.
It’s always worth caveating that digital sales have only been increasing since the last major Assassin’s Creed game and prices have also gone up, so that does make the record a little easier to break. But it’s still a fantastic result for the French publisher nonetheless.
All the data that we’ve seen or heard about thus far suggests this game is shaping up to be a success, and rightly so: it’s a real return to form.
Remember, you can check out our Assassin’s Creed Shadows guide if you’re one of the many people who picked this title up.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 103
But it was a failure apparently 😂 all things considered it's done the best in the series. Great game and shows ubisoft actually put a bit of effort in
Grabs popcorn This should be fun 😆
Glad to see it doing well though, still planning on picking up a copy
Very nice impressive.
Now let's see Ubisoft's actual sales numbers.
ohhhh... cant wait to see how this thread turns out bahaha.
Now make a great Splinter Cell game and a smaller sized Rayman that don’t cost much to make and Ubisoft could start to claw it’s way back.
Number one on the storefront, best seller with physical sales. Sounds like it will be a huge success. Pleased for the devs tbh. Surprised the stock price hasn’t picked up a little though.
@HonestHick i was going to say the same thing. I miss Splintercell a lot. Chaos Theory was a masterpiece for its time.
Worth noting this game seems to have done best by a mile on PS5.
Yes, the game did well. Most of us knew that it would.
Now can we please not have continuous articles on the subject?
Removed - inappropriate
Maybe we could start a new tradition where we actually wait for a game to release before we declare it broke.
As an internet expert on all things, I’m still not convinced 🧐
@Vaako007 you’d have to assume a break even number would be about 5m copies sold at full price. As you say player numbers could easily be people taking advantage to a one month sign up with ubi+
The game doing well compared to previous games on released on steam is a little misleading due to the fact that steam has quadrupled in player count since the last ac release.
At some point in the future games companies are going to realise that these subscription services actually hurt their sales figures rather then help. Giving away a $300-400 game for $10 monthly sign up is a recipe for disaster.
Seeing the number of articles here about how big a success this game is, it's clearer now why the comment sections about AC Shadows are some of the most moderated on this site.
Physical disc is less than £50 if you have a look on the tinternet. It'll be even less when I get round to it. Until digital prices fall in line with Internet outlets I'll not be purchasing day one releases until they hit sales. Digital is for me is about bagging the bargains.disclaimer alert. Please note I'm not knocking anybodys personal preference as to how they choose to purchase their games and this is a personal opinion..
@Northern_munkey Thats why i like subscription services, i can play new games day and date and if i like them i can buy them digitally a year or later down the road for cheap and replay them often times with added content and better features. I’ve played a lot on GP this year alone that was really good and i will add to my digital library in time. Doom is next up on GP for me. I did however buy Diablo 4 full price as i knew i would play over a 1000 hours of it. You still playing any D4? Or did it grow old on ya?
Makes me wonder if some subbed to Ubisoft’s service to try this out.
@Boxmonkey yes which is why I have not been a fan of the subscription services for gaming. As I could see the writing on the wall for the future. Sure these services are good for an already existing backlog of old games. Just look at Netflix at first and its success. Then once other IP owners removed their content or made it more costly, Netflix had to go into debt to make more shows to justify people keeping their cheap subscription. It’s harder for game companies to put out many games especially since there is what I call a marvel effect in which every suit type wants to only create big budget games with hopes of striking gold.
Yes the steam numbers are very misleading. Especially for games which have a bigger base on consoles historically speaking.
Subscription models make it very hard for gaming companies to make new content. Especially those outside of the Windows corporate umbrella.
This seems like great news, but I'm still sceptical. I want to see the sales combined for both digital and physical for the first week/month and compare that with other releases in the series.
The reason being that in 2025, digital games have become more mainstream than ever with digital only consoles.
So, I'm not sure if having the biggest digital sale in the franchise's history on launchday is that big of a deal as they want to make it sounds, considering that the further you go back in time with the franchise's releases, the less popular digital games were.
Ahh another article about the success of Assassin's Creed Shadow! I think there are not enough of those here!
Those are certainly created to inform right? In case the people did not understand how successful the game is from the previous article about is success.
@HonestHick I still play it but I jumped to PoE2 which is the better of the two games but I'll always love diablo.
@Northern_munkey im still playing as well. Never did try POE. Hear a lot of good things about it tho of course.
Im expecting an article every time the game sells another copy at this rate.
At this point it almost feels like gloating.
Will tomorrow be again articles about how good is AC selling?
They're pumping out positive articles about this game like they're being paid to do it!
It's gone down well with critics and the fans and to top it off its selling really well. I don't usually root for Ubisoft but it's great to see them finally getting some good news for a change, fully deserved.
@JayJ there must be a conspiracy, I tellz ya!
@djlard yes, and certain people will still doubt that it's selling well.
I love seeing the mental gymnastics people are using to try to downplay the games success.
Now that the game's doing well the hate mob has changed from their constant negative comments on the game at any opportunity to complaining about there being too many articles about the game 😂
I’m so glad to see this game doing well. Both for the fact that’s it’s a brilliant game and also as a massive FU to the haters. It’s been ridiculous the hate Ubisoft have gotten
The success of the game is not a surprise (I’d argue it would have been more successful if they didn’t make so many missteps).
However, it’s quite sad to see practically the entire gaming media world playing defense for Ubisoft and seemingly engage in this culture war political nonsense.
The game looks amazing. It’s definitely an achievement in that. It has good gameplay, but nothing special. No improvement over the previous games. And the combat is limited and simple. It has a task driven gameplay loop that isn’t innovative either.
It gets worse though. In parts it is downright anti-consumer with some of its mechanics that should be objected to. (And yet no reviews mention this). They purposely made it harder to farm stuff so you’ll be enticed to pay money in game [Edit: the entire in game real money store is problematic in single player games]. Not to mention some dodgy decisions in development, their plagiarising of others work (remember that Yasuke sword they displayed that was from One Piece?), and a myriad of other controversies.
Politics has stopped gaming journalists from doing their jobs. This not helping Ubisoft improve or the gaming community get better games. It’s pandering to mediocrity that holds the industry back.
Anyways, I look forward to ranting more at the next fawning article that overlooks all controversies and bad practices. 😇
And meanwhile that article 😄
https://x.com/80Level/status/1904382574581174286
Don't know why people are thinking something dodgy is going on. The narrative all week is how terribly it's done. So obviously they will keep posting positive news because the skeptics will comment saying whatever. All about traffic
Removed - flaming/arguing
Removed - unconstructive feedback
@Uromastryx Dude theres a microteansaction to reveal the whole map.
In before the haters bring some heavyartillery to the comments 🍿
@Frmknst This post you linked immediately starts with a lie, claiming that Odyssey and Origins didn't launch day one on Steam. They did.
If your "expert" gets basics facts wrong in paragraph one then he's probably a clown.
Removed - flaming/arguing
OK the game started well, we get it, can we please calm down on the articles about it now?
@graymamba bro, thanks for making spill morning coffee 🤣🤣🤣
@ChrisDeku Or it could be because - follow along with me here - there are noticeably more articles about this game's sales figures than any other game released in the past month?
@get2sammyb it's becoming a point where that's not going to be even worth saying soon I think lol.
Wonder if any 3rd party game not tied to any exclusive period sold better on series x/s than PS5.
Given most people who would have played Indiana Jones on Xbox likely took advantage of gamepass I'm betting that sells more on ps5 than it ever did on Xbox.
@naruball @ThaBEN @Boxmonkey @ThomasHL @get2sammyb @Vaako007 I've tagged you all as you expressed some scepticism or were responding to it. I think this is the reality :
The game released 5 DAYS AGO, we simply don't know if the game if the game is a total success or failure yet, there simply isn't enough data to tell us, which is entirely normal, most games don't make their money back on launch day and announce, "we're in profit". But what we do know so far is:
But I think what is rubbing so many people the wrong way is there is a large group of grifters and their acolytes determined to claim games are a failure, even before launch. This isn't the first game. In fact they seem to be actively TRYING to change a games fate by swarming any news, Reddit, YouTube, Discord, X, chat about the game with lots of negative chatter. It's really ugly, negative BS, and a lot of people don't like it. Hence the strong push back.
We'll have to wait and see if AC: Shadows succeeds or fails for Ubisoft, but it's off to a strong start, at least on PlayStation. That's about all we know for now.
My copy arrived yesterday. Never happy when you have to download it from the internet instead of copying from the disk but when it did download and I got to try it I was impressed.
Can't wait to finish work and play some more
Removed - flaming/arguing
@Northern_munkey I'm generally with you on physical - cheaper day one, and generally feels better to have the ability to do what you want with it. Still - UbiSoft have been at the forefront of selling the "you don't own software" message, and with their hub design (and it's likely future manifestations) I'm guessing they're trying very hard to make it not worth having physical copies. Especially if you're just getting a software key on the disc. I assume the complete game currently is "mostly" on the disc... until you need the Day One Patch.... or did it need to be downloaded in full? Confused.
@themightyant just to be clear, what I was implying is that it's crazy to make such a big outcry over a game before it even came out.
I agree that we don't know sales figures and it's fine to wait on them, but the fact of the matter is some people declared the game a failure before anyone had even played it, and that was silly then, and it's silly now.
@Kienda
People have been accepting this a long time though, and not just from Ubisoft. Games like Tales of Arise(and a lot of Japanese game companies) have xp and gold boosters available from day one. Capcom games have lots of Mtx, including most of the Resident Evil games that let you purchase permanent upgrades and weapons before you can unlock them in game. Nintendo even went further and locked instantaneous fast travel in Skyward Sword behind a $25 plastic toy(amiibo).
And if you think any of that sounds bad then don't even think about playing Diablo IV 😂
@themightyant yup. Well put. Nuance is hardly ever present in online discussions. The evidence we have is exactly as you described it.
@rusty82 they're the kind of people the new TV series Adolescence sheds light on.
@rusty82 Totally agree. What I find most disingenuous is that they were claiming many other games were failures before launch e.g.
But now that they are massive successes - MH:W is the 5th highest max concurrent of all time on Steam (1.3m), KCD2 is 256k + 2 million sales in a month, Split Fiction is 259k + 2 million sales in less than a week - they completely move the goalposts and conveniently claim these games as their own because "reasons". It's so disingenuous.
A part of me KNOWS we should just ignore them, (Never argue with idiots...) in many ways that would be the most adult response, and I realise responding often descends the whole discourse to their level. But the cold reality is they have swelled to flood the entire discourse of certain games with negativity not just in one place like Reddit, but seemingly everywhere. It's frustrating to see it take hold everywhere you look, like a plague, and seemingly a lot of people have had enough of the nonsense and want to push back.
@ThomasHL Absolutely agree. Loved your post.
Removed - flaming/arguing
@LifeGirl That's based on the principle of supply and demand. Websites survive on advertising revenue, they're not going to pass up the easy demand, and why should they.
I, also, notice that many of the complainers are the people who'd have loved these articles if the game had been a bomb.
@ChrisDeku Yup, most of those examples you gave were very scummy. But surely Ubisoft would LEARN from them, and not include XP boosters in a single player??? I will say the most egregious "trend" from publishers is the whole "pay double the price of the game to play days early", That to me needs to be called out on way more.
@themightyant yup. Plus, unfortunately, many times they do succeed in dissuading others from playing great games. I initially didn't give Forspoken a chance and I still regret it. I ended up buying the DLC, but the developers still suffered, despite making an excellent game, imo.
This is a positive sign for me in terms of the move to digital, where even a game that didn't have a stellar reputation can set sales records, that indicates a big move to digital purchases in general.
As for everything else in the comments above....I will repeat what I said before:
It's just another AC game. It's not worthy of any more debate than the previous games. You either like them or you don't.
My main criticism of the game is that it pushes the limits of upscaling tech. In the 40fps and 60fps modes it has a 1080p/base model PS4 game resolution look at times.
The more stylised but less realistic looking graphics in Ghost of Tsushima lead to a more consistent better overall presentation.
Respect to PushSquare for getting all they can out of this games news cycle, normally I’d be anti this kinda practise but it’s sweet to just have multiple places to boast in 🤣 now back to my replay of Transformers: War for Cybertron on the Steam Deck! Oh and of course some AC Shadows later this evening 😉
@naruball just bought Forspoken and The Plucky Squire from GAME for £20 together! Am looking forward to giving Forspoken a fair chance, I’ve heard promising things in terms of its gameplay!
@Kienda Harder to farm stuff? Farm what exactly? The game overloads you with crafting stuff to the point you have more then you actually need. Getting new gear is really easy as well and upgrading them is super cheap. Have you even played the game? 🙄
@themightyant I'm not a fan of woke culture but too many gamers accuse any game that have female leads, or gay characters etc as woke. It's not the case on the vast majority of cases.
If I don't like the look of a game I just don't buy it or engage.
But these people have too much time on their hands, too little going on of substance on their lives and minds, it's sad really
@Vaako007 what makes you say they’re not hiring “proper talent based on merit?” And what do you mean they’d be in a “completely different position” if the protagonist were a “normal straight Japanese man?” I think Yasuke and Naoe are interesting characters, and the game seems to be selling well, despite the anti-woke crusade.
@Andy22385 A bit of effort in? You seen this? EVERYONE needs to see this!
https://youtu.be/x5d1DOcOGDo?si=hbrxDVV6Cr303Isf
@species and so what!? You don't need it and can play the entire game without ever engaging with the store. Just like the previous games the store is all entirely optional.
Even if folks do use the store stuff again so what? That is their choice to make and their money to spend. Non of it will ever impact your game if you don't use the store.
Oh and let's not forget you can earn credits by playing the game and get items that are in the store from the exchange without ever opening your wallet
But sure let's keep spinning this because MuSt hAte uBis0fT
@ChrisDeku we shouldn’t be accepting it.
I haven’t touched Diablo 4 because of what they did with Diablo Immortals, which I played then realised it was pay to win. There is a video of someone who spent $10k getting one shot by someone who spent far more.
The gaming media should be calling that out and the community should be boycotting greedy companies rather than accepting it. Instead we have so many, who claim to care about the average person, instead shilling for multi-billion dollar companies.
It’s quite sad really.
@LifeGirl
To be fair 'the Internet' was pretty high on calling this a failure from the get go. Plus the success of this game , for every million it sells day by day, week by week and in its first month could determine the fate of one of the biggest last independent dev/publisher in the entire industry, whether broken apart or acquired wholesale by new owners who may run it further into the ground for the sake of money (or potentially give us all we dream of by reviving beloved ip). Its news and its why i, and many, come to sites like this.
It fills me with despair that people so willingly reduce themselves to this tribalism. "I am against DEI practices, and therefore I hate Ubisoft, and therefore I hate Assassin's Creed and therefore I need to complain to Push Square for every positive article they post on the game"
And you'll find similar tribal behavior for people hating on Stellar Blade, etc. It's not me making a political statement, just a reflection on how reductive opinions have become.
If you don't want to play Hogwarts Legacy, because the author is a terf, that's fine, but why feel the need to act like anyone reporting on its success has a political agenda, or is kind of some transphobe conspiracy, or why would you feel the need to try and argue the game's not succesful at all?
Don't people ever get tired of themselves. Do you wanna live a life where you're just repeating left/right wing talking points all day long?
@Herculean I think the way algorithms now work, people are constantly exposed to posts/takes/information that makes them more and more enraged about a certain topic. That's why they seem so obsessed with it. Because that's all they see.
@HonestHick funny you mention, somebody mentioned in Splinter Cell having shadows being spotted would be an amazing development way back and that came into my head with yep Shadows
Why has my comment been removed? Didn’t know we had censorship here, plus I said nothing controversial or disruptive.
@DennisReynolds I’m talking about the Hideout upgrades.
The reason they have them in the store is because it takes a while to farm them, so why not just pay real money.
It’s just a practice I don’t like.
Even on the possibility this game hasn't flopped, which is quite possible since we also don't know how many units it needs to sell, it ain't the silver bullet to solve Ubisoft underlying problems.
@themightyant
People should wait for Q1 report, which will probably come out on May.
@Darude84 We've not removed any of your comments here
@Spurs90075 am I missing something? 99% of games let you do that it's in an unrestricted area and most dont let you lie to guards either . And the big guy at end? What's that supposed to prove. It's literally using the dodge mechanics to avoid him. It's a mechanic. You comment made it seem like a big deal, it's literally nothing. Has someone actually made a YouTube video acting like that's the worst thing ever 😂😂 actually yeah of course they have, because that's where every hater of this game without playing it lives in those comment sections. Game is fantastic.
The staggering success of this game for some reason hasn’t translated to twitch viewership (currently 15th) or steam players (currently 39th) I feel the subscription services have skewed the numbers massively.
We’ve also had data releases like “2m players” instead of sales.
Steams biggest ac release so far but steam has grown 4x since last game released.
Truth is we won’t know how well or badly the game has sold until they release quarterly financial results.
@graymamba
I was saving this one for that very moment, but it seems to have passed 😭😂
@SystemAddict Ray tracing lighting on a game like S Cell would look amazing and be useful for stealth. It wouldn’t sell Assassin’s Creed numbers i don’t think. But it would still be a profitable game for Ubisoft if made well.
@Kienda I've been upgrading the hideout stuff just fine because again the game constantly gives you more then you will need. Take the Forge to max it out it took me around 10-15 mins to get enough materials to do it and in that process i ended with enough left over to upgrade another building by 1 level.
I'm enjoying it. Probably thoe closest thing we're gonna' get to a Tenchu game this generation, especially when Ubisoft start adding supernatural elements via the DLC.
Addressing all the comments about the number of articles saying ACS is a success - we'll probably never find out if it's a paid promotion and with that 'return to form' sentence I think the author is actually baiting us (because I can't imagine this was use unironically).
Regardless of that, what drives most traffic to websites such as pushsquare are guides. It must feel pretty ridiculous to give a game a low rating and then keep cooking up guides for said game for a month or two. So in such websites interest is to project games' success, despite the fact that pushsquare writers surely have enough competence and insight to know that something smells fishy if a developer proclaims success without releasing actual sales data.
Articles promoting ACS success keep using misleading terms like "number of players" (instead of units sold), "second most successful launch in the series" (comparing to other AC titles, none of which released day 1 on steam, instead of comparison to other games released lately) etc.
Let's wait, see and come back to these articles in a couple months.
Personally I just find it funny that everyone is now willing to excuse Ubisoft's past transgressions against the industry, holding them up as some holy paragon of justice...all because they perceive that the company has managed to "own the chuds."
In truth Ubisoft is still a scumbag of a publisher, up there with the likes of Activision and EA. They are responsible for many of the modern woes we suffer in gaming and while I don't want people to lose their jobs, I really DO believe the industry would be better off without them.
But yes, chuds owned. Redeemed.
@ChrisDeku
RE too many articles - people kept saying the same about Pro articles too. People just dont realise they dont have to read articles they are not interested in!
Don't really care about the game, but the malding from a certain crowd that there wasn't a wider racist backlash to the game is extremely funny.
Keep the articles coming.
@DreamlandGem Ah okay, must be a technical glitch then.
@Herculean
Just talking Hogwarts Legacy, the bemusing part of that discourse was that the devs clearly did their best to go against the authors opinions eg sirona ryan, who imo was a great character.
Plus 1 weird aside which may or may not be intentional - the authors "ultimate good person combat spell" if you know your lore is Expelliarmus - in the game you can turn it into a curse!
Everyone complaining about the number of articles: You don't have to click on them and read them! You also don't need to comment about it on every article!
@LifeGirl You don't have to read them and you sure don't have to complain about on every article about it.
Still looking forward to picking this one up on sale, the reviews are decent and the whole "controversy" was always a non-issue. All in all it seems like the best AC in a while
@RiverGenie Wow, never thought id see a Ubisheep so brainwashed to actually defend microtransactions.
The problem is tjat the devs have an incentive to design the game in a way thats so tedious you want to buy microtransactions, even if youre too blind to realize it.
I'm balls deep in metaphor refantazio atm but this one is on my radar. I got a copy with my new PC rig like some others.
I assumed it would do at least as well as one of the more recent titles in the series. Those seem to do well. Haters be damned tbh
N.i.c.e. happy for ubisoft.assasin creed shadows is amazing.word up son
@DennisReynolds didn't waste my time replying to him, wasnt even a discussion of whether it had mtx or not, it does sure whatever, you also have a horse and castle to raid for supply's and map to uncover, by just playing, I'm pretty he watched some lousy streamer who whined about mtx and having to actually play the game
Saying the microtransactions are needed is some high level BS. No one who played the game can say that. 😂
I almost finished upgrading everything in the hideout and never had a problem with it.
I also have a TON of materials for upgrading the weapons.
@beltmenot it is amusing that those complaining about the volume of articles can't seem to help but engage with them thus ensuring we get more articles.
I do this revolutionary thing where if I'm not interested in an article, I skip it!
Personally I'm glad the game seems to be a success if only for all the hardworking Devs who poured their heart and soul into it.
@species Sigh, straight to name calling very mature of you.
I have played every AC game to completion since Origins and you know how many times I used the store? Never not one single time.
So yes like many other games there are mtx available. For Assassin's Creed I have never felt my game play was impacted in the slightest by ignoring them.
If you feel that the gameplay is tedious it's probably the game just isn't for you and that's ok too (there are many games I don't get on with as well. ) Either way that doesn't change the fact that you do not need to interact with the store if you don't want to and you can have a perfectly fun time.
Enjoy the rest of your day 😀
@HonestHick PoE is a great f2p diabloesque game especially with mates and the ps5 version runs 4k@60fps. The crafting system in the first game is complicated as hell at first. PoE2 is very good and I'm enjoying it a he'll of a lot..first time I've ever paid for early access. Everything that was ropey about the first game is streamlined and much more accessible. Wait until its released as it will be f2p.
@RiverGenie This is very surreal conversation for me, i have to admit.
By your logic we can have drugs in schools, since you dont have to buy em.
Do you at least agree that despite the fact that you personally dont mind, these microtransactions dont add anything to the game and shouldnt be in a game thats already full price?
@Llamageddon could not gave said it better!
@species I don't understand your drugs / schools analogy or what it has to do with this conversation?
Mtx don't add anything to my game because I don't use them & by that same measure they haven't taken anything away from it either.
I don't have any issues with mtx in games as long as they are optional. I judge each game individually rather than say all mtx bad because that isn't true
Also just to be clear if folks want to buy mtx that is their choice to make and their money to spend as they see fit.
Hope that makes my point of view clear. If you disagree we can agree to disagree and no hard feelings on my part. 👍🙂
@RiverGenie Yea i dont think we will agree.
To me microtransactions are way too dangerous. I can count games where they were “ok” on the fingers of one hand. While theres hundreds of games where they decracted from the quality of the game.
Cant speak for Shadows, as I didnt play it long enough. You were right on that one, definetly not a game for me :/
Anyway no hard feelings from my side either!
@Northern_munkey yeah i have read into it a lot. I’ll have to remind myself to wishlist it on Series X and give it a try. I watch it played some on YouTube and it looks really good. I can’t wait for the 2nd expansion for D4 and i hope the rumor of Paladin as the next class is true. I’d like to play with Sword and Shield.
@HonestHick I wish they would bring back the crusader class from d3..that class was f**king awesome.
I will pick up a copy of AC Shadows for PS soon. The AC Shadows admin on Twitter cooked today!
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...