Ubisoft Says Assassin’s Creed Shadows Delay Was Key to Winning Back Fans After Backlash

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has finally opened up about last year’s controversy surrounding Assassin’s Creed Shadows, revealing that the company’s decision to delay the game wasn’t just about “polish,” but also about regaining control of the narrative after a wave of online backlash.

Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot says the Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay was crucial to restoring fan confidence after a heated backlash.

During Paris Games Week, as reported by GameFile (via IGN), Guillemot discussed how Ubisoft handled the chaos that followed the game’s reveal, particularly the outrage over Yasuke, the Black samurai co-protagonist inspired by a real historical figure.

The backlash, which even drew in high-profile names like Elon Musk, quickly shifted the public conversation from gameplay to politics. And according to Guillemot, that ideological firestorm “forced” the studio to rethink its approach.

Originally slated for a November 2024 release, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was pushed to March 2025, with Ubisoft citing a need for extra development time. But behind the scenes, Guillemot admits the delay was strategic, and a way to cool tensions and “rebuild confidence” among fans. The CEO even showed a short internal video that documented how the company turned what he called “a pre-launch crisis” into what Ubisoft now describes as a “successful turnaround.”

“We were initially surprised by the extent of the attacks,” Guillemot said. “And we quickly realized that it was a battle, a battle with our fans, to demonstrate that we were, in fact, more of a video game than a message.”

"What we saw is that, by allowing our fans to see in the game — everything they were going to be able to rediscover — of what they love about Assassin's Creed, [that] ultimately helped to combat this aggression, which is linked to the fact that video games have a very strong impact on the people who play them. They’re kind of caught between 'I want to play, and what interests me is self-expression within a game' and 'there is a cultural message that comes with the video game.' So our goal is really to be able to ensure that our fans discover and defend what they expect from our games. It very quickly eliminated the fights, which were just fake fights."

The internal video, which played during the presentation, echoed that sentiment. It opened dramatically: “What happens when a legendary franchise reveals one of its most anticipated experiences, only to become the game everyone loves to hate?”

According to the clip, Ubisoft decided to stop “focusing on those who hated us” and instead rally its supporters. That’s when the team made a call to delay the game. The extra time, Ubisoft says, allowed developers to "polish Shadows, optimize its performance, and double down on the Assassin’s Creed identity."

“We rebuilt the Assassin’s Creed brand pact,” the video said. “More hood, more stealth, more leap of faith, more lore.”

"Rather than fearing leaks, we showed the game," the video concluded. "Fans came back, conversations started shifting, and everyone who built, played, and loved this game could be proud again."

It’s an undeniably dramatic retelling, but reports at the time painted a more practical picture. As Insider Gaming noted, the delay was "widely expected" within the company and “desperately needed” after playtest feedback and mock reviews raised quality concerns. Even former Assassin’s Creed creative lead Marc-Alexis Coté said in December that the move was meant to change the "narrative" around Ubisoft’s "inconsistency in quality," especially following the underwhelming launch of Star Wars Outlaws.

In hindsight, Ubisoft’s “don’t feed the trolls” strategy seems to have paid off. Assassin’s Creed Shadows went on to gain around five million players as of July 2025 (reportedly 4.3 million copies sold as of October 2025), performing "in line with expectations." Reviews praised its massive world, dual-protagonist system, and refreshed stealth mechanics, proving that controversy didn’t define the final product.

Still, Guillemot’s framing of the backlash feels like part reflection, part marketing. Ubisoft may have turned fan outrage into a PR win, but as many critics have pointed out, this wasn’t just a moral stand; it was a business decision wrapped in brand loyalty.

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