With Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft claims to have finally made a successful entry again. However, to ensure this also happens with the company’s upcoming AAA games, Ubisoft has now postponed the release date.
Which games have been postponed? In a statement from May 14, 2025 (via Ubisoft.com), Ubisoft did not mention any specific games affected by the delays. However, the “biggest productions” are being referenced.
According to a report by PCGamesN, this could include titles like the next Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry 7. There is also speculation about a new part of the “Ghost Recon” series and the Splinter Cell remake, which was originally expected in 2026.
Ubisoft itself justified the delays with the experiences from the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows:
After a thorough review of their pipeline conducted from October to December, the group decided to give some of their biggest productions additional development time to create the best conditions for success, […] This decision has already had a positive impact on the quality of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. As a result, the business years 2026-27 and 2027-28 will see significant growth compared to the business year 2025-26, based on the strong content of the group’s largest brands.
While it remains open which games are truly affected, Ubisoft’s goal is clear: more quality for its games. However, players do not believe that this is the true reason for the delay. MeinMMO analyzes the current situation at Ubisoft for you.
Here you can watch the trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows:
“They call it the GTA6 delay”
What do fans consider likely? Fans reacted mainly negatively to the postponement of the titles on Reddit. Many think that it’s not about quality, but that there are other reasons behind it.
User arkady48 says: “They call it the GTA6 delay. The companies postponed the release to fall 2025 to avoid competing with it. It was postponed by a year, so now we’ll see how everyone will either delay or work hard to release before or after.”
Also, the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is being pointed out to Ubisoft. The game was created by former developers of the company and has recently celebrated great successes.
User gatsby712 says on Reddit: “Ubisoft and these AAA companies need to start developing more spin-offs that can create creative games with limited oversight. Make games like Expedition 33 with lower costs and similarly high revenues. These monster companies are too slow, inefficient, and stuck in their methods […]”
Another criticism comes from user sagevallant, who thinks on Reddit that the cost reductions are linked to the delays. According to their own statements in the financial report (via Ubisoft.com), Ubisoft has laid off 3,000 employees as part of the cost-saving program since September 2022.
The delay shows how bad things really are at Ubisoft
This is what MeinMMO author Cedric Holmeier thinks: That Ubisoft announces a delay so far into the future is certainly not a good sign for the company; on the contrary: Ubisoft is already in a real crisis. The bad situation in the company has been worsening for years.
They have invested too much time, ideas, and resources into big franchises that then failed to achieve the expected success. In response, there has been a savings course for years, which has also led to many layoffs. Yet real blockbuster hits remain elusive.
Even the Assassin’s Creed Shadows, praised by Ubisoft in the financial report, reached a peak of just 64,825 players on Steam (via SteamDB). However, the developers announced shortly after release over a million players across all platforms (via Reddit).
Fans are correct that there are likely more factors than just the mere improvement of quality that will be the reason for the delays. The surprising success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has certainly shown internally that even smaller, well-executed projects have their place and that the sole focus cannot be on AAA games. After all, the game by the former Ubisoft developers has more than doubled its own title with a peak player count of 145,063 (via SteamDB) and was also available on GamePass.
The upcoming release of GTA 6 is also not insignificant for Ubisoft’s strategic planning. The hype surrounding the release of the open-world shooter is so great that even an industry giant like Ubisoft cannot simply ignore it: Even the biggest publishers fear the release of GTA 6.
That Ubisoft is now focusing more on quality is not a new development. Instead, this is likely the realization of a longer learning process for the company, stemming from the less successful releases.
The partial acquisition by Tencent and the associated restructuring of Ubisoft will also take time. All these factors will have influenced the decision to postpone, even if Ubisoft officially prioritizes the quality of the game first.
Ubisoft will likely still release new games, such as the strategy game Anno 117: Pax Romana, which is set to be released in 2025. The remake of Prince of Persia The Sands of Time is also expected to be released by April 2026. Anno 117 was able to convince its fans even without gameplay: Anno 117 doesn’t even show gameplay, yet fans celebrate: ‘Perfect scenario’
