Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has debuted in the top ten most-played games in its first week amid runaway sales and resounding success. According to the most up-to-date numbers, Shadows was the best-selling game of the week in the United States, falling just behind Monster Hunter Wilds in week-one revenue. Though Ubisoft has been more eager to share player counts than sales data, it’s clear the game is a big win from just about any metric.
Ubisoft touting player numbers caused some players to conclude the game was performing poorly on the sales front, but the latest data shows that this is clearly not the case. The game generated the highest-ever day-one revenue for a Ubisoft game on the PlayStation Store and the second-highest day one sales in Assassin’s Creed franchise history. The total number of players shot past one million within 24 hours and left Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla’s record in the dust.
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows features two protagonists: the powerful-but-slow Yasuke and the lightning-quick Naoe, offering varied play styles and approaches to encounters that keeps gameplay feeling fresh. It’s also easily one of the most beautiful games in the series, with many players praising the quality of its graphics (particularly when maxed out in 4K.) It provides players with a solid 25 hours of gameplay for the main story, but like the other games in the franchise, you can play for dozens of hours more exploring the world and finding all its secrets.
Although the game has been subject to an unnecessary amount of controversy, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is off to a rousing start. Ubisoft has already announced (and released) additional content for the game, providing even more varied experiences and more gameplay for diehard fans to enjoy.