Assassin's Creed: Shadows is the second best selling game in the US
According to Circana, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Shadows has found success, despite the many issues the publisher has experienced lately.
Ubisoft has found notable success with Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, according to Circana’s Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella. This news was shared on BlueSky earlier today, emphasizing Assassin’s Creed: Shadows sales numbers in the first few weeks of its availability after launching on March 20th, 2025. The latest game in the Assassin’s Creed series has been a hot topic of conversation for many reasons, not just because of Ubisoft’s recent business moves.
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has been consistently near the top of US sales
In case you didn’t hear about it, just a few weeks ago, and only one week after the launch of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, Ubisoft announced plans to form a new subsidiary with Tencent. The huge video game publisher has had a string of flops over the last few years, including an underperforming Star Wars: Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, along with studio closures, layoffs, and the shutdown of live service FPS, XDefiant. Many wondered if Assassin’s Creed: Shadows would be enough of a success to solve many of the publisher’s issues, but even with this success it doesn’t appear to have been enough. The new subsidiary will focus on Ubisoft’s three most profitable franchises, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, leaving many other studios and projects in limbo.
While Assassin’s Creed: Shadows was not an enormous sensation, it still has some strong sales metrics. According to a post from Piscatella, “Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has been the best-selling video game in the US for each of its first 3 weeks in market…” adding that it “Currently ranks #2 year-to-date trailing only Monster Hunter: Wilds.” Despite several delays and many other concerns with its development, Shadows has managed to be one of the best-selling games of 2025 so far. Of course, this is early not only in the game’s life cycle, but also in the year. If Grand Theft Auto 6 does launch later this year, it will just be a fight for second place.
Despite loud, vocal criticisms of Ubisoft’s choices regarding Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, the game has been generally well received by fans and critics. On review aggregator sites like OpenCritic and Metacritic, Shadows has a solid 82 and 81 out of 100, respectively. Then on Steam, player reviews match that with 80% positive reviews from over sixteen thousand players. Higher than the two previous entries in the series.
In the coming months, it will be interesting to see how these trends shift. There are a few games on the horizon that could make a huge splash in sales numbers, and surely there will be some surprises as well. But we will have to wait to see how Assassin’s Creed: Shadows continues to fair as the year progresses, especially considering the potential for DLC, Claws of Awaji, later this year.
- High sales of Assassin's Creed: Shadows in the U.S. didn't protect Ubisoft from a drop in share price
- Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six future is still uncertain. Ubisoft shareholders demand renegotiation of deal with Tencent
- First major update for Assassin's Creed: Shadows is just around the corner. It will introduce changes players requested from Ubisoft along with many fixes
