Gamers only want one thing: to put an end to the Warring States period and unify Japan beneath the wise consulship of Lord Nobunaga Oda, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Or they might want to kill Oda, actually. I'm not sure. Depends on the game.
Either way, Assassin's Creed Shadows is, per data seen by VGC, the second-biggest Assassin's Creed launch of all time behind AC Valhalla, and it's in no small part down to PC gamers. A full 27% of the game's "Activations" happened on our platform of choice, though it's worth bearing in mind that doesn't translate to 27% of sales. Ubi uses the word activations because it presumably encompasses people playing the game via their Ubisoft+ subs.
More intriguingly, the data says that Ubisoft's return to Steam has paid dividends. AC Shadows is the first major Ubi game to launch concurrently on Steam in six years. Turns out, people like that: Steam played "a significant role" in Shadows' stonking PC performance.
As precisely the kind of idiot who will buy games (on sale) on Steam that I already own on other platforms just so I can keep all my stuff on the same digital shelf, I'm not too surprised. People sure are loyal to Valve's storefront, myself included.
You might think that coming second to the previous game in the series puts a little bit of a damper on celebrations, but it's worth bearing in mind that Valhalla released in November 2020.
For one thing, November is just a juicier sales period in general, but more significantly this was right in the thick of the Covid-19 lockdowns, when we were all desperate for something to do and Valhalla's ludicrously huge open world seemed like just the ticket. Given we're all allowed to touch grass again now, Shadows managing to catch up to Ubisoft's Viking sim seems like nothing to sniff at.
Now, whether it's all been enough to pull Ubisoft out of the spiral of cancellations, poor finances, layoffs, and CEO Yves Guillemot jamming his foot all the way into his mouth remains to be seen, but there's no question it's a win for a company that was desperately in need of one.
And hey, Shadows deserves it. In our Assassin's Creed Shadows review, PCG's Morgan Park scored the game a healthy 80%, praising it as a "stealth action buffet" with "surprisingly great combat," even if the story was a little rote.
