Assassin’s Creed Shadows couldn’t beat Valhalla, but it’s officially the second-biggest launch in series history

Whether or not Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the game Ubisoft needs it to be remains to be seen, but the action RPG has apparently done pretty well for the publisher. Shadows was released less than a week ago, and attracted over 2 million players in its first two days of release.

According to new information, however, Shadows has had a solid launch, if a little less headline-worthy.

In an internal memo obtained by Variety and VGC, Ubisoft revealed that Assassin’s Creed Shadows has seen “record levels” of player engagement, and “incredibly positive” feedback from players.

Sources also told the outlets that Shadows has had the second-best day one sales revenue for any Assassin’s Creed, sitting just behind Valhalla. It’s worth noting that Ubisoft did not share hard sales numbers, either publicly or in that internal communication.

Ubisoft also noted in the memo that Shadows had the best day one launch out of any of its games on the PlayStation Store. The game’s performance on PC was also strong, with the platform responsible for 27% of the game’s player base. Steam is said to have been a major contributor, which is especially notable as Shadows is the first Assassin’s Creed since 2019 to launch on Steam day-and-date with Ubisoft’s own store and the Epic Games Store.

On Steam, Shadows started out at a decent 41,412 players peak concurrent. The positive word of mouth around the game caused it to gain a lot more players over the weekend, having now peaked at 64,825 (via SteamDB).

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, of course, enjoyed a big boost as a result of the 2020 pandemic, and came out in the fall, as opposed to March. Nevertheless, this looks to be about the best case scenario for Shadows.