ubisoft

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Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the dad rock of video games, and I love it


It also proves AAA publishers should be more willing to delay their games.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows refines Ubisoft’s formula, has great graphics, and is a ton of fun. Credit: Samuel Axon

Assassin’s Creed titles are cozy games for me. There’s no more relaxing place to go after a difficult day: historical outdoor museum tours plus dopamine dispensers plus slow-paced assassination simulators. The developers of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows seem to understand thisbetter than ever before.

I’m “only” 40 hours into Shadows (I reckon I’m about 30 percent through the game), but I already consider it one of the best entries in the franchise’s long history.

I’ve appreciated some past titles’ willingness to experiment and get jazzy with it, but Shadows takes a different tack. It has cherry-picked the best elements from the past decade or so of the franchise and refined them.

So, although the wheel hasn’t been reinvented here, it offers a smoother ride than fans have ever gotten from the series.

That’s a relief, and for once, I have some praise to offer Ubisoft. It has done an excellent job understanding its audience and proven that when in doubt, AAA publishers should feel more comfortable with the idea of delaying a game to focus on quality.

Choosing wisely

Shadows is the latest entry in the 18-year series, and it was developed primarily by a Ubisoft superteam, combining the talents of two flagship studios: Ubisoft Montreal (Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla) and Ubisoft Quebec (Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Immortals Fenyx Rising).

After a mediocre entry in 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage—which began as Valhalla DLC and was developed by B-team Ubisoft Bordeaux—Shadows is an all-in, massive budget monstrosity led by the very Aist of teams.

The game comes after a trilogy of games that many fans call the ancient trilogy (Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla—with Mirage tightly connected), which was pretty divisive.

Peaking with Odyssey, the ancient trilogy departed from classic Assassin’s Creed gameplay in significant ways. For the most part, cornerstones like social stealth, modern-day framing, and primarily urban environments were abandoned in favor of what could be reasonably described as “The Witcher 3 lite”—vast, open-world RPG gameplay with detailed character customization and gear systems, branching dialogue options, and lots of time spent wandering the wilderness instead of cities.

An enemy fort sits in a wild landscape

As in Odyssey, you spend most of your time in Shadows exploring the wilds. Credit: Samuel Axon

I loved that shift, as I felt the old formula had grown stale over a decade of annual releases. Many other longtime fans did not agree. So in the weeks leading up to Shadows‘ launch, Ubisoft was in a tough spot: please the old-school fans or fans of the ancient trilogy. The publisher tried to please both at once with Valhalla but ended up not really making anyone happy, and it tried a retro throwback with Mirage, which was well-received by a dedicated cohort, but that didn’t make many waves outside that OG community.

During development, a Ubisoft lead publicly assured fans that Shadows would be a big departure from Odyssey, seemingly letting folks know which fanbase the game was meant to please. That’s why I was surprised when Shadows actually came out and was… a lot like Odyssey—more like Odyssey than any other game in the franchise, in fact.

Detailed gear stats and synergies are back, meaning this game is clearly an RPG… Samuel Axon

Similar to Odyssey, Shadows has deep character progression, gear, and RPG systems. It is also far more focused on the countryside than on urban gameplay and has no social stealth. It has branching dialogue (anemic though that feature may be) and plays like a modernization of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.

Yet it seems this time around, most players are happy. What gives?

Well, Shadows exhibits a level of polish and handcrafted care that many Odyssey detractors felt was lacking. In other words, the game is so slick and fun to play, it’s hard to dislike it just because it’s not exactly what you would have done had you been in charge of picking the next direction for the franchise.

Part of that comes from learning lessons from the specific complaints that even Odyssey‘s biggest fans had about that game, but part of it can be attributed to the fact that Ubisoft did something uncharacteristic this time around: It delayed an Assassin’s Creed game for months to make sure the team could nail it.

It’s OK to delay

Last fall, Ubisoft published Star Wars Outlaws, which was basically Assassin’s Creed set in the Star Wars universe. You’d think that would be a recipe for success, but the game landed with a thud. The critical reception was lukewarm, and gaming communities bounced off it quickly. And while it sold well by most single-player games’ standards, it didn’t sell well enough to justify its huge budget or to please either Disney or Ubisoft’s bean counters.

I played Outlaws a little bit, but I, too, dropped it after a short time. The stealth sequences were frustrating, its design decisions didn’t seem very well-thought out, and it wasn’t that fun to play.

Since I wasn’t alone in that impression, Ubisoft looked at Shadows (which was due to launch mere weeks later) and panicked. Was the studio on the right track? It made a fateful decision: delay Shadows for months, well beyond the quarter, to make sure it wouldn’t disappoint as much as Outlaws did.

I’m not privy to the inside discussions about that decision, but given that the business was surely counting on Shadows to deliver for the all-important holiday quarter and that Ubisoft had never delayed an Assassin’s Creed title by more than a few weeks before, it probably wasn’t an easy one.

It’s hard to imagine it was the wrong one, though. Like I said, Shadows might be the most polished and consistently fun Assassin’s Creed game ever made.

A sprawling vista viewed from one of the game's viewpoints

No expense was spared with this game, and it delivers on polish, too. Credit: Samuel Axon

In an industry where quarterly profits are everything and building quality experiences for players or preserving the mental health and financial stability of employees are more in the “it’s nice when it happens” category, I feel it’s important to recognize when a company makes a better choice.

I don’t know what Ubisoft developers’ internal experiences were, but I sincerely hope the extra time allowed them to both be happier with their work and their work-life balance. (If you’re reading this and you work at Ubisoft and have insight, email me via my author page here. I want to know.)

In any case, there’s no question that players got a superior product because of the decision to delay the game. I can think of many times when players got angry at publishers for delaying games, but they shouldn’t be. When a game gets delayed, that’s not necessarily a bad sign. The more time the game spends in the oven, the better it’s going to be. Players should welcome that.

So, too, should business leaders at these publishers. Let Shadows be an example: Getting it right is worth it.

More dad rock, less prestige TV

Of course, despite this game’s positive reception among many fans, Assassin’s Creed in general is often reviled by some critics and gamers. Sure, there’s a reasonable and informed argument to be made that its big-budget excess, rampant commercialism, and formulaic checkbox-checking exemplify everything wrong with the AAA gaming industry right now.

And certainly, there have been entries in the franchise’s long history that lend ammunition to those criticisms. But since Shadows is good, this is an ideal time to discuss why the franchise (and this entry in particular) deserves more credit than it sometimes gets.

Let’s use a pop culture analogy.

In its current era, Assassin’s Creed is like the video game equivalent of the bands U2 or Tool. People call those “dad rock.” Taking a cue from those folks, I call Shadows and other titles like it (Horizon Forbidden West, Starfield) “dad games.”

While the kids are out there seeking fame through competitive prowess and streaming in Valorant and Fortnite or building chaotic metaverses in Roblox and—well, also Fortnite—games like Shadows are meant to appeal to a different sensibility. It’s one that had its heyday in the 2000s and early 2010s, before the landscape shifted.

We’re talking single-player games, cutting-edge graphics showcases, and giant maps full of satisfying checklists.

In a time when all the biggest games are multiplayer games-as-a-service, when many people are questioning whether graphics are advancing rapidly enough to make them a selling point on their own, and when checklist design is maligned by critics in favor of more holistic ideas, Shadows represents an era that may soon by a bygone one.

So, yes, given the increasingly archaic sensibility in which it’s rooted and the current age of people for whom that era was prime gaming time, the core audience for Shadows probably now includes a whole lot of dads and moms.

The graphics are simply awesome. Samuel Axon

There’s a time and a place for pushing the envelope or experimenting, but media that deftly treads comfortable ground doesn’t get enough appreciation.

Around the time Ubisoft went all-in on this formula with Odyssey and Valhalla, lots of people sneered, saying it was like watered-down The Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2. Those games from CD Projekt Red and Rockstar Games moved things forward, while Ubisoft’s games seemed content to stay in proven territory.

Those people tended to look at this from a business point of view: Woe is an industry that avoids bold and challenging choices for fear of losing an investment. But playing it safe can be a good experience for players, and not just because it allows developers to deliver a refined product.

Safety is the point. Yeah, I appreciate something that pushes the envelope in production values and storytelling. If The Witcher 3 and RDR2 were TV shows, we’d call them “prestige TV”—a type of show that’s all about expanding and building on what television can be, with a focus on critical acclaim and cultural capital.

I, too, enjoy prestige shows like HBO’s The White Lotus. But sometimes I have to actually work on getting myself in the mood to watch a show like that. When I’ve had a particularly draining day, I don’t want challenging entertainment. That’s when it’s time to turn on Parks and Recreation or Star Trek: The Next Generation—unchallenging or nostalgic programming that lets me zone out in my comfort zone for a while.

That’s what Assassin’s Creed has been for about a decade now—comfort gaming for a certain audience. Ubisoft knows that audience well, and the game is all the more effective because the studios that made it were given the time to fine-tune every part of it for that audience.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows isn’t groundbreaking, and that’s OK, because it’s a hundred hours of fun and relaxation. It’s definitely not prestige gaming. It’s dad gaming: comfortable, refined, a little corny, but satisfying. If that’s what you crave with your limited free time, it’s worth a try.

Photo of Samuel Axon

Samuel Axon is a senior editor at Ars Technica, where he is the editorial director for tech and gaming coverage. He covers AI, software development, gaming, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and he is a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development.

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Sony, Ubisoft scandals prompt Calif. ban on deceptive sales of digital goods

No more now you see it, now you don’t —

New California law reminds us we don’t own games and movies.

Sony, Ubisoft scandals prompt Calif. ban on deceptive sales of digital goods

California recently became the first state to ban deceptive sales of so-called “disappearing media.”

On Tuesday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2426 into law, protecting consumers of digital goods like books, movies, and video games from being duped into purchasing content without realizing access was only granted through a temporary license.

Sponsored by Democratic assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, the law makes it illegal to “advertise or offer for sale a digital good to a purchaser with the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental.”

Moving forward, sellers must clearly mark when a buyer is only receiving a license for—rather than making a purchase of—a digital good. Sellers must also clearly disclose that access to the digital good could be revoked if the seller no longer retains rights to license that good.

Perhaps most significantly, these disclosures cannot be buried in terms of service, but “shall be distinct and separate from any other terms and conditions of the transaction that the purchaser acknowledges or agrees to,” the law says.

An exception applies for goods that are advertised using “plain language” that states that “buying or purchasing the digital good is a license.” And there are also carve-outs for free goods and subscription services providing limited access based on a subscription’s duration. Additionally, it’s OK to advertise a digital good if access isn’t ever revoked, such as when users purchase a permanent download that can be accessed offline, regardless of a seller’s rights to license the content.

Ubisoft, Sony called out for consumer harms

In a press release earlier this month, Irwin noted that the law was drafted to “address the increasingly-common instance of consumers losing access to their digital media purchases through no fault of their own.”

She pointed to Ubisoft revoking licenses for purchases of its video game The Crew last April and Sony stirring backlash by threatening to yank access to Discovery TV shows last year as prominent examples of consumer harms.

Irwin noted that the US has been monitoring this problem since at least 2016, when the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force published a white paper concluding that “consumers would benefit from more information on the nature of the transactions they enter into, including whether they are paying for access to content or for ownership of a copy, in order to instill greater confidence and enhance participation in the online marketplace.”

It took eight years for the first state lawmakers to follow through on the recommendation, Irwin said, noting that sellers are increasingly licensing content over selling goods and rarely offer refunds for “disappearing media.”

“As retailers continue to pivot away from selling physical media, the need for consumer protections on the purchase of digital media has become increasingly more important,” Irwin said. “AB 2426 will ensure the false and deceptive advertising from sellers of digital media incorrectly telling consumers they own their purchases becomes a thing of the past.”

In Irwin’s press release, University of Michigan law professor Aaron Perzanowski praised California for trailblazing with a law that clearly labels this practice as false advertising.

“Consumers around the world deserve to understand that when they spend money on digital movies, music, books, and games, those so-called ‘purchases’ can disappear without notice,” Perzanowski said. “There is still important work to do in securing consumers’ digital rights, but AB 2426 is a crucial step in the right direction.”

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Assassin’s Creed Shadows delayed after poor Star Wars Outlaws reception

So Many Samurai Games —

It will now launch the same year as another, maybe better, open-world samurai game.

A samura and a ninja pose in a video game

Enlarge / The dual protagonists of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Ubisoft

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the long-anticipated next major edition in the popular historical, open-world game franchise, has been moved back from its previously announced November 15, 2024 release date.

The new date is February 14, 2025, according to an open letter posted to X by franchise executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté. “We realize we need more time to polish and refine the experience, pushing further some of our key features,” Côté wrote. “As such, we’ve made the decision to postpone the release date.”

He went on to promise a same-day launch on Steam as well as the console platforms for that date.

Côté wrote the note to players, but a letter from publisher Ubisoft to investors went into more detail. “While the game is feature complete, the learnings from the Star Wars Outlaws release led us to provide additional time to further polish the title,” it says. “This will enable the biggest entry in the franchise to fully deliver on its ambition, notably by fulfilling the promise of our dual protagonist adventure, with Naoe and Yasuke bringing two very different gameplay styles.” (It was previously announced that the game allows players to play as two characters: a samurai warrior and a stealthy assassin.)

The investor note also says that “the game will mark the return of our new releases on Steam Day 1,” so that’s a silver lining for PC players.

A precarious position

The massive-budget Star Wars Outlaws was positioned as an “Assassin’s Creed, but in the Star Wars universe” game and was released on August 30. However, it was met with a mixed reception. Players, reviewers, and streamers praised its meticulous, high-fidelity presentation of Star Wars locales and characters, but they criticized its stealth gameplay as repetitive and frustrating.

Among other things, the game involved lengthy stealth sequences that forced the player to start over if they were discovered; it also didn’t do a very good job of giving players the information and tools they needed to complete these sequences without resorting to trial and error. Shortly after the launch, one of the game’s creative leads promised a patch (which arrived) that would fix one of the earlier missions, but his suggestion in an interview that the problem was simply with a single mission early in the game rather than something more fundamental rang hollow for many players.

Ubisoft acknowledged publicly that Star Wars Outlaws did not meet expectations in terms of either sales or critical reception.

It’s unclear exactly which lessons Ubisoft intends to take from the misfire of Star Wars Outlaws. But Assassin’s Creed is its most vital franchise, so after a big failure like that, the company can’t afford anything other than an enthusiastic reception for Shadows from players. It’s the first tentpole release in the storied franchise in four years.

Of course, this delay now means that Ubisoft’s big-budget open-world samurai game will launch in the same year as Ghost of Yōtei, a sequel to the Sony exclusive big-budget open-world samurai game called Ghost of Tsushima that many players felt did the Assassin’s Creed formula more justice than most Ubisoft titles. Shadows will also launch just a few months before the planned release of Grand Theft Auto VI, which is likely to suck all the oxygen out of the room in gaming spaces for some time. There remains some possibility that GTA6 will be delayed, though.

This is the first time an Assassin’s Creed game from the main franchise has been delayed in a decade; the last delay was Assassin’s Creed Unity, which saw its release date bump from October 28, 2014, to November 11. Despite the delay, that game launched with significant technical problems, which were mostly fixed in later updates.

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The iPhone’s next AAA game, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, gets a release date

Leap of faith —

The game launched on consoles and PC months ago.

An Assassin stands over the city of Baghdad

Enlarge / Assassin’s Creed Mirage returned to the earlier games’ focus on stealth assassinations in a historical urban environment.

Ubisoft

Apple has spent the last year trying to convince gamers that they can get a console-like, triple-A experience on the latest iPhones. The newest test of that promise will be Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which now has a release date and pricing information.

Mirage will land on compatible iPhones—the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max—on June 6, according to Ubisoft (though the App Store listing says June 10.) That coincides pretty closely with Apple’s annual developer conference, so we’d expect it to get a shoutout there. Ubisoft’s blog post also says it will come to the iPad Air and iPad Pro models with an M1 chip or later.

The game will be a free download with a 90-minute free trial. After that, you’ll have to pay $50 to keep playing, which is pretty close to what the game costs on PC and consoles. It will support cross-progression, provided you sign into Ubisoft Connect. Ubisoft Connect is not exactly beloved by players, but it’s nice to be able to take your saves back and forth between other platforms if you can stomach it.

That cross-progression feature is key because the game launched several months ago on other platforms, so players interested in it probably already have made some progress in the story, if they haven’t finished it already.

Mirage is well over a dozen mainline games into the franchise, but it’s a smaller, more focused game than 2018’s Odyssey or 2020’s Valhalla. While those games expanded the franchise away from its stealth roots to become more of a full-fledged The Witcher 3-like open-world RPG experience, Mirage goes back to the old style of gameplay. It originally started as DLC for Valhalla but was expanded into a full game.

It won’t be the first triple-A game to hit the iPhone 15 and later, though the list has been short so far. A couple of Resident Evil games have made their way to phones (Resident Evil 4‘s remake and Resident Evil Village), and Apple has also managed to get respectable ports of No Man’s Sky, Death Stranding, and Baldur’s Gate 3 to Apple Silicon Macs.

When we tested the Resident Evil titles on the iPhone 15, we found that the graphics and performance were quite respectable—perhaps comparable to what you’d get on a PlayStation 4 Pro, a mid-range gaming laptop, or a Steam Deck—but that the touch controls never seem to cut it, so you’ll want to use a controller. iOS supports the latest PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo controllers, as well as attachable controllers like the Razer Kishi. Mirage will also support those controllers.

The iPhone’s next AAA game, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, gets a release date Read More »

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Ubisoft Details ‘Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR’ Gameplay, Coming to Quest Next Month

Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR is set to arrive on Quest headsets November 16th, offering up a new first-person VR experience for the storied franchise. Now Ubisoft has released an explainer video that goes into how it all works, including the game’s combat, parkour and comfort systems.

Check out the video below, presented by the game’s creative director David Votypka and associate game director Olivier Palmieri, both of whom have been a part of Ubisoft’s earliest VR gaming efforts, including Werewolves Within, Eagle Flight, and Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Check out the full nine-minute video below:

In case you can’t watch it right this second, the video shows off all three assassins in Nexus VR: Ezio Auditore, Connor, and Kassandra. We also get a better look at the game’s expansive open maps that look rife with opportunities for stealth, parkour, and wandering baddies that make for ideal targets for the game’s inventory of iconic AC weapons.

In a news update, Ubisoft explains stealth options, which include blending with crowds, pickpocketing, and employing the Hidden Blade for silent takedowns.

Parkour mechanics also seem pretty conventional for anyone who’s ever played Crytek’s The Climb series. Here, you’ll be able to scale walls, jump from rooftops, and even perform Leaps of Faith.

The game also looks to offer up fluid and dynamic combat by letting you block and counter enemy attacks, use ranged weapons, and environmental objects too. Comfort features include turning vignettes and ‘tunnel vision’ modes, as well as teleportation and automatic pathfinding for more comfortable parkour.

We have our hands-on coming, so check back soon to see whether Ubisoft has managed to hit a home run with the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed VR game, which is headed to Quest 3, Quest 2 and Quest Pro November 16th.

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‘Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR’ Gets First Gameplay Trailer, Coming to Quest in November

Ubisoft announced Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR back in June, staying that we’d get the Quest exclusive sometime this holiday. Now the studio has revealed a first look at gameplay, and announced the official release date.

Coming to Quest on November 16th, the new Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR trailer shows off a few clips of each of the game’s three protagonists: Ezio (Assassin’s Creed II), Connor (Assassin’s Creed 3), and Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey).

From the gameplay trailer, it seems there’s going to be a good slice of parkour, melee, and ranged combat too—basically what you’d expect from the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed  VR game. Ubisoft says we should expect to “get caught up in a world of espionage, intrigue and betrayal.”

Locations in the game include Venice, Athens, Colonial Boston “and more,” the studio says in the game’s Quest page, noting that players will have the autonomy to “decide the best way to achieve your objectives” across open map environments. “Meet and interact with civilians and historical figures, all of whom react to your VR actions,” Ubisoft says.

As for combat, Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR melee includes blocking, parrying, and counterattacks, with weapons including bow and arrows, the Hidden Blade, swords, tomahawk, throwing knives, crossbow, and smoke bombs.

You can wishlist Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR for Quest 2 and Quest Pro, with launch coming November 16th. The game is also presumably coming to Quest 3 whenever the headset launches, although Meta hasn’t mentioned yet when Quest 3 is due to release. Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn more next week at Connect 2023, which promises a big info dump on Meta’s latest VR headset.

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Ubisoft to Support Haptic Vest in ‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’, But No Word Yet on ‘Nexus’ VR Game

Earlier this month Ubisoft announced a new brand deal with haptic clothing creator OWO, which produces a thin and light shirt featuring electrode-based haptics. Strangely enough, the partnership isn’t targeted at the upcoming VR game Assassin’s Creed Nexus, but rather the non-VR game Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

OWO’s haptics provide 10 electrified zones around the user’s torso and arms, something the company says can deliver 30 sensations, with various impacts including bullet wounds, punches, machine gun recoil, wind and more. It seems like the ideal candidate for an Assassin’s Creed VR tie-in, but Ubisoft isn’t saying as much. Yet.

Image courtesy OWO

We reached out to OWO to see whether the company’s unique haptic shirt would eventually support Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed VR game. While the answer was non-committal, OWO says its partnership with Ubisoft doesn’t stop at Mirage.

“Currently, the only Ubisoft title announced to work with the OWO Haptic Gaming System is Assassin’s Creed Mirage,” an OWO spokesperson tells Road to VR. “As this is a long-term partnership, more Ubisoft titles will be announced in the near future.”

Notably, OWO already supports a handful of VR titles, such as Half-Life: AlyxPistol Whip, Beat Saber, Bonelab, Until You Fall, and Arizona Sunshine. These are all PC versions that require third-party mods, however individual developers can choose to support the vest on most any device since it connects via Bluetooth, much like bHaptics’ various haptic devices.

To boot, Ubisoft says it’s supporting OWO on Assassin’s Creed Mirage versions on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC. The edition will be available initially for purchase on OWO’s official website and will be sold as a bundle with the Assassin’s Creed Mirage game available through different retailers later on, the company says. Pricing isn’t clear yet, although the haptic shirt sells direct from OWO for €500 (~$560).

Equally unclear is when the special edition OWO shirt will launch; AC Mirage itself launches October 12th this year. Still, that leaves a fair amount of time between now and then to add in OWO support for Nexus, which is launching exclusively on Quest sometime Holiday 2023.

Ubisoft to Support Haptic Vest in ‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’, But No Word Yet on ‘Nexus’ VR Game Read More »

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Ubisoft Reveals ‘Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR’, Coming to Quest 2 This Holiday

Ubisoft has finally officially Announced Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, the first VR game in the franchise, planned for release on Quest 2 and Quest Pro (and likely Quest 3) this holiday.

Today during Ubisoft’s online showcase, the company fully announced Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, though unfortunately the only glimpse of the game we’re getting on video for now is a “CGI announce trailer”:

The trailer does give a sense of the gameplay Ubisoft is trying to deliver, promising to give players a taste of stealth, parkour, and of course combat. The studio says players will inhabit three different well-known assassins from the franchise—Ezio, Kassandra, and Connor—which will have players jumping between various locales and time periods.

Although the trailer is purely CGI, Ubisoft revealed the first screenshots of the game which, assuming they’re representative of the visuals on Quest 2, are pretty impressive.

We don’t yet know much else about Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, except that it will have a release date sometime “this holiday,” on Quest 2 and Quest Pro. We expect that the game will launch with, or not long after Quest 3, which it will also be available on. And it’s expected that Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR will be exclusive to Meta’s headsets.

We’ll be eager to learn more about how Ubisoft will deliver the experience shown in its announcement trailer—which includes significant bouts of movement, including swinging from poles—in a way that’s comfortable, fun, and unique to VR. If you’re interested, the game can now be wishlisted on the Quest store.

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‘Assassin’s Creed VR’ Full Reveal Coming July 12th at Ubisoft Forward

Although we didn’t get a first look at Ubisoft’s VR take on Assassin’s Creed during Meta’s big Quest Gaming Showcase today, the studio says we should watch out next week for the full reveal.

Meanwhile, today’s announcement (of an announcement) confirmed for the first time that a previous leak was true, claiming the game would indeed be called ‘Nexus’, or rather Assassin’s Creed: Nexus VR.

The leak, which was from April 2022, included a host of unconfirmed information including a video of a mission menu and initial impressions of the work-in-progress game.

The leaked video included a number of mission-related texts which could point to the game being set in a smorgasbord of iconic eras visited across the franchise. Here’s some text pulled from the leaked video in question which talks about Ezio, the Florentine nobleman from Rennaissance-era Italy:

“Ezio makes a surprise return to the family estate at Monteriggioni at the behest of his sister (and fellow assassin) Claudia. Claudia, it seems, has been trying to rebuild the ruins of Monteriggioni, and things have been going very slowly. She’s got her suspicions as to why this is so, what isn’t read to act yet. Instead, Claudia suggest Ezio fins out what’s going on, then leaves him with word that she’s hidden a knickknack of his that he loved as a child somewhere in [illegible] that sports a puzzle.”

Ubisoft is set to release more info about Assassin’s Creed: Nexus VR at its annual Ubisoft Forward livestream on June 12th.

Will it feature the high-flying action the franchise is known for? We won’t know until the full reveal, which we’re hoping comes with a solid gameplay trailer and a release date for its target platforms, which include Quest 2 and Quest Pro.

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