Assassin's Creed Shadows' lead knows the open-world hit's in-game shop is divisive, but it apparently pays for all the free Assassin's Creed updates we've been getting, both good and bad.
Ubisoft has been running the Animus Shop, or an equivalent real-money store, in its Assassin's Creed games for at least two console generations, stocking its digital shelves with everything from shiny loot, unique mounts, XP boosts, in-game currency, and fancy cosmetics - and Assassin's Creed Shadows is no different.
But, speaking to Access The Animus, associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois claimed the Animus Shop frees up the team to provide post-launch content at no additional cost to players. "Microtransactions, for all the flak it gets, it allows us to do the Isu stuff, the quest stuff, the parkour updates, all of it," Lemay-Comtois said.
Lemay-Comtois is, of course, referring to AC Shadows' pretty extensive and kind of impressive post-launch roadmap, which has added multiple quality-of-life patches and additional quests to the game since launch. Just this week, Shadows got both a narrative side quest referencing Odyssey's Kassandra and a collaboration with the anime Attack on Titan, which the internet keeps clowning. It's pretty much just a single-player live service game now. (I don't begrudge the memes after seeing AssCreed's take on a naked titan, to be fair.)
Elsewhere, the lead developer said Assassin's Creed Shadows won't be getting another expansion as big as Claws of Awaji next year. Instead, the team is focusing on "chunkier updates" throughout 2026 that'll expand the Isu storyline left out of the base game.
"The Assassin's Creed franchise exceeded our expectations": Assassin's Creed Shadows is "overperforming" according to Ubisoft, set to "reach a broader audience" soon thanks to its new Nintendo Switch 2 port.
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