Assassin's Creed Shadows passed 5 million players, 2 billion stealth kills, and most importantly 38 million animals petted, which to Ubisoft has "delivered on expectations"

Assassin's Creed Shadows ended up doing big numbers for Ubisoft, with the number that really matters for AAA game companies – sales – earning a full-throated "pretty good" evaluation.

Today Ubisoft released two snippets of information on Assassin's Creed Shadows, which at launch was quick to surpass the likes of Assassin's Creed Valhalla on Steam. In the company's latest financial report, CEO Yves Guillemot, surely hungry for some good news, says that, "on the positive side, Assassin's Creed Shadows delivered on its expectations, with now more than 5 million unique players since its launch."

Shadows was released on the tail end of several rough years and releases for Ubisoft, and in multiple reports and calls I generally got the sense that the higher-ups were banking on it being an unparalleled hit after years of work and delays, but given the state of the games industry

That positive news is swiftly cut with a blow to player spending in Rainbow Six Siege, still one of the company's biggest evergreen hits, caused by "temporary but significant disruptions due to technical pricing issues," which really means a currency exploit. But there's more Assassin's Creed to be had. The report reads:

"Assassin's Creed® Shadows performed in line with expectations and recently crossed the 5 million player mark. Ongoing additions continue to enhance the player experience, most notably the recent Parkour update, which introduced new interactions for both Naoe and Yasuke and was well received by players. Ahead of the Holiday season, the mid-term potential of the game will be supported by the Claws of Awaji expansion, coming in Q2, that will introduce more than 10 hours of new content along with a new weapon, skills and abilities, further expanding and enriching the game experience."

Asked how Shadows compares to previous Assassin's Creed games in an investors meeting, Guillemot said "it has a very good start." Interestingly, he stressed that "we see that it reacts very well to price drops," so expect more steep discounts in the future.

The series' official Twitter account revealed that those 5 million shadowy assassins have racked up an impressive 2 billion stealth kills, walked 1 billion kilometers, and, when not stabbing people or walking around in search of more people to stab, pet 38 million animals.

This is the data that really matters, folks. Around this time in 2020 we learned that the foxes in Ghost of Tsushima had been petted nearly 10 million times, and at this point it feels like any game with pettable animals is duty-bound to track this stuff. Ghost of Yotei, you're up.

Ubisoft CEO says Assassin's Creed Shadows cost over $100 million to make, but that's not shocking if you sat through the game's 2-hour credits