Ubisoft's ridiculous "AAAA" term still refuses to die as producer reportedly says Assassin's Creed Shadows and Mirage come under that umbrella, too

News
By published

Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell are small fry, comparatively

Assassin's Creed Shadows
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

The last two Assassin's Creed games, Mirage and Shadows, are big releases, with large open worlds and hours upon hours worth of things to do. They’re your typical triple-A productions, massive games developed by huge, nebulous teams within Ubisoft. But that categorization may not be good enough for the publisher, as both of them are one dev labelled them quadruple-A in a since-edited description.

Spotted by Timur222, Krasimira Yakovlieva, a producer at Ubisoft going back to 2026, mentions both Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Assassin's Creed Shadows in her 'About' section on LinkedIn. Until recently, they were listed as being 'AAAA' in scope.

"Assassin's Creed Mirage – the first AAAA title natively released on iPhone and iPad," her profile stated, according to a screenshot from Timur222. "Assassin's Creed Shadows – the first next-gen AAAA title to launch natively on macOS, released simultaneously with gaming-dedicated platforms such as PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S," said another line.

The mentions of quadruple-A here, and in the opening line of her bio, have since been deleted, per her current profile. This could just be one person being over-zealous, but it's just as believable it's internal terminology at Ubisoft, since the corporation has been trying to make the evolution of triple-A development a thing while the rest of us continue to roll our eyes.

I'm sure I don't need to remind you of the Skull and Bones debacle, where the long-delayed pirate MMO was dubbed AAAA, then players complained it didn't live up to expectations. The home of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry isn’t the only offender here, as Microsoft’s The Initiative was envisioned as a 'AAAA studio', making the now-cancelled Perfect Dark reboot a game of such stature.

A cursed term. Stop trying to make quadruple-A a thing. It's not working.

Assassin's Creed Shadows' Yasuke and Naoe could influence how future protagonists move: "All these things can and should affect a little bit of how their physicality translates"

TOPICS
Anthony McGlynn
Anthony McGlynn
Contributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.