Analytics Firm Claims 'Assassin's Creed Shadows' Only Sold 4.3 Million Copies, Ubisoft Said It Had 5 Million Players In July

Alinea Analytics recently claimed that Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows only sold 4.3 million copies.

In a blog post at the end of October, the company’s Rhys Elliott claimed, “Across all platforms, Shadows performed well in isolation, selling just over 4.3M copies as per our estimates, with 56% on PS5, 26% on Xbox, and 18% on Steam.”

However, Ubisoft indicated in July that the game had hit 5 million players.

Ubisoft has repeatedly touted the game’s sales publicly. It claimed in March that the game reached 2 million players and performed better than the launches of Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey.

In its most recent Q2 report that covered the three months ending June 30, 2025, CEO Yves Guillemot said, “On the positive side, Assassin’s Creed Shadows delivered on its expectations, with now more than 5 million unique players since its launch.”

The report itself also stated, “Assassin’s Creed® Shadows performed in line with expectations and recently crossed the 5 million player mark.”

In its full year report released in May, the company stated, “Assassin’s Creed® Shadows release prompted very strong praise from players and delivered a solid performance, clearly ahead of Assassin’s Creed® Odyssey, highlighting the strength of the brand.”

The company added that it delivered “the second-highest Day 1 sales revenue in franchise history—second only to Assassin’s Creed® Valhalla—and setting a new record for Ubisoft’s Day 1 performance on the PlayStation digital store. … To date, consumer spending has clearly outperformed Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with the player count also outperforming.”

Guillemot also said, “The launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows was a defining moment. It reaffirmed the power of the Assassin’s Creed brand, with a highly favorable community response from long-time fans and new players alike.”

However, following the game’s launch former Assassin’s Creed boss Marc-Alexis Côté indicated he was pushed out of the company. He wrote, “Many of you have expressed surprise that I would choose to leave Assassin’s Creed after so many years, especially given the passion I still hold for it. The truth is simple: I did not make that choice.”

“Ubisoft decided to transfer the leadership of the Assassin’s Creed franchise to someone closer to its new organizational structure,” he explained. “A different position was mentioned, but it did not carry the same scope, mandate, or continuity with the work I had been entrusted with in recent years.”

Côté had previously revealed that AAA games like Assassin’s Creed Shadows needed to sell around 10 million copies to break even.

He shared during an interview at XDS24, “When you look at who succeeds, at least in the AAA space. So what I’m going to say applies to like mostly premium games, more traditional kind of AAA games. You have 10 games in any given year that will sell about 10 million copies. The reason I’m quoting the 10 million copies kind of mark is from what I’ve seen and how I’ve seen costs, our costs, and costs of competitors, and everybody—. Everything leaks in our industry so you have privileged information on where the competition is going. But mostly I estimate that 10 million copies give or take 2 million copies is mostly what you need to break even. But you have only 10 games that breach that every year.”

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