Today, November 15, should’ve been the day where we all got to jump into Assassin’s Creed Shadows to explore Feudal Japan as Naoe and Yasuke, but its delay into 2025 put the brakes on that. Instead, we can sit back and watch Ubisoft address a series of leaks that recently emerged about battle passes and cosmetics in Shadows and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Animus Hub, which will be a central space connecting all future AC games. In a short but direct statement posted to Reddit, a community manager has labeled the leaks “inaccurate” and has clarified what the Animus Hub will entail.
The Assassin’s Creed Shadows release date is now arriving later than expected, with the huge new open-world game needing more time for final touches and polish. While it never had an official release date, it also means that the Animus Hub is technically delayed too, as the new Assassin’s Creed platform is expected to launch alongside AC Shadows.
It’s seemingly trying to emulate what Call of Duty has done with its central launcher app that shares progression and cosmetics across all of its annual multiplayer games and free-to-play Warzone, and these recent leaks only support that. Battle passes, seasons, cosmetic packs, and even potential brand crossovers were all unearthed in a huge datamine.
In order to calm the speculation down, Ubisoft has now spoken out following the leak in a post to the Assassin’s Creed subreddit. “It has come to our attention that inaccurate rumors have been circulating online regarding the upcoming Animus Hub (ex-codename Infinity),” community manager ‘Ubi_Waldo’ says.
The post also offers three points of clarification to ease concerns about the Animus Hub creating a highly-monetized, live service-like environment around Assassin’s Creed. It states that all rewards in the Animus Hub “will be entirely free,” there are zero paid subscriptions or battle passes within it, and that “players will have access to regular content and missions at no extra cost.”
These are reassuring words to hear, but they’re surprising words too, because so much information on battle passes has emerged from not just this new leak but other reputable sources for Ubisoft leaks as well. Given the long string of disappointments to emerge from Ubisoft recently, there’s potential that it has scrapped most of these plans in order to avoid yet more negativity from players.
It’s safe to say the publisher has been struggling over the last 12 months or so, with Star Wars Outlaws certainly being its biggest and most surprising miss. I was touting that game to be one of the most enjoyable and biggest selling games of the year, but what emerged was underwhelming from both a critical and commercial standpoint.
Pile on top of that today’s news that its Splinter Cell movie has been scrapped, XDefiant’s struggles to retain FPS fans, the “quadruple-A” disaster that was Skull and Bones, and plummeting stock prices, and you can see that it’s in a bit of a mess.
A heavily-monetized Assassin’s Creed experience, regardless of if the game itself was good or not, would have been yet another major blow of confidence. The Animus Hub, to me, seems like a good idea that can unify the upcoming flurry of Assassin’s Creed games, but I did have my concerns (even before these recent leaks) that it would actually be just a glorified storefront for flogging extra premium content. Today’s clarification from Ubisoft certainly eases my worries, for now.
The message also says that more details will arrive about the Animus Hub “closer to the launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows,” but until then why not take a look at some other amazing RPGs and action games.
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