When the New Game Disappoints, Players Go Back to the Classic
Assassin’s Creed Shadows launched in March 2025 after months of delays, controversial pre-launch discourse, and sky-high expectations for what Ubisoft promised would be a deep, layered experience set in feudal Japan. The game sold, but not spectacularly. Review scores were mixed, social media sentiment turned lukewarm within days of launch, and player retention dropped off faster than Ubisoft’s share price would have liked. For a franchise that once defined open-world action gaming, Shadows landed with a thud rather than a roar.
The immediate downstream effect has been a quiet but measurable surge in sales and playtime for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, the 2013 pirate-era entry that many longtime fans consider the last truly great game in the series.
This is a pattern the gaming industry knows well.
What Went Wrong With Shadows
Shadows carries the weight of everything Ubisoft has been trying to fix since Origins launched the RPG era of the franchise in 2017. The bloated open worlds, the checkbox mission structures, the dialogue trees that go nowhere – Shadows was supposed to address these complaints with a dual-protagonist system, a more focused narrative, and Japan’s architecture doing the heavy lifting visually. On paper, it sounded like a correction. In practice, players found familiar frustrations dressed in new clothes.
The dual-protagonist mechanic with Naoe and Yasuke drew specific criticism for feeling mechanically uneven. Naoe’s stealth gameplay felt polished and well-considered, while Yasuke’s combat-heavy style was described by many players as shallow and repetitive. Rather than two complementary experiences, the game felt like one good game stitched awkwardly to a lesser one. That imbalance was enough to push a portion of players to close the game mid-playthrough and not return.
Ubisoft’s broader reputation also played a role. The company has been in visible financial distress, with executive departures, canceled projects, and a failed attempt to sell or restructure parts of the business generating negative press for well over a year. When a publisher is publicly struggling and a game underdelivers, player goodwill evaporates faster than it might otherwise. Shadows inherited a skeptical audience it never fully won over.
Why Black Flag Is the Natural Refuge
Black Flag occupies a specific emotional space for Assassin’s Creed fans. It released at a moment when the franchise still felt fresh, before the RPG pivot, before skill trees and gear scores, before hundred-hour runtimes became standard. The naval combat was genuinely inventive, Edward Kenway was a protagonist with actual charm, and the Caribbean setting gave the game an identity separate from the historical periods the series had already worn thin. For players burned by Shadows, Black Flag is not just nostalgia – it is contrast.
The game is also inexpensive. On PC, it regularly drops below five dollars during Steam sales, and on consoles it sits in the bargain bin both physically and digitally. The low financial commitment makes it an easy impulse buy for someone who bounced off Shadows and wants to remember why they liked this franchise in the first place. That accessibility, combined with the current discourse, is driving its chart resurgence.
This kind of catalog revival is becoming a reliable pattern when major franchise entries disappoint. GTA VI’s extended wait has been pushing open-world fans back to Red Dead Redemption 2 in a similar way – when the next big thing either disappoints or stays out of reach, players gravitate toward a previous entry that already delivered. Black Flag is benefiting from the same logic: it cannot let anyone down because it already proved itself over a decade ago.
What This Tells Ubisoft
The irony sitting at the center of this situation is sharp. Ubisoft needs Shadows to perform well enough to justify the series’ continued direction, but its underwhelming reception is actively sending players to an older game that represents everything the modern Assassin’s Creed deliberately moved away from. Every hour a player spends sailing the Caribbean with Edward Kenway is an hour spent building the case – consciously or not – that the franchise lost something when it went bigger and heavier.
Ubisoft has acknowledged player feedback in post-launch communications and has committed to updates and additional content for Shadows. Whether that is enough to hold the audience it already has, let alone win back the ones who drifted toward Black Flag, is an open question. Post-launch support can improve a game, but it cannot easily rewrite a first impression that settled quickly and badly.
The Black Flag surge also surfaces a longer-term problem: Ubisoft’s catalog is working against its present. If the best advertisement for your newest game is accidentally a twelve-year-old game you no longer make money from at full price, the current design philosophy deserves harder scrutiny than any patch can address.
Black Flag currently sits in Steam’s top sellers list in multiple regions, not because of a sale or a promotional push, but because Assassin’s Creed Shadows reminded enough people that they used to love this franchise for very different reasons.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are Assassin’s Creed Black Flag sales increasing in 2025?
Black Flag sales have risen following the mixed reception to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, with players returning to the older game as a contrast to the newer entry’s shortcomings.
What were the main criticisms of Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Players criticized the uneven dual-protagonist system, repetitive combat for Yasuke, and familiar open-world bloat that prior Assassin’s Creed games have been criticized for since the RPG era began.
