A day after its full release, Assassin's Creed Shadows continues to enjoy the attention of players and streamers worldwide. The newest game in Ubisoft's legendary franchise was highly anticipated among fans of the series and role-playing games, and the French publisher revealed on X that it had crossed over one million players a few hours after launch.
However, the reception to the game has been mixed, with controversies cropping up soon after its official release. On one side, many players and critics have praised its stunning graphics, with the title mostly being positively received by the media and a large community of gamers.
On the other hand, the game has caused controversy in places like Japan, reaching a level as high as the East Asian nation's Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba. It has also been the target of an "anti-woke" online harassment campaign because one of the plot's dual protagonists is an African samurai named Yasuke.
Nevertheless, Assassin's Creed Shadows has been a success so far in terms of sales, hitting the number-one spot for top-selling games on Steam and notching a 24-hour peak player count of 41,412. It has also been well received on livestreaming, emerging among Twitch's most popular titles over the past week.
When looking particularly at the release day stats, the fourteenth major instalment in the Assassin's Creed series notched over 3 million Hours Watched (HW) and 250,777 Peak Viewers (PV). When looking at the most popular games on Twitch over the past week, it was within the top five, overtaking prominent names like Dota 2, World of Warcraft, and Fortnite.
When looking at the watch time, the action RPG title enjoyed almost as good a launch day as the second-best video game release of 2025, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, although the top name, Monster Hunter Wilds, is way ahead. This means that among the titles that have come out this year, Assassin's Creed Shadows is already in the top five for both watch time and peak concurrent viewership.
Crucially for Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed Shadows is the number two game by release day watch time among all its video games released between 2020 and 2025, which bodes well for a company that has gone through its fair share of troubles recently. The title is also in the second spot among Assassin's Creed games released over the last five years by cumulative release day HW, in both cases behind only 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
What helped was the hype created around the game during its early access phase, when content creators like Zack "zackrawrr" Hoyt and Juan Alberto "IlloJuan" Garcia gave it much importance. This interest among streamers also bled onto the official release day, with zackrawrr continuing to lead the HW charts.
Proving the global popularity of the game was the fact that following him as the most-watched online personalities were Brazil's Alan "alanzoka" Pereira and Canada's Michael "shroud" Grzesiek. Lucas "Squeezie" Hauchard from France, Sweden's Hans Eli "forsen" Sebastian Fors, and Germany's Erik "GRONKH" Range were other international names on this top ten table.
When it comes to the in-game features, apart from the RPG element, what has caught the attention of players the most is the amazing scenery around feudal Japan, courtesy of the best graphics available. Many review outlets have also praised the combat, which is termed as the best-in-class in the lengthy series.
The entire dual protagonist system has also been given the thumbs up by most fans, as it allows for more options during gameplay while also ensuring that multiple playthroughs don't get tedious and monotonous thanks to the different stories and arcs involved. Even on Steam, the title's player review comes under the Very Positive category, with fans impressed with its overall setup and the immersive mode.
With only around three months of the year gone, there's no doubt that many more titles will be launched that become highly successful. However, with the way Assassin's Creed Shadows is going, there is a high chance it will become a commercial success and one of the top video game releases in 2025.
Stay tuned for more updates as Assassin's Creed Shadows continues to reach new viewership milestones. For those looking for in-depth statistics, our PRO subscription offers exclusive access to over 49 million channels across 10+ platforms, providing the insights you need.
