Ubisoft no longer plans to release a second Assassin's Creed: Shadows expansion
Blog Andrew Joseph 28 Nov , 2025 0
Ubisoft confirms it no longer plans to launch second major Assassin's Creed Shadows The expansion pack, which was previously part of the game's now-abandoned season pass.
Shadows' first (and now seemingly only) major expansion pack launched in September. 10 hours Awaji Claw It had previously been described as the “first expansion” included in the Shadow Season Pass, but that proposal was officially scrapped a year ago when Ubisoft delayed the game's release from November 2024 to February 2025.
To apologize to fans for the game's delay, Ubisoft said it will give away Awaji Talons for free to all pre-order customers. But fans still assume a second expansion will launch at some point, as has been the norm with every other major Assassin's Creed game over the past decade.
“As of now, at this point in year two, Awaji has not expanded as planned,” deputy game director Simon Lemay-Comtois said in an interview. little raptor.
In his answer, Lemay-Comtois pointed out that there have been some exceptional instances in the past where Ubisoft changed plans and produced more additional content than originally envisioned (such as the recent Saudi-funded DLC that launched two years after the release of Assassin's Creed: Phantoms). However, it seems clear at this point that there won't be a second expansion, and there's no indication that Shadow's post-launch plans will extend into a third year.
This is an extremely surprising decision from Ubisoft, which followed 2017's Assassin's Creed: Origins with two expansion packs (The Hidden Ones and Curse of the Pharaoh), 2018's Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and two expansion packs (Legacy of the First Sword and Fate of Atlantis), and 2020's Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. After Assassin's Creed in 2007, Odyssey included three expansion packs (Wrath of the Druid, Siege of Paris, Dawn of Ragnarok) and many other smaller DLCs. 2023's smaller Assassin's Creed Phantoms itself was originally planned as another Valhalla expansion, but ended up being released as a standalone game.
“We're still developing and supporting post-launch content, but it's not full DLC like the season passes of previous years,” Lemay-Comtois said, confirming at least that Ubisoft still plans to add smaller-scale content to Shadow in 2026.
“We’re trying to do some realignment for year two,” he continued. “What we learn from year one can be applied to year two. Anything we want to do in year two is probably going to be sparser, not bits and pieces… but thicker updates that shake things up a little bit. I'm not announcing anything right now, but our strategy for year one is to react quickly, so that means there will often be smaller drops, but for year two, we don't have to put out fires or anything, so it's more of good, thick little chunks of meat… that we can throw away and have people come back and enjoy it.”
Digging deeper into Lemay-Comtois' comments, the suggestion here is that Ubisoft's decision to change its approach to Shadow following its pre-release reception impacted the company's post-release support plans, prioritizing putting out the immediate “fire”. In fact, Shadows recently released a series of patches that added a number of fan-requested features in an apparent attempt to turn the mood around. Lemay-Comtois further noted that Shadows is a more technically difficult game to develop, further complicating plans for post-launch content preparation.
“I think ‘Dark Shadows’ gave us a huge leap forward in generations,” he continued. “The engine work we did on Shadows took a lot of time and a lot of resources. So the post-launch plan wasn't as clear as it would be for another[game]that was more technically stable and better known.
“We got a pretty late start on Shadows… because I remember we had the season pass before launch,” he admits. “Things changed when we pushed back the release date. That plan changed a lot, and then we had to adapt to that. So because of the new technology, because of the new generation, because of the push we were making in production, we chose a further approach that allowed us to put our attention on the ground… and react when the game was released.”
Lemay-Comtois suggested that Shadows receive an update in 2026 “not the size of a DLC or expansion pack, but something like yesterday's update,” noting The free update released this week adds a new story mission, the game's Attack on Titan crossover, and a major Isu Easter egg. “At least this size,” he stressed, without saying whether the updates would continue to be available for free.
“Whether it's the right path or a good learning experience, I think it's more of an experience that we're trying with Shadows to keep things small and reactive and see how the community feels and reacts to it,” he concluded. “What we learn from this will be applied to any other projects we do next.”
Of course, it's predictable that Shadows lead developer Ubisoft Quebec is already planning the next major Assassin's Creed project (in fact, it was previously reported that The studio began early pre-production work last year on a now-scraped American set set in the post-Civil War period). But the projects mentioned here are interesting and confirm that plans for Shadows in 2026 sound smaller than what fans saw this year.
And then here’s what else fans can look forward to: Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remaster reportedly in the worksAs well as a number of other Assassin's Creed projects that Ubisoft has confirmed, including a multiplayer spinoff and the wizardry-themed Assassin's Creed: Hexe. Add to that the drama of Shadow's delay, and it seems Ubisoft has simply decided that a second Shadow expansion isn't necessary.
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Tom Phillips is IGN's news editor. You can contact Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social