Assassin's Creed Shadows is supposedly one of the worst-selling games in the franchise

There have been several reports during the year about how Assassin's Creed Shadows, Ubisoft's latest, repeatedly delayed, and extremely expensive assassin game, has reached millions of players. But now that the actual sales figures have been made available and agencies such as Alinea has studied the whole thing more closely, a completely different picture is emerging and it's not a pretty one.

Despite generally positive reviews praising the game's visual presentation, among other things, there are many indications that Assassin's Creed Shadows is actually a complete flop. Seven months after its launch, the game has sold an estimated total of only 4.3 million copies—56% on PlayStation 5, 26% on Xbox Series, and 18% on Steam.

If correct this would mean that Assassin's Creed Shadows is one of the worst-selling titles in the franchise, ignoring all the minor spin-offs such as Bloodlines, Liberation, and Chronicles to mention a few. By comparison, Mirage has sold around five million copies to date, while Valhalla has sold a whopping 20 million copies.

Digging even deeper we can compare Shadows to Ghost of Yotei. A game that at least thematically is somewhat similar, but also makes the picture look even bleaker. Alinea reports that:

"After seven months on the market, Assassin's Creed Shadows has sold less on PS5 (2.4M) than Ghost of Yotei did (2.5M) in under three weeks, showing that this samurai showdown is just about settled".

A close look at the Japanese market, which at least on paper should be a popular market for Assassin's Creed Shadows, reveals that only 1.6% of all Assassin's Creed Shadows sales comes from there, a measly third of what Ghost of Yotei has managed in the same market.

So does this mean that Assassin's Creed is in decline? Or is it simply a case of Shadows being hit by an unfortunate combination of factors that has limited or hampered its success?

What are your thoughts?