Assassin's Creed Shadows Coming to Mac on March 20

[MacRumors]

Assassins's Creed Shadows is set to be released for the Mac on Thursday, March 20, Apple announced today. The game will launch on Mac at the same time as it is released for PlayStation 5, Windows machines, and the Xbox.

Ubisoft first announced plans to bring the game to the Mac in May 2024, and at that time, it was supposed to be released in November. The game has been delayed multiple times since then, but it seems it will finally be ready to go later this year.

Set in 16th century Japan, the action roleplaying game is part of the main Assassin's Creed gaming lineup, and it is the successor to Assassin's Creed Mirage. The game focuses on the dispute between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order, and players can take on the role of Fujibayashi Naoe, a shinobi assassin, or Yasuke, a samurai.

Each character offers different controls and gameplay styles, with separate progression paths, skills, weapon options, and stats. While Naoe uses stealth skills, Yasuke excels at combat.

The game has a vast open world to explore, and players will experience a variety of landscapes with evolving weather and seasons. There are castle towns, bustling ports, pastoral landscapes, and peaceful shrines.

Ubisoft executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté said that Assassin's Creed Shadows is his team's "most ambitious" game to date.

Playing Assassin's Creed Shadows on an Apple device requires a Mac with an Apple silicon chip, with real-time ray tracing available on M3 and M4 Macs. Ubisoft also plans to bring it to iPads with M-series chips.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is priced at $70 and it can be pre-ordered from the Mac App Store ahead of its March 20 release.

Article Link: Assassin's Creed Shadows Coming to Mac on March 20

 

[Kissmo1980]

Wow. Ubisoft is really desperate to sell this game.
I bet they are playing the desperation of Mac users who want to game.

Personally, I am done with Ubisoft.

 

[poematik13]

Windows is getting jankier and jankier for gaming by the day and gamers are tired (many of them going to linux). Now is the time more than ever for apple to go all in and work with AAA studios/devs to see what they need to move PC gaming to mac and support it fully.

gaming is literally the last reason why people still even buy CPU's and GPU's in the consumer space. its propping that entire home PC industry up. Just go for the kill already

 

[Howard2k]

Disgraceful that Steam won't have both Windows and MacOS binaries.

No chance I'd buy this from the Apple Store, I'll likely end up buying it (PC) on Steam when it hits 50% off and that will mean missing the MacOS binary altogether.

 

[shurcooL]

I’m tempted to overlook everything that would normally cause me to completely ignore this, and maybe buy it just to support a AAA game coming to macOS on day 1.

(I can only hope it’ll happen more frequently and for games I care more about later on, with Steam availability and so on…)

 

[Razorpit]

I’m tempted to overlook everything that would normally cause me to completely ignore this, and maybe buy it just to support a AAA game coming to macOS on day 1.

(I can only hope it’ll happen more frequently and for games I care more about later on, with Steam availability and so on…)

They are desperate to get any sales for this game. It's DOA relatively speaking. Don't fall for Ubisoft's tactics.

 

[sw1tcher]

Playing Assassin's Creed Shadows on an Apple device requires a Mac with an Apple silicon chip, with real-time ray tracing available on M3 and M4 Macs. Ubisoft also plans to bring it to iPads with M-series chips.

That's not what Ubisoft says

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/assassins-creed-shadows/connectivity-and-performance/article/system-requirements-for-assassins-creed-shadows/000111013?origin=middle

Minimum Mac requirements (720p at 30 frames per second, Low graphics preset)
Operating system: macOS Sequoia 15.0, or higher
Processor: M1 MAX chip, or higher
RAM: 16 GB
Video card: M1 MAX chip, or higher
Hard drive: 130 GB available storage

 

[benwiggy]

I'd give half my kingdom to play Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood on an M-series Mac.

 

[kiranmk2]

That's not what Ubisoft says

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/assassins-creed-shadows/connectivity-and-performance/article/system-requirements-for-assassins-creed-shadows/000111013?origin=middle

Minimum Mac requirements (720p at 30 frames per second, Low graphics preset)
Operating system: macOS Sequoia 15.0, or higher
Processor: M1 MAX chip, or higher
RAM: 16 GB
Video card: M1 MAX chip, or higher
Hard drive: 130 GB available storage

Yep looks like you need an M3 minimum if you have a base chip. And even this gets you 720p30 with low graphics...

 

[mansplains]

Windows is getting jankier and jankier for gaming by the day and gamers are tired (many of them going to linux). Now is the time more than ever for apple to go all in and work with AAA studios/devs to see what they need to move PC gaming to mac and support it fully.

gaming is literally the last reason why people still even buy CPU's and GPU's in the consumer space. its propping that entire home PC industry up. Just go for the kill already

Windows, the OS that actively works against you at every turn!

 

[DutchApplePie]

That's not what Ubisoft says

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/assassins-creed-shadows/connectivity-and-performance/article/system-requirements-for-assassins-creed-shadows/000111013?origin=middle

Minimum Mac requirements (720p at 30 frames per second, Low graphics preset)
Operating system: macOS Sequoia 15.0, or higher
Processor: M1 MAX chip, or higher
RAM: 16 GB
Video card: M1 MAX chip, or higher
Hard drive: 130 GB available storage

It was worded a bit weird. I understood it to mean it requires a Mac with Apple silicon, but if you want real-time ray tracing then you need an M3 or M4.

Now if the minimum is M1 Max, then the broad "Apple silicon" requirement in the article is not accurate.

 

[Howard2k]

According to the Apple Store it works on the M1 Air so does not need the M1 Max.

Maybe it's my extra GPU core

 

[Baseiseough]

A M1 Max studio is basically a standard PS5. This machine plays Death Stranding in 4K resolution very well and RE4 too. I will surely buy Shadows and I’m sure it will play just as great as on a PS5. I would really love if Sony brought the Horizon games to Mac!

 

[vinegarshots]

Windows is getting jankier and jankier for gaming by the day and gamers are tired (many of them going to linux). Now is the time more than ever for apple to go all in and work with AAA studios/devs to see what they need to move PC gaming to mac and support it fully.

gaming is literally the last reason why people still even buy CPU's and GPU's in the consumer space. its propping that entire home PC industry up. Just go for the kill already

While I agree that Windows is hot garbage, the PC gaming market is a bit complicated. Many of the hardcore PC gamer types won't touch a Mac system with a 10 foot pole. Many of those people are hobbyists who actually enjoy building PCs... it's that whole pcmasterrace mentality. You can't just "move PC gaming to mac" in any realistic way.

Macs are essentially the equivalent to a gaming console--standard specs, walled-ecosystem, and no upgrades. That market is already tapped. Even Xbox is barely able to survive against the PC market.

 

[Poot Windbreaker]

Tim Shareholder: The ONLY WAY to get games, and gamers, to low population OSes is to convince (aka pay massive sums of money to) large studios to port a single game over, and then abandon it immediately. Translation layers just don’t work!

Steam Deck: exists

 

[Alan Wynn]

Disgraceful that Steam won't have both Windows and MacOS binaries.

Buying it on Steam, even if one plays on macOS, has much less impact on future macOS game sales.

No chance I'd buy this from the Apple Store, I'll likely end up buying it (PC) on Steam when it hits 50% off and that will mean missing the MacOS binary altogether.

Not just will you miss out on this game on macOS, but likely hurt the cause of macOS/iPadOS gaming in general. I do not argue that one needs to care about that, just that if one wants that, the best way to do so is to support AAA titles (even bad ones) that come out for macOS and do so using the Mac App Store.

 

[JustSomeInfo]

Disgraceful that Steam won't have both Windows and MacOS binaries.

No chance I'd buy this from the Apple Store, I'll likely end up buying it (PC) on Steam when it hits 50% off and that will mean missing the MacOS binary altogether.

I would imagine that Apple has a deal with Ubisoft. "If you release day and date only on the App Store, we'll waive our commission." Yep, that's what I imagine about instead of something more salacious.

 

[bousozoku]

I thought about this game, but I have a bunch of Ubisoft games that I don't want to play.

There was a deal on Like a Dragon Ishin! Deluxe Edition and I also got Fate/Samurai Remnant, which both are set in the time of Miyamoto Musashi.

I'm glad that Ubisoft is making an effort but their games are not inspiring. The art is good, though.

 

[Howard2k]

Buying it on Steam even if one plays on macOS has much less impact on future macOS game sales.



Not just will you miss out on this game on macOS, but likely hurt the cause of macOS/iPadOS gaming in general. I do not argue that one needs to care about that, just that if one wants that, the best way to do so is to support AAA titles (even bad ones) that come out for macOS and do so using the Mac App Store.

I agree. And to be fair, my suspicion is that Apple put in some serious "wrench time" working with Ubisoft to make this a good experience on MacOS, so I can see why they would insist on taking their 30% through the Apple Store.

But all the same, as a consumer, that's not a model that works for me.

I do hope that they are successful with the Mac gaming experience though.

 

[Howard2k]

I would imagine that Apple has a deal with Ubisoft. "If you release day and date only on the App Store, we'll waive our commission." Yep, that's what I imagine about instead of something more salacious.

I think it's to get their 30%. Or whatever their cut on the Apple Store is. I don't see them waiving commission at all. But as I mentioned above, I also think that Apple has invested time working with Ubisoft.

 

[Alan Wynn]

I agree. And to be fair, my suspicion is that Apple put in some serious "wrench time" working with Ubisoft to make this a good experience on MacOS, so I can see why they would insist on taking their 30% through the Apple Store.

Having spoken to a number of AAA publishers at D.I.C.E., there is no incentive to build for macOS as long as macOS users also have Windows machines on which they play as well. People who buy on Steam are not looked at as macOS exclusive players and so do not count.

But all the same, as a consumer, that's not a model that works for me.

Totally fine, but do not expect games to ever show up on macOS if you do not want to support the platform (not saying you have to care, just making it clear what is at stake).

I do hope that they are successful with the Mac gaming experience though.

If people do not buy it, it will not matter how good it is as is no encouragement to release other macOS games.

 

[Howard2k]

Having spoken to a number of AAA publishers at D.I.C.E., there is no incentive to build for macOS as long as macOS users also have Windows machines on which they play as well. People who buy on Steam are not looked at as macOS exclusive players and so do not count.



Totally fine, but do not expect games to ever show up on macOS if you do not want to support the platform (not saying you have to care, just making it clear what is at stake).



If people do not buy it, it will not matter how good it is as is no encouragement to release other macOS games.

I think with Ubisoft going back to Steam, perhaps Ubisoft should have considered giving Apple a cut of Steam revenues as a concession to get the binary on Steam. But I really don't know what those deals look like - just rampant speculation on my part.

I know a few people with Mac for "semi-serious" and PC for "gaming" and to me that shared platform approach is the way forwards. I don't want to buy two copies of the same game. Three counting console.

Balders Gate III Civilization VII both appear to have make it work, or at least taken the gamble (I'm simply assuming it works) of putting both binaries on Steam. Again, I don't think that's directly comparable because I believe Apple had a much bigger hand on the development of AC:Shadows than they did on CIV VII and BG:3, but I hope that eventually it becomes the norm - buy on Steam and get both binaries. I think it will, eventually. Not for Shadows, not for CP2077, but eventually.

That approach would also make it easier to replace my MBA and Gaming PC with a MB Pro M6/M7/M8 rather than continue to carry the load of both sets of hardware.

 

[arkmannj]

If you buy it in the app store then can you use it on a Mac and an iPad? or are those separate purchases?

 

[Howard2k]

If you buy it in the app store then can you use it as n the Mac and an iPad? or ate those separate purchases?

Not confirmed, but Resident Evil was not universal. I'd guess no, but I suppose we'll find out closer to the time.

 

[svish]

Nice to see more games on Mac. Day 1 release is also great. Hoping to see more games for Macs in the future.