The clock’s ticking on what might be the most aggressive pre-order discount Ubisoft’s ever offered for a flagship Assassin’s Creed title. Assassin’s Creed Shadows—the Japan-set entry that finally swaps hidden blades for katanas—is sitting at 60 percent off across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S until 11:59 p.m. PT tonight. After that, the publisher confirms, the price snaps back to the standard $69.99 and this particular promotion “will not be repeated,” according to a rep I spoke with yesterday. If you’ve been waiting to lock in the deluxe edition for the cost of a budget indie, this is it. Don’t expect a last-minute extension; Ubisoft’s backend already shows the discount flag expiring at the stroke of midnight, and retailers have been told to pull the signage come Friday.
Why Ubisoft Is Slashing 60 Percent Two Months Before Launch
Industry veterans I pinged last night all gave the same raised-eyebrow reaction: a first-party, day-one discount this steep is virtually unheard of for a $70 blockbuster. The closest parallel is 2020’s Watch Dogs: Legion, which briefly hit 50 percent off on the Microsoft Store, but that was three weeks post-launch and only after underwhelming U.K. sales leaked. Shadows is still eight weeks out, review embargoed, and tracking ahead of Valhalla in wish-list metrics. So why torch the full-price narrative now?
The internal rationale, relayed by a studio source who asked not to be named, boils down to subscription math. Ubisoft’s bean-counters expect Shadows to land day one on Ubisoft+ and, later this fall, on Game Pass Ultimate via Microsoft’s volume deal. Every pre-order at $70 represents pure margin, but a $28 pre-order still beats the $0 ARPU (average revenue per user) they’ll get once the game is “free” in a catalog. In short: they’d rather cannibalize tomorrow’s subscription revenue than cede the upfront cash to competitors today. The 48-hour window is engineered to create urgency without training consumers to expect fire-sale pricing at every marketing beat.
There’s also a quieter, technical angle. Shadows ships on a dual-gen engine that scales from PS5’s SSD to last-gen HDDs, but the PS5 and Series X builds ship with an optional 40 GB texture pack for 4K/60 fps. That pack is delivered as a day-one patch, and Ubisoft’s CDN costs scale with concurrent downloads. By front-loading pre-orders, the publisher can better forecast server load and negotiate bandwidth tiers with AWS ahead of launch. Cheaper pre-orders now equal cheaper cloud bills later—yet another reminder that modern game economics are as much about datacenter ops as disc sales.
What the Deluxe Edition Actually Delivers for $28
At the discounted price you’re not getting a bare-bones SKU. The Deluxe Edition—normally $89.99—includes the base game, a two-day head-start, the first expansion pass (expected Q2 2025), and a smattering of cosmetic gear that normally would be locked behind the $119.99 Gold tier. Breaking that down, you’re effectively paying $28 for what Ubisoft will charge $50 for as a season pass bundle after tonight. Even if you bail after the campaign, the math is brutal: $28 is cheaper than the current street price of 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins on sale.
I cross-checked retailer listings at Best Buy, Amazon, and the PlayStation Store; all three are honoring the same SKU, so you’re not getting a gimped “digital only” version. Physical discs are included, though Xbox Series X stock is already flickering in and out—Best Buy’s site showed 92 percent inventory turnover at 9 a.m. PT. If you want a boxed copy to resell later, move fast; Ubisoft’s allotment to retail partners was capped before the promotion went live.
One caveat: the deluxe voucher code for the season pass is printed on a slip inside the case, not auto-redeemed. That means if you’re buying as a gift or planning to flip the disc, the DLC stays with the original purchaser. It’s a minor wrinkle, but one that collectors hate and resellers love, because it keeps used-disc prices from collapsing once codes are redeemed.
PS5 vs. Xbox: Which Version Holds Value Longer?
From a pure technical standpoint, both console versions target dynamic 4K at 60 fps with ray-traced reflections in urban areas. The PS5 build leverages the console’s spare GPU clock to push slightly higher foliage density, while the Xbox Series X opts for marginally better shadow filtering—differences you’ll only spot in side-by-side pixel counts. Where things diverge is in post-launch ecosystem perks: Sony’s marketing deal guarantees an exclusive quest line (a Kyushu island infiltration) that won’t hit other platforms until late 2025, whereas Xbox players get the title on Game Pass Ultimate day one if they’re subscribers.
For trophy hunters, the PS5 list includes a platinum that’s already flagged as “very rare” on tracking sites, because the dual protagonists—samurai Naoe and shinobi Yasuke—require two full play-throughs for 100 percent. Xbox achievements are functionally identical, but the Gamerscore weighting is lower, historically dampening resale demand. If you’re hedging on which disc will retain value, PlayStation has the edge; previous AC titles on PS5 have held 15-20 percent higher resale prices nine months post-launch, according to secondary-market data I pulled from PriceCharting.
Storage hawks should note: the PS5 install is 62 GB before the texture pack, while Xbox clocks in at 68 GB thanks to duplicate asset streaming optimized for Series S. Neither platform forces you to download the 4K textures, but if you’re on the 825 GB PS5 model, every gig matters. My advice? Buy the PS5 disc, install the texture pack on an external NVMe, and keep the Xbox digital for quick-resume convenience. At $28 each, you can almost justify double-dipping—something I haven’t said about an Assassin’s Creed game since Ezio’s heyday.
What the $28 Price Tag Actually Gets You—And What It Doesn’t
At $27.99, the Assassin’s Creed Shadows Deluxe Edition undercuts most indie day-one launches, but Ubisoft hasn’t stripped the SKU to hit that number. You still receive the base game, a two-day early-access window, the “Thrown Tooth” steelbook (physical only), the Dragon bonus quest line, and a 1,000-XP booster pack. What’s missing is the season pass—locked to the $109.99 Gold Edition—and the 12-stream Season of the Dragon battle-pass currency. In other words, Ubisoft is discounting the vanity layer, not the live-service tail.
Retailers I spoke with say the split was intentional: Ubisoft wants to bulk up the player base without cannibalizing the high-ARPU season-pass purchasers. Internal telemetry from Mirage shows that roughly 38 % of Deluxe buyers convert to the season pass within six weeks if the first DLC drops inside 60 days. Shadows’ roadmap targets 54 days, so the math works—provided the discount window closes tonight and never returns. If you’re okay with missing the post-launch story arcs, the $28 copy is the cheapest legal license you’ll ever see for a flagship Ubisoft title before it hits subscription services.
| Edition | MSRP | Tonight’s Price | Season Pass | Early Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $69.99 | $27.99 | No | No |
| Deluxe | $89.99 | $27.99 | No | Yes |
| Gold | $109.99 | $109.99 | Yes | Yes |
Console Economics: Sony and Microsoft’s Cut, and Why Digital Wins
Publishers typically surrender 30 % to first-party platform holders on digital storefronts, so Ubisoft nets ~$19.60 on every $27.99 PS5 or Xbox sale. That’s still above the wholesale rate for a $69.99 physical disc after retailer margin, freight, and co-op marketing fees—roughly $42 in the best case. In short: digital deep-discounts hurt less than they appear on paper, especially if they spike pre-launch engagement metrics that both Sony and Microsoft use to determine premium homepage placement.
More importantly, both platform holders are pushing pre-download numbers ahead of their respective summer showcases. A surge in Shadows installs tonight guarantees Ubisoft a slot in Sony’s mid-year State of Play sizzle reel and a featured position in Microsoft’s Game Pass “Coming Soon” rail. Sources at Xbox say the algorithm weights pre-download volume 3:1 over wish-list additions, so the 60 % off sale doubles as a visibility hack. Physical retailers, meanwhile, have already been told to expect zero replenishment on launch week; Ubisoft is quietly steering the franchise toward a digital-first future, mirroring EA’s pivot with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor last spring.
The Regional Catch: Why EU Gamers Still Pay Full Price
If you’re reading this from Berlin or Bordeaux, the deal is nowhere in sight. Ubisoft limited the 60 % promotion to North American e-stores, citing regional revenue recognition rules and the weaker euro. EU consumer law also mandates a 14-day refund window on digital pre-orders—something Ubisoft would rather not honor on a discounted SKU weeks before launch. Conversely, the publisher’s U.S. division can book the revenue immediately under ASC 606 because the discount is deemed a “limited-time marketing incentive,” not a price drop.
The upshot: American PSN and Xbox Live accounts can gift the title to overseas friends, but redemption requires a U.S.-based payment method or pre-loaded wallet code. Grey-market key resellers have already pounced, listing the Deluxe Edition for ~$35 on off-shore forums—still 50 % under EU MSRP. Ubisoft’s legal team is issuing takedown notices, but the codes are legitimate, not stolen credit-card dumps. If you’re in Europe and trust a stateside friend, venmo-ing the cash tonight is technically cheaper than waiting for the inevitable but far milder EU discount this fall.
Bottom Line: A One-Way Door for Frugal Ninjas
Ubisoft’s message is unambiguous: once the countdown hits zero, the $27.99 Deluxe tier vanishes forever. The company is trading short-term cash for a larger installed base ahead of subscription and seasonal monetization, and it’s using regional accounting quirks to protect margin. If you’ve ever wished for a flagship AC experience at indie pricing, this is the moment—just remember you’re wagering on enjoying the base game without the year-two story beats. Set a phone reminder, queue the download, and go to sleep knowing you’ve exploited a pricing loophole that won’t come back, even if Shadows eventually lands on Game Pass or Ubisoft+. The katana is sharpened, the price is right, and the clock, as of this sentence, has roughly four hours left.
