With shares at 10-year lows, Assassin's Creed maker Ubisoft faces questions over its future

French video game publisher Ubisoft is facing questions over its future, as it grapples with a lackluster games pipeline and pressure from investors to seek a sale.

The company, which produces the "Assassin's Creed" franchise, said in updated guidance last week that it has postponed the release of the next title in the popular game series — called "Assassin's Creed Shadows" — by three months to Feb. 14, 2025.

Ubisoft also cut its guidance for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, saying it now expects net bookings to fall to around 1.95 billion euros. Ubisoft said it expects net bookings for its fiscal second quarter to come in at 350 million to 370 million euros, down from 500 million euros anticipated previously.

"The revised targets are mainly a reflection of decisions taken for Assassin's Creed Shadows and the softer than expected launch for Star Wars Outlaws," Ubisoft said.

It comes after the company's "Star Wars Outlaws" game — an action-adventure title based on the iconic sci-fi movie series, which was released this summer — was met with disappointing sales performance and a mixed reception from gamers. Ubisoft said that its learnings from the Star Wars Outlaws release pushed it to give more time to polish Assassin's Creed Shadows.

The company said it was also scrapping plans to release its new Assassin's Creed game with a "Season Pass," which was a paid add-on providing access to a bonus quest and additional downloadable content at launch.

Ubisoft added that it now plans to release Assassin's Creed Shadows on Valve Corporation's online games store Steam on the day of its launch, ending its track record of exclusively distributing PC versions of its games on Epic Games' digital storefront.

"In the light of recent challenges, we