Assassin's Creed Shadows Leaks Online as Physical Copies Sell Ahead of Launch

Assassin's Creed Shadows, Ubisoft's upcoming Japan-set action-RPG, seems to have leaked. Some players have reportedly been playing the game early and leaked gameplay footage has surfaced online. Physical copies of the game are claimed to have been sold nearly a month ahead of the game's scheduled launch. Assassin's Creed Shadows has had a troubled development period and has been delayed twice to its current launch date of March 20.

Assassin's Creed Shadows Leaks

A Reddit post on r/GamingLeaksAndRumours (as spotted by Eurogamer) on Sunday claimed that PS5 physical copies of Assassin's Creed Shadows were already being sold ahead of launch. The game is reportedly fully playable for users who have managed to procure a disc.

According to the post, Animus Anomalies, a mission type from older Assassin's Creed games, is confirmed to be returning in Shadows. However, the post said the game was an older build, with none of the improvements added to the it from the delays.

Separately, an X user also claimed (via TheGamer) they had bought a copy of the game on Facebook Marketplace and posted images of the game's installation screen and photos and videos of gameplay online. Their posts have since been removed. Leaked images and videos, however, continue to be reposted on X and elsewhere. One image suggests Assassin's Creed Shadows will take up 85GB of storage space on the PS5.

Some users reportedly also started streaming the game on Twitch (via VGC); these, too, seem to have been since removed from the streaming platform. Ubisoft has not commented on the leaks yet.

Assassin's Creed Shadows will release on March 20 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. The game was initially set for launch in November 2024, before being delayed to February 14, 2025. Last month, Ubisoft pushed back the release date a second time to further polish the title.

Earlier this month Ubisoft also confirmed that pre-order numbers for Assassin's Creed Shadows were encouraging. The company said at its third-quarter 2024-25 earnings call that pre-orders for the game were in line with 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the second most successful title in the franchise.