Ubisoft's subscription bet paying off, biggest Assassin's Creed games reach 40 million players

Two modern Assassin's Creed games have set major player milestones, potentially indicating that Ubisoft's push into non-traditional gaming is doing well.

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Ubisoft's cloud and subscription model appears to be paying off. The publisher has announced that both Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey have both broken 40 million players since release. This metric includes all access points to the games, and is a combination of full game sales as well as temporary access granted via subscriptions like Ubisoft+ and Xbox Game Pass.

While we don't know the breakout ranges for these parts--we don't know how many of these players accessed via the cloud versus buying a copy of the game--but these player count numbers are nonetheless impressive.

The company's foray into cloud and subscriptions began years ago with its own first-party model, then called uPlay+ (and now Ubisoft+). The French games-maker was among the pioneers of third-party studios that embraced cloud gaming. Google even tested its now-cancelled game streaming service, Stadia, by streaming Assassin's Creed Odyssey to select participants.

Ubisoft's cloud-and-subscription ambitions also netted it an incredibly lucrative licensing deal. In 2023, in a bid to get clearance from UK regulators to buy Activision, Microsoft made a deal to transfer the streaming rights to Call of Duty to Ubisoft. The publisher has since collected millions in revenues via these licensing rights.

Streaming, cloud gaming, and subscription models will likely stay within Ubisoft's business model. After all, its biggest games are well-suited for monthly subscriptions; Ubisoft has designed its games to be massive open worlds that you can spend a lot of time in (as well as spend extra money on microtransactions). These experiences can be tough to consume quickly and a one-month Ubisoft+ subscription could turn into a two- or three-month subscription as a result.