Assassin’s Creed Shadows launching on Switch 2 had all the signs of a solid win.
A full open-world AC experience made portable and releasing beside major titles like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Early critic coverage somewhat reinforces that.
Reviews call it an ambitious, mostly successful port that manages to bring the full feudal Japan experience onto Nintendo’s new system, with the usual compromises to resolution and effects but a surprisingly solid showing in handheld.
On first look, it resembles the kind of third-party support Nintendo aimed for with the new hardware.
Why Are So Many Players Calling the Port “Unplayable”?
Once you shift from critic impressions to actual player reports, the tone flips as message boards and social platforms are packed with posts describing Shadows crashing repeatedly on Switch 2.
Some players mention the game holding up well early on before suddenly breaking down, crashing several times in a row whenever they tried to push through missions or return to certain locations.
Others report that after they reach points like the building missions, Senri Hills, or the hideout, the game refuses to stay open for more than a couple of minutes before closing itself.
For them, it goes beyond minor problems. The port doesn’t function well enough to even play.
That’s why the term “unplayable” is being used, as one player reports their game dying every five minutes and eventually giving up until a fix arrives.
Another talks about ten crashes in twenty minutes and says they feel stuck because they paid full price and can’t actually enjoy what they bought.
Someone else describes the game collapsing every two minutes while Ubisoft support insists the problem must be their console, even though every other title runs without a hitch.
A few players are so convinced it isn’t normal that they’ve sent their systems to Nintendo for inspection, only to be told the hardware is fine and the issues are on the software side.
Is Everyone Experiencing the Same Issue, or Is the Player Base Split?
What makes the situation even harder to pin down is that not everyone is seeing the same thing.
Some players are dealing with nonstop issues while others haven’t crashed once.
Some players have been running the game for hours, even off an SD card, without a hiccup while others only hit one or two crashes early on and then none after.
Some players say the issues only show up under certain conditions, like when the Switch 2 is docked on a TV but not in handheld.
So you end up with two parallel realities: for one group Shadows is a very impressive portable Assassin’s Creed, and for another it falls over so often that it might as well not exist.
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