Assassin’s Creed Shadows is in a strange position because Ubisoft keeps saying the franchise is performing above expectations and often cites Shadows’ strong engagement and growing player base supported by updates and future ports.
At the same time, the studio has now made it clear that the game will not receive the second full-sized expansion that was part of its original roadmap.
Claws of Awaji is confirmed as the only big story add-on, and the rest of the post-launch support will come through smaller updates.
What Was the Original DLC Plan for Shadows?
Shadows launched under the standard Ubisoft model, complete with a Season Pass advertising two major expansions just like Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla over the past decade.
That changed when Shadows was delayed from late 2024 into early 2025.
According to the dev team, the delay caused Ubisoft to revise its content plan, scrubbing the Season Pass and presenting Claws of Awaji as a pre-order perk and a paid expansion afterward.
Many players still believed a second expansion was being prepared quietly and would drop later, since that had become the usual pattern for Assassin’s Creed.
What Did Ubisoft Confirm About the Missing Second Expansion?
Those assumptions were shaken by an interview between associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois and content creator JorRaptor.
When asked about future expansions, Lemay-Comtois said that there is no large, Awaji-scale DLC currently planned for the game’s second year of support.
He stressed that the team is still working on Shadows and still intends to support it beyond 2025, but not through a traditional, Season Pass-style story expansion.
In other words, Ubisoft is not working on a second major DLC, and nothing of that scale is scheduled for 2026.
The wording leaves a tiny window open for plans to change in the distant future, but right now, there is no second expansion in production.
What Will Shadows Get Instead of a Second DLC?
Ubisoft is positioning Shadows as a trial run for a new kind of post-launch approach, with Year One focused on fast responses: fixing bugs, stabilizing the game, and rolling out the features players requested.
That reactive approach meant a lot of smaller patches, but it also pushed truly long-term content planning further down the line.
For Year Two, the team is changing direction toward updates that come less often but offer much more.
Lemay-Comtois outlined a model where updates land less frequently but are packed with quests, activities, or mechanics that genuinely shift the game’s feel, much like the recent patch that delivered a new quest, an Isu-style secret, and the Attack on Titan crossover in one go.
Practical limits inside the studio also shaped the decision to drop plans for a second expansion.
Developers say Shadows required a major technical jump, with engine upgrades and new-gen systems taking so much time and manpower that post-launch plans were pushed further down the line.
After Shadows missed its planned release and more resources went into fixing the core game, the studio had to reassess what post-launch content was actually possible.
Under those conditions, trying to build another huge expansion on top of everything else would have stretched the team thin and delayed other projects waiting in the wings, such as Hexe and the rumored Black Flag remake.
How Is the AOT Crossover Performing So Far?
The Attack on Titan crossover has stirred a whole new wave of irritation around Shadows because, in theory, teaming up with one of the world’s biggest anime franchises should’ve been a simple win for a game built around spectacle.
In reality, players are calling it lazy, cheap, and tonally all over the place.
Expectations were naturally high: the franchise once let players challenge gods and legendary beasts, so the idea of “Attack on Titan” made many imagine giant Titans and a DLC centerpiece worthy of that name.
The result was a small quest mostly made of straightforward traversal sections, ending without a satisfying conclusion or the Titan showdown everyone expected.
The presentation isn’t helping either, with many players likening the cutscenes to old fan-made machinima because of how stiff and under-directed they look, especially compared to Mirage’s recent Valley of Memory DLC.
The comparison doesn’t do Shadows any favors. Mirage, despite being older, got a carefully crafted expansion, while the anime crossover in Shadows feels undercooked, with stiff scenes and animation that lacks energy.
It makes Shadows feel like the “cheaper” project even though it’s the newer, more technically demanding title.
The monetization choice irritated players even more, as the free quest ends with the game pushing them toward the store to pick up the iconic outfit.
Finishing a mission that barely leaves an impression only to be nudged toward buying a premium item makes the whole crossover low-key irritating.
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