Assassin's Creed Shadows Runs on Ubisoft's Anvil Engine, Not Unreal or Snowdrop

Ubisoft built Assassin's Creed Shadows on an upgraded version of its in-house Anvil engine rather than Unreal Engine 5 or Snowdrop. The game is set in 16th-century Japan and follows shinobi Naoe and samurai Yasuke, launching in March 2025 on multiple platforms. It reportedly reached 5 million players by July 2025 and became the best-selling game in the U.S. that March. Anvil's lineage, dating to the first Assassin's Creed in 2007, was tuned for systemic gameplay and large open worlds, which Ubisoft says makes it easier to share across its studios. Shadows also introduces dynamic lighting that affects enemy vision, a seasonal world system, and runs only on ninth-generation consoles.