Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced leads sales on Steam and DLC generates almost US$1 million

The Resynced version of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag recently established itself as one of the most successful launches in Ubisoft’s history on the Steam platform. The numbers are impressive, even with the controversy surrounding the additional content (DLC) made available on launch day, which generated mixed reviews.

An analysis released by Rhys Elliott, market leader at Alinea Analytics, on his personal blog, revealed important data less than a week after the game’s debut. According to Elliott, the remake has already surpassed the mark of 701 thousand copies sold, accumulating gross revenue of US$35 million. A notable fact is that the DLC, the target of many negative reviews on Steam, contributed almost US$1 million in additional earnings for Ubisoft.

Most of the reviews classified as “Mixed” on Steam directly criticize the microtransactions and the optional DLC pack, whose total value exceeds R$424.91. Ubisoft defended itself, stating that these purchases are not essential to the game’s progress, but the debate persists among players. It is economically significant, however, that the volume of revenue generated by this extra content demonstrates that many consumers chose to purchase it despite the controversies.

The launch of Black Flag Resynced also marked an unprecedented feat for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, as it was the first title to surpass 100,000 simultaneous players on Steam, a level reached in just three days. Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which was previously the first game in the series to debut simultaneously on Steam, represented a breakthrough for Ubisoft, which for years considered the PC a secondary platform, but Resynced handily surpassed that record.

The comparative data with Assassin’s Creed Shadows is quite impressive. On the day of launch, Resynced reached US$22.4 million in revenue on Steam, surpassing the US$9.5 million obtained by Shadows in the same initial period by 2.35 times. Four days after launch, Resynced’s accumulated revenue reached US$35.1 million, while Shadows recorded US$22.2 million, a difference of approximately 1.58 times, as pointed out by the analyst.

Elliott extends his analysis beyond the direct comparison with Shadows, exploring historical context to highlight how Steam’s simultaneous release strategy transformed Ubisoft’s results on the PC gaming platform.

In his words, the analyst concludes that “compared to the era before simultaneous releases, there is no comparison: Resynced made 9 times more than Valhalla and almost 19 times more than Mirage in the same period, which demonstrates how much Steam has grown as a launch platform for Ubisoft in just a few years”.

For Elliott, the conclusion is clear:

“This proves that simultaneous releases on Steam now generate considerable profits for a publisher that spent years treating PC as a mere formality.”

The analyst acknowledges that criticism of the DLC remains present and will likely follow the game, but the financial results indicate that it has not impeded sales of the main game or the acquisition of additional content. For Ubisoft, which was going through a challenging period, the success of Black Flag Resynced represents a crucial and welcome financial result for its balance sheets.