Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Claws of Awaji Expansion Will Release in September, New Game+ Coming Next Week

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ first major story expansion is coming in September, Ubisoft has announced. The Claws of Awaji expansion, which adds over 10 hours of new content to the game, will be released on September 16. The publisher also detailed Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ post-launch roadmap for the summer Thursday, promising free updates that bring a New Game+ mode, new achievements and trophies, and other features. Ubisoft recently confirmed that Shadows had crossed five million players and hinted at a Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game.

Claws of Awaji Coming in September

The Claws of Awaji expansion will add a new region to the map of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, along with new weapons and abilities. The expansion will also feature new outfits and legendary gear, a new enemy faction and bosses, and a new chapter of the story.

The expansion will take Naoe and Yasuke to the mysterious Island of Awaji beyond Osaka Bay on the hunt for lost treasure. On the new island, the two protagonists will come up against Sanzoku Ippa, a new faction that will relentlessly track and ambush them. The expansion will be available for free to players who pre-ordered the base game and will only unlock after completing the main story. Those who didn’t pre-order the base game can buy the expansion separately starting September 16.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Summer Roadmap Update

Ahead of the release of Claws of Awaji, Ubisoft will roll out two free updates to Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The first, called the Progression Update, will add the much-requested New Game+ mode, which will let players embark on a new campaign with their level, gear, skill points, Knowledge rank and hideout progression intact.

The update will also increase the level cap from 60 to 80 for all players, introduce new Knowledge Ranks, new Mastery and Knowledge Skill ranks, and new upgrades for all hideout buildings. It will also add new achievements and trophies, and animus-themed rewards. The Progression Update will roll out next week on July 29.

The second free update will bring quality-of-life improvements, like the ability to fast forward time-of-day, unfogging of world map upon viewpoint synchronisation, new hideout updates, uncapped frame rate for cutscenes on PC, and bug fixes. This update will be released at the beginning of September, Ubisoft confirmed.

During its first-quarter FY 2025-26 earnings call this week, Ubisoft announced Assassin’s Creed Shadows had crossed five million players. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that “new versions” of the game were in development for “other machines,” suggesting a Switch 2 port was in the works.

The French company did not divulge unit sales, but said that Shadows had “delivered on its expectations”. Following the game’s release in March, Ubisoft announced the newest Assassin’s Creed was the series’ second biggest launch after Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

This week, market analytics firm Alinea Analytics claimed that Assassin’s Creed Shadows was the third best-selling game on PS5 in 2025, with two million units sold. According to the firm’s data, the Japan-set action-adventure title had sold 6,50,000 units on Steam, and reached a 1.1 million players on Xbox, including Ubisoft+ players.

In response to a shareholder’s question at Ubisoft’s annual general meeting this month, Guillemot said that Shadows’ production budget exceeded EUR 100 million. Alinea claimed the game had likely broken even, but had not generated significant profit.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows was released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X in March.