I've already 100%'d it and loved it myself, as someone who had been waiting on a new one forever. Each of the 3 endings are now up near the top of my favorite endings of all time, even. But very few Dark Souls fans had ever played an AC before this.
However, its because they have those fans that most people even tried it to find out they loved it and the genre. If they hadn't had that pre-built trust, it would have been fractionally successful regardless of its quality.
And probably most of them would have quit on the Noob Filter Copter on the Tutorial Mission if not for the extreme FOMO push by it being such a big thing.
For a comparison, Daemon X Machina* attempted to do the literal same thing not a few years ago. It released to complete silence and barely any played it despite it being functionally identical to AC6 in most ways. It did fine enough, but not much of a ripple was made off it. A lot of which, because nobody who wasn't already into the genre even heard about it compared to anyone who knows From Soft knowing about AC6.
*It also does one thing almost in a parody opposite fashion of From Soft, which is introduce a shit ton of characters with overly long dialogue heavy cutscenes at the starting hours of the game. Its the game's biggest flaw that keeps anyone from getting into it deeper, simply because you get more than a dozen (with more to come) names introduced in the first hour with distinctive personalities you need to remember in long drawn out text only cutscenes to establish them.
I've already 100%'d it and loved it myself, as someone who had been waiting on a new one forever. Each of the 3 endings are now up near the top of my favorite endings of all time, even. But very few Dark Souls fans had ever played an AC before this.
However, its because they have those fans that most people even tried it to find out they loved it and the genre. If they hadn't had that pre-built trust, it would have been fractionally successful regardless of its quality.
And probably most of them would have quit on the Noob Filter Copter on the Tutorial Mission if not for the extreme FOMO push by it being such a big thing.
For a comparison, Daemon X Machina* attempted to do the literal same thing not a few years ago. It released to complete silence and barely any played it despite it being functionally identical to AC6 in most ways. It did fine enough, but not much of a ripple was made off it. A lot of which, because nobody who wasn't already into the genre even heard about it compared to anyone who knows From Soft knowing about AC6.
*It also does one thing almost in a parody opposite fashion of From Soft, which is introduce a shit ton of characters with overly long dialogue heavy cutscenes at the starting hours of the game. Its the game's biggest flaw that keeps anyone from getting into it deeper, simply because you get more than a dozen (with more to come) names introduced in the first hour with distinctive personalities you need to remember in long drawn out text only cutscenes to establish them.