It’s been almost 18 years since the Assassin’s Creed franchise first debuted, and after more than a dozen games, Assassin’s Creed Shadows might have finally found just the right mix of action and stealth to satisfy everyone.
In the series’ grand tradition, Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes players to another time period, this time to feudal Japan in a period of strife as a major civil war rages across the land. For much of the game, players have a choice to control either Naoe, a female shinobi invented for the game who works best in the shadows to quietly assassinate enemies, or the African samurai Yasuke, a real historical figure who was initially an indentured servant to the Portuguese before rising through the ranks under the Japanese ruler Oda Nobunaga.
The two characters exemplify the two styles of play the Assassin’s Creed series has developed over the years. Naoe is the true-to-form stealth character that the series was originally built upon, emphasizing silent movement out of enemy sight, careful planning and deadly precision, while Yasuke represents the more action-heavy combat style that became prevalent in recent games such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Odyssey and Origins. By letting players choose their character and play style along with a retooled open-world adventure and frankly amazing presentation, Shadows could be considered the best game in the series for many players.
As the game opens, you get to try out a bit of Naoe and Yasuke as a tutorial, but then spend the next few hours with Naoe alone. At a certain point within the game, after making it through enough of the story, Yasuke will come back into the picture. At that point, it’ll be up to you to decide which character you want to use, and you can switch at almost any time. For me, I found Yasuke’s action-heavy gameplay more satisfying, as he could take on multiple enemies at once, showcasing his raw power and resilience in battle.
One particular moment stood out to me when I was fighting an officer as part of a quest. It just so happened that with the commotion from my fight, the other officers I needed to dispose of showed up. So here I was, taking on multiple officers at the same time along with their soldiers, and I was able to defeat them all, just barely.
Naoe, on the other hand, is more fragile in direct combat, unable to absorb as much damage or deal as heavy blows as Yasuke. But don’t get it twisted — she’s still a formidable force. Her capability lies in agility, precision and the ability to string together quick, lethal attacks while avoiding direct confrontation. Still, with Naoe, there’s some style with her assassinations. Early on, when you play as her, she eventually gets a tanto knife for her off-hand that unlocks double assassinations. My favorite is when she walks right between two soldiers and stabs them both in the neck with her sword and tanto.
Obtain certain equipment and she can unlock a triple assassination. It surprised me when it happened. Naoe flew off the top of a small building, took down two soldiers and quickly threw a shuriken to topple a third nearby without anyone noticing. She can also use Eagle Vision (another Assassin’s Creed staple) to see where enemies are, as well as parkour her way up buildings, unlike Yasuke, who can’t climb much with his heavy armor.
Ubisoft made it easy to swap between Naoe and Yasuke at will — just go to the menu to swap and, after a quick loading screen, the other character will appear in the same exact spot. This works well since traveling as Yasuke will have him come across Viewpoints to find more locations to visit, but he can’t climb like Naoe, so making the switch without needing both characters to travel separately is a blessing. Switching can also get rid of a character’s wanted status, which happens when setting off alarms in an enemy-controlled area. In some quests, there is a choice of going with either character for the entire mission or just a segment. There are also quests when you start off as one character, like Naoe, who will infiltrate a castle where the boss is and open the door for Yasuke to come in.
Taking down enemies, completing quests, discovering landmarks and more activities will reward players with XP. Both characters level up simultaneously, earning Mastery Points that can be spent on their respective skill trees. Naoe’s skill tree is centered around assassinations, ninja tools and her signature weaponry, while Yasuke’s is tailored toward swordplay, his bow, the long-reaching naginata spear and the powerful teppo rifle.
New abilities, combos, extra damage and more tools are some of the skills that can be unlocked, but to get more advanced skills, players will need to increase their knowledge rank — in other words, they need to get cultured. This requires visiting more locations, gathering scrolls at temples and playing through various flashbacks.
Both Naoe and Yasuke also have their own armor sets that can be found in quest areas, enemy-filled castles or taking down bosses. Each piece of equipment has certain stats, and its rarity can increase damage to attacks, gain more adrenaline used for skills or add certain unique properties. One particular armor lets Yasuke block unblockable attacks, which makes fighting enemies almost too easy — unblockable attacks are what the enemies lean on to slow you down if you barrage them with attacks.
Like in previous games, Shadows has a hideout that offers different benefits like equipment upgrades, more resources and allies who will offer quests to complete. Those players who enjoy expressing their creativity will be happy to know that there are a lot of small structures and decorations to make their hideout unique.
Who are the figures behind the Shadows?
As for why these two very different characters come together, Naoe and Yasuke have their fates intertwined due to the actions of a famous figure in Japanese history: Oda Nobunaga. Without getting into spoilers, both find themselves on the same side in hunting down the Shinbakufu, a group of warriors who conspire to manipulate the forces clashing in frenzied battles within Japan. As Naoe and Yasuke hunt down these shadowy figures, they’ll meet allies and form alliances to take them down one at a time.
The different Shinbakufu you hunt, among other character quests, are found on the Objectives board in the game. When Naoe and Yasuke progress through the story, more characters and their respective quests will be on the board. You can jump around from one quest to another as you see fit, with each quest having a suggested character level to complete it. While this free-flowing way of dealing with quests does allow for some freedom, the Objective board has an annoying habit of not always following the quest line.
Some quest-givers have multiple missions to finish before the entire quest is completed, and for some reason, the next mission won’t be automatically selected after completing the preceding one. This meant I had to constantly go back to the board, select the next mission, complete that mission, go back into the board to select the next one, and so on, which was tedious.
That said, getting quests started has been overhauled for a more organic flow. When a quest is selected, its target — the person to speak to or enemy to defeat — doesn’t immediately appear on the map. Instead, players will have to do a bit of investigating, which happens in two ways.
The first is through the use of scouts. As you progress through the game, you’ll be able to unlock scouts who can be commanded to visit a certain region of the map and look for the person of interest based on the clues given, which usually entail that the person’s in a certain city or near a certain region on the map. If you pick the right area for the scouts, a marker will be displayed telling you where to go.
However, there are a limited number of scouts available at one time, and while you can replenish that number for a price, you have another option to investigate: just go to the area and do your own scouting. When exploring the region or city mentioned in the quest, you can use the observe button to spot regular people with quest markers above their heads. Wander around them and you’ll overhear these people talking to themselves or others dropping hints as to where the person you’re looking for is located.
This system feels like Ubisoft’s answer to longstanding criticism of what has been dubbed the “Ubisoft formula,” a term used to describe the company’s tendency to overload games in the publisher’s open-world franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Ghost Recon with excessive on-screen information and overly structured gameplay.
The result in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a much cleaner and less cluttered interface. It strikes a balance between the game constantly guiding you and letting you suss out directions yourself from one objective to another and, instead, lets you get lost if you want to. It does take some time to get used to this setup and, at times, a few more steps to complete quests. It does feel like a little more tooling could be done to make this system more seamless for players.
Read more: Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Upgraded Environmental Tech Brings Immersive Weather and Seasons
Japan is where the creed thrives
The setting of feudal Japan is, simply put, a beautiful sight. Ubisoft created this beautiful, lush landscape for players to explore whether it’s the mountain terrain of the Tamba region, the bustling port of Wakasa region, or the colorful Mitari Valley in the Yamato region. I was reminded of the landscape of Ghosts of Tsushima. Although Shadows doesn’t offer quite the same eye candy as Ghosts, it looks spectacular, especially considering how much there is to explore.
Shadows is exceptionally well presented. My time reviewing was split between playing on the Xbox Series X and streaming on GeForce Now. When streaming, I was able to set the graphics settings to Ultra and the shadows and the lighting were incredible.
I had to be mindful of light sources at night, as a candle or lamp was all that was available to see in the dark. In fact, it was almost too dark in some instances, requiring a tweak of the graphics settings. Still, the use of lighting is remarkable, which should be expected with a franchise that focuses on stealth and a game that takes place in a time when fire and moonlight are the only light sources at night. I did wish that the NPCs and soldiers had a bit more detail, but I appreciated that it didn’t feel like I was fighting the same five guards and running into the same five characters wherever I went.
One downer is that the English voice acting is just not that good. I understand that Ubisoft wanted to achieve a somewhat realistic way of how the dialogue flowed as characters like Naoe and Yasuke speak English with a heavy accent as if it’s not their primary language — seemingly to remind players that, yes, it’s set in Japan. But it sticks out when other characters speak English with a minimal accent. It just doesn’t make sense as Naoe seems to struggle to speak English for no real reason. Save yourself the annoyance and just change it all to Japanese with subtitles.
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With the exception of some quirks with the quest system, a less-than-stellar English voice track and a storyline that may not be the most compelling of the franchise, it’s hard to find major faults with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Ubisoft has found what could be the new formula for the franchise, and it will hopefully retool this formula to keep future titles fresh for players. Some diehard fans may find Shadows to be a bit too action-oriented and less stealthy than previous games in the series, but I feel there’s still enough of the original formula in this game to satisfy them, as well as those who want to just use a big ol’ sword to chop some heads.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches on March 20 for Mac, PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles for $70.
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows is shaping up to be one of the most interesting and exciting installments this franchise has seen since Origins revitalized it in 2017. We previewed the game last year at Gamescom and finally went hands-on with it a couple of months ago. After numerous delays, I was happy to finally play the full build and can say it was definitely worth the wait.
I’ve spent over a dozen hours in Shadows at this point, across both the PC (via Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming platform) and on Xbox. Here are a handful of tips to help you get better prepared for entering feudal Japan.
Exploration is key
Shadows emphasizes exploration above anything else. One of the first choices you’ll make when starting your game is whether you want the guide to signpost each object, holding your hand the entire way or if you want to engage in the game’s more immersive directions. The game defaults to giving you only vague directions and hints about where your next quest objective is. This bolsters the game’s emphasis on exploring the environment as you go. Finding new locations will grant you extra experience points and can often lead to additional side quests, random enemy encounters, hidden tombs and much more. You’ll even find full cut scenes that flesh out character backstories, so explore as much as possible.
Use temples to stock up on knowledge points
The Mastery menu shows your knowledge level in the bottom left corner.
One of the more useful extracurriculars is temples. Each of these will offer different bonuses, but knowledge points are some of the best rewards. For example, many temples will task you with finding three hidden scrolls somewhere on their grounds (or in trees/on rooftops). Knowledge points are accumulated in your mastery menu and unlock levels to progress through more of your characters’ various skill trees (which you can then spend mastery points on to unlock new abilities).
Don’t buy gear
Assassin’s Creed games sometimes give the player a ton of different loot (Odyssey) and sometimes offer a more limited selection (Valhalla), but Shadows has returned to overloading you with new weapons and armor. Because of this, it’s not worth buying new gear from any of the vendors. While you’ll always see stats for sale, you will find new loot so quickly that those stats will quickly become obsolete. Unless you find something you really like the design of, just stick to finding new gear from chests and enemies.
Pathfinder might not show the shortest route
Pathfinder shows you an easy route to your objective, but you may be able to cut corners.
When a quest or location is tracked, you can hold Left on the D-pad to turn on pathfinder. This will bring up a white line in the game that will pulse and direct you to that waypoint. (Your horse won’t auto-follow that path like it did back in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.)
While this guide is useful for directing you, the line will usually stick to roads and obvious pathways, meaning it isn’t necessarily the shortest route as the crow flies. You may be able to find shortcuts and faster routes by going off path, directly toward the waypoint on your overhead compass. At the same time, not all geography can be easily passed, and going off route might lead you to a forest so dense your horse can’t proceed or a cliff face too steep for you to climb. So if you’re totally lost, pathfinder will be more helpful.
Pray and make offerings at shrines
There are tons of shrines located in the world, and they don’t appear on the map or compass with any icon. You’ll usually find them along roads as you’re traveling from point to point. It’s worth stopping to examine them, usually allowing you to quickly pray or make an offering (which doesn’t actually take anything from you). Doing so will reward the player with a variety of small incentives such as experience points, timed boosts to stats such as armor piercing or topping up resources like adrenaline (which allows you to use combat abilities).
Pet the dogs (and cats)
Do you really need a reason?
Many stray dogs and cats are walking around the various towns and villages, and you can pet all of them. Early in Shadows, you unlock a base of operations for your team where you can customize the buildings and layout, giving your characters more benefits. Part of the aesthetic customization is any animal you’ve pet so far. See a dog that looks different than one you’ve interacted with before? It can be unlocked and placed in your base. One time, when I was petting a cat, my character said, “I’m bringing you home.” Did I just steal someone’s cat?
Swap characters when you get stuck
Even though you’re introduced to both protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke, in the first hour of the game, you won’t actually get to play much Yasuke for quite a while. In my time with the game, I didn’t unlock Yasuke for good until after using Naoe for about 10 hours. When you unlock Yasuke, the introduction sequence is extremely cool, but be prepared to wait for a second character.
However, one great thing to know is that after fully unlocking Yasuke, you can swap between the two pretty seamlessly. Unlike Grand Theft Auto 5’s multi-protagonist approach, where you would warp to each character wherever they were located as they went about their day, Naoe and Yasuke will spawn at the same location. Come across a tower that Yasuke can’t climb? A quick swap means Naoe will be in the same spot and ready to scale it.
Scout contracts
Scout contracts show you what’s up for grabs and what you need to do for it.
One of the main mechanics in Shadows is using scouts to survey specific areas on the map, revealing points of interest and even quest objectives for you. You can also unlock bases in many of the game’s towns, where you can replenish the number of scout uses. Another feature here is scout contracts, which are various missions that will auto-generate as you play. They aren’t the most interesting in quest design, ranging from assassinating a specific target to destroying a heavily guarded object. However, they do give a lot of experience and resources (used to upgrade your base). While they aren’t the best quests in the game, they’re definitely worth doing if you’re grinding XP.
Attack fortresses at night
If you prioritize a stealthy approach to the game, night is your best friend. Naoe does her best work in the dark, and you’ll often be able to extinguish light sources to hide further. Many enemies will be asleep while on duty at night, making it even easier to sneak up on and take out. If you have a large, dangerous fortress ahead of you, wait to tackle it until after dark. Ahead of the release, Ubisoft asserted that weather effects like rain and snow could also aid your infiltration, but in practice, the benefits are minimal compared to the huge advantage of sneaking around at night.
Level up assassination skills first
Naoe’s Assassin skill tree features a handy double assassination skill.
Naoe is much stronger when she hasn’t alerted the enemy. Taking out opponents from the shadows and assassinating without being detected is key to using her. This makes her Assassination skill tree very useful and where you should prioritize spending your skill points. Any skills that increase the amount of assassination damage will allow you to take out stronger opponents without having to fight. The double assassination skill is also extremely useful since enemies will often bunch together and you can eliminate them even more easily.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches on Xbox, PS5, and PC on March 20.
