If you’ve played the newer generation of Assassin’s Creed games – starting with 2017’s Ancient Egypt-set Origins, going further back in time with Odyssey (2018) and its Ancient Greek locale, and then bouncing forward to Dark Ages Britain in Valhalla (2020) and Golden Age Baghdad in Mirage (2023) – you quickly get a sense that Assassin’s Creed Shadows has inherited the DNA of all these historical open-world action adventures. For better and worse.
So you can choose between a traditional stealth approach to achieving objectives, as per the original Assassin’s Creed games, or initiate a frontal assault, going toe-to-toe in combat with whole bases of bandits, mercenaries and soldiers, which Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla enabled. You also have the ability to replenish your consumables, and pick up optional contracts at safe houses, as per Mirage.
On a narrative front, you’ll recognise familiar components, like allies that include a plucky child, Isu artifacts left over from humanity’s advanced precursors, and treacherous enemies that hide behind literal and figurative masks. In addition, the game world is once more divided into level-marked regions so you don’t overreach your abilities. Your gear can be customised with engraving buffs, or dismantled for resources. Speaking of resources, you really should loot every chest or cache that crosses your path. And, yes, you can pet all the cats and dogs.
There’s a lot going on in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the latest entry in Ubisoft’s arguably biggest, name-making franchise. Then the new release adds even more to the gameplay mix under the direction of lead development studio Ubisoft Quebec, which has both Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Odyssey under its belt. However, it’s not the cramming in of even more features that is Shadows’ biggest issue. Rather, it’s the game’s odd and frustrating structural choices that hamstring the promised experience.
That promised experience? In Assassin’s Creed Shadows you have two different protagonists to shift between as you strive to bring peace to a 16th Century Japan torn apart by political rivalries, the creeping influence of foreign arrivals and, most importantly, a secret organisation known as the Shinbakufu, whose corrupt members enrich themselves at the expense of the people. Opposing these forces are the powerful duo of Naoe, a fictional character and fledgling shinobi (translation: ninja) from Iga Province; and real-life figure turned legend Yasuke, the Mozambiquan slave empowered as a samurai under charismatic warlord Oda Nobunaga.
Each protagonist has different strengths and abilities. For example, Naoe is the assassin, equipped with a grappling hook, hidden blade and Eagle Vision for tasks that demand stealth. She’s fast but fragile, unlike the hulking, Siya Kolisi-esque Yasuke, who can charge down enemies and doors, and wield vicious weaponry like the naginata and teppo (a proto rifle). As an aside, Yasuke’s clumsy, self-aware attempts at a Leap of Faith from high points provide some of the game’s biggest laughs.
Anyway, while the character you play as will determine loot drops and quest rewards, neither figure is left behind on the experience front. If one levels up, so does the other, receiving the same number of Mastery Points to spend on their unique skill tree set, as well as Knowledge Points that unlock higher branches of each tree.
It’s an enjoyable mechanic, but, and this is a big but, you have to wait 12 to 14 hours to even access Yasuke. Barring a prologue that gives players a taste of his visceral combat style, our principled hero vanishes until you’ve completed Naoe’s extremely lengthy and leisurely set-up arc, which itself feels like a string of cut scenes to start. A claim can be made that Assassin’s Creed Shadows rewards the patient, but any game that demands almost 20 hours simply to become enjoyable – to reach the “good stuff” as quest options multiply, skill points start to flow freely, and you can finally bounce essentially at will between the leads – has failed on a fundamental level.
And there is a lot of “good stuff” in Assassin’s Creed Shadows if you’re prepared to invest the time and effort. The game is stunning, feeling truly alive thanks to its dynamic weather effects, and seasonal changes that transform the world. Winter is especially striking, with snowflakes settling on your clothes, puffed breaths, and a crunch under your feet with every step.
Simply exploring the world results in discoveries like puzzle-filled tombs to raid, wildlife scenes to paint, a tighter and more meaningful selection of side quests, and spots for both meditation and kata QTE minigames, which provide those all-important Knowledge Points. Meanwhile, the choreography of the combat, especially once you can invest in Adrenaline charge-up abilities, is graphic but satisfying, with assorted decapitation and dismemberment finishers (if you get a thrill from that sort of thing).
Shadows also features a colourful supporting cast of League allies, who make up for the edge that likeable but earnest Naoe and Yasuke are lacking. These include no-nonsense Hideout head Tomiko, lady monk and wrestler Yaya, and rogueish love interest Gennojo, voiced by and based on One Piece star Mackenyu. Some of these figures can even be summoned into combat, serving as a distraction or backup.
As already noted, there’s loads to keep players occupied in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. And yet more is added, primarily in the form of base customisation. While it’s possible to skip the cosmetic side of your Hideout’s reinvention – although you may want to pepper it with all the Akita puppies and bobtail kittens you encounter – it’s pretty much essential to invest in its expansion and upgrade. Adding different buildings, like a forge and dojo, for example, are the only ways to ready your gear and allies for higher level challenges.
While this isn’t too much of a distraction from the game’s primary storyline, it does have the consequence of filling loot caches with meaningless skins. There are few things as annoying as crossing multiple moats and scaling a multi-tiered castle only to find a wall hanging in that final top floor chest.
Who the base customisation is for isn’t exactly clear. It’s a lot more in-depth than choosing, say, a sail and masthead design for a warship in Odyssey. You’d think that Assassin’s Creed players just want to get on with things – you now even have allocable scouts to help with location identification and the retrieval of resource stashes while you’re busy elsewhere – but evidently there’s a faction willing to devote chunks of their playtime to The Sims: Assassin’s Creed, maybe to show off their landscaping and interior decorating skills with the game’s sleek photo mode.
It’s just that it feels like unnecessary busywork, the dropping of bells and smoke bombs when Assassin’s Creed Shadows already has enough obstacles for players to contend with. As a further example, with the game replicating the mountainous forest terrain of Japan, large portions of the map are completely impassable, meaning it’s best not to leave the winding roads and dirt tracks or end up stuck in a tedious cycle of bushwhacking and slipping. On the flipside, the game’s Pathfinder option, which you can toggle on an off, is a Godsend that will guide you to your destination whether on foot or horseback.
For the record, Assassin’s Creed Shadows should keep you occupied for approximately 60 hours if you focus on the main questline – though you will need to pick up some optional missions and collectibles hunts to ensure you’re at the right level for upcoming challenges.
Beyond the game’s five chapter structure, there’s also a new overarching menu called the Animus Hub, which houses all the Assassin’s Creed games of the past decade, plus all their lore reveals. Within the Hub are continually updating in-game missions, called Projects, and completing them will provide you with a currency called Keys, which can be redeemed on rewards like legendary gear. The Hub is clearly designed to extend play time even further for this mammoth single-player experience, getting players to return long after the credits have rolled and they’ve hit the current Level 40 cap.
In full disclosure, I haven’t played Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima, so I can’t compare Assassin’s Creed Shadows to that other grand open-world adventure in Japan. Also, in keeping with tradition, because I’ve yet to finish Assassin’s Creed Shadows, I won’t be allocating a score to the game… yet. That said, at 30 hours in, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is feeling like a 7.5 out of 10. It’s supremely technically polished, and definitely improves as its story advances, but it’s burdened by bloat and structural imbalance.
And if you need one final example of that, there’s the fact that much has been made of Naoe’s ability to use shadows to stay hidden. It’s an intelligent, immersive detail, and yet most of your infiltration missions take place during the day when snuffing out candles and throwing shuriken at lanterns is meaningless. Maybe if there had been fewer content distractions, more would have been made of this ability, better and more consistently integrating it with the game.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is out on 20 March for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, Macs with Apple silicon, and Windows PC through the Ubisoft Store, Steam and the Epic Games Store. It’s also playable with subscription service Ubisoft+.