With Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft has released 15 titles (mainline releases not including the 17 spin-offs) over 18 years. Fans have been calling for an Assassin’s Creed set in Japan almost as long as the franchise has existed, and finally, Ubisoft has delivered.
Coming five years after the incredible Valhalla and seven years after Odyssey, which arguably reshaped what Assassin’s Creed is or was, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a tremendous weight of expectation on its shoulders.
So, does it live up to them?
The short answer is no with a but, and the long answer is yes with an if.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows does not reach the same heights as Valhalla or Odyssey but not without trying. Much like how Assassin’s Creed III faltered, Shadows follows. It is far superior to ACIII, unfortunately, it just does not compare to the previous Assassin’s Creed RPGs.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Review
Assassin’s Creed Shadows‘ setting, visuals, characters and overall tone and vibe are top-notch. The quality and artistry of the game world are second to none and exploring 15th-century Japan in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a pure delight. The level of craftsmanship that’s gone into creating the visuals and this explorable space is mind-boggling and the team at Ubisoft should be commended and lauded for crafting what is one of the finest digital worlds ever.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Japan is a breathtaking place full of colour, drama, beautiful vistas and ever-changing seasons that (almost) give you four worlds in one. Watching the scenery gradually change as a season progresses is a marvel and a technical challenge that must have had Ubisoft developers working long and stressful hours. Similarly, the way the world reacts to your presence is another example of the level this game is operating at.
Wild animals will flee or fly as you approach, the wind whips up leaves and debris in your wake or moves around you as you move through the world and grass and plants bend and snap as you clamber over them or chop them down, and footprints left in the mud and snow prove that you were there. When you clamber up to a viewpoint and the trademark eagle screech accompanies a 360-degree pan of your surroundings, it’s hard not to get caught up in the majesty of the environment…however, Assassin’s Creed Shadows‘ world is not as open or explorable as it may seem.
Much of this digital Japan is heavily wooded and steep which becomes impossible for either Naoe or Yasuke to traverse. You simply cannot climb every mountain or hill you see. You cannot walk in a straight line from one side of the map to the other and you cannot expect to go off the beaten path and find much in the way of an enjoyable experience. To try to cajole you into sticking to the “correct” path, Ubisoft has added a Wayfinder, which when activated places a white line in the world to take you on the shortest route to your destination. I became a frequent user of the Wayfinder after many occasions of becoming, stuck, lost and frustrated by my inability to take a shortcut.
I know steep, inaccessible areas have been a part of open-world games for as long as they’ve been around and the Assassin’s Creed franchise is no stranger to them, but they feel egregious and overbearing in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. They make the map feel smaller and you feel trapped and penned in. Why create such a stunning playground if we’re only allowed to play in certain areas?
It frequently frustrated me in the early hours of the game to the point I made the arduous journey of travelling by horseback around the map as much as I could to unlock fast travel nodes and avoid regular travel as much as possible. This is such a shame because I do love the world, how it looks and what it evokes, but by forcing me to follow a thin white line on the ground, my enjoyment is minimised. Just let me free and I’d be much happier.
What I am happy with are Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ protagonists. Both Yasuke and Naoe are engaging and interesting characters in their own right. Their stories are intertwined and feed off one another as the narrative goes on and they are both incredibly likable and well-performed; regardless of which language you choose to opt for. The opening of the game introduces us to both characters at the nexus point for their stories and motivations going forward. Assassin’s Creed Shadows juxtaposes Yasuke and Naoe’s gameplay right off the bat to demonstrate how the two major Assassin’s Creed playstyles have been cleft in twain.
Whereas both Kassandra and Alexios, and Eivor were more than capable of stealth, assassinations, parkour, brutal combat and more, in Assassin’s Creed Shadows Naoe is your stealth option, Yasuke is your brute force…and never the twain shall meet. Naoe is too fragile and deals too little damage to truly consider her an option for out-and-out combat while Yasuke is too big, hulking, slow and clumsy to be a stealth option. Sure, you can do both with either character, but the results will be disappointing.
That being said, it is actually kind of nice to choose a character and know that by choosing them, you’re making a gameplay choice. When I want to be all sneaky, climb walls and perform assassination by leaping from rooves, I choose Naoe. When I want to burst into enemy territory, chop heads off and massacre a group of people with extreme prejudice, I choose Yasuke. What makes this an option is the speed at which you’re able to switch characters. If it took more than a few seconds to switch, I would have grown tired of it very quickly and forced myself to get used to playing more with one character over the other. Thankfully, switching characters takes only a few seconds and you’re ready to go. Because of this ease, I probably played roughly 50/50 Naoe and Yasuke and based my choice on strategy, the objectives and often, what I was in the mood for.
What I was less thrilled with was the nerfing of assassinations that’s been creeping into Assassin’s Creed since Odyssey. Naoe is a shinobi and she wields a hidden blade. This should mean she can assassinate bad guys as she pleases, but this is not so. Some enemies — a LOT of enemies — are only wounded by her assassination attempt, forcing you into combat. Other enemies outright block your attempts to assassinate them…again, forcing you into open combat. The game is called Assassin’s Creed for god’s sake, I understand adding challenges and not making things too easy on the player, but I do not like this mechanic at all.
Sadly, I didn’t realise there’s an option to ‘Guarantee Assassinations’ hidden in the game’s menu until around 45 hours in. When you turn this on, enemies will no longer survive no matter how much health they have. It vastly improves the experience of playing as Naoe because it makes her feel like an assassin and it stops the game feeling too punishing. Before I found the Guarantee Assassination option, I was hesitant to tackle certain parts of the game or get into situations with Naoe that could lead to combat because I did not want to be surrounded by enemies, chipping away at their health or sprint away and hide for a bit before trying again.
My suggestion is to activate it immediately and thank me later.
Like many other well-loved Assassin’s Creed games, Shadows’ story is one of revenge, justice and retribution. Naoe and Yasuke’s journey across Japan to bring peace and right wrongs is quite good and includes a lot of wonderful characters, twists and turns and surprises, but, it is delivered so poorly that I often felt directionless and adrift. Assassin’s Creed Shadows places all of its missions on an objective tab which includes a huge number of icons depicting certain characters and assassination targets. The main threat is known as the Shinbakufu who step in to replace the Order of the Ancients from Valhalla as well as drive the main story forward.
However, this is not explained or signposted to the player in any meaningful way and so for a long time, I wasn’t sure of what I should be doing to move the plot forward or which order I should be tackling things in or even what I was supposed to be doing at all. Obviously, taking down the organisation at the core of Shadows is going to move things along but it often didn’t feel like I was making any real progress and I wasn’t sure I was doing what I needed to. Eventually, a major event took place that let me know I was on the right track, but I had no idea up until that point.
It’s hard to explain just how directionless I felt while playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but the game offered me little to no advice on which missions and objectives to select nor did it make it clear that what I was doing was doing much of anything besides ticking off another mission from the list. It feels as though there’s a lack of stakes to Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the more you play, the more you feel like you’re going through the motions. Which does feel like the game’s greatest sin.
There are some excellent story beats and dramatic scenes in Assassin’s Creed Shadows and some of the best moments come from environmental storytelling. I loved listening to conversations characters were having in a village and investigating what they were talking about to find something interesting to engage in. Some of my favourite moments occurred this way which is a testament to the storytelling power of Shadows. Many other great moments in the story only felt big in hindsight when I realised what they had meant. It’s a shame the story seems so untethered and unconnected because it does have a lot of heft and plenty to get excited about.
Part of the problem with a franchise as old and with as many games as Assassin’s Creed is some things need to be (or should be) included to remain true to the franchise. In Shadows, these things tend to feel like negatives a lot of the time. Parkour is just as janky as it’s ever been, You will still get stuck, jump the wrong way, flub an assassination, fall and die and more. It’s just part and parcel of the series now. Stealth too, is just as jacked up as it’s always been. Sometimes enemies will see you for no reason, sometimes they’ll track you through walls and buildings no matter what you do.
You still have to climb up to viewpoints to synchronise, you still have to gradually unlock skills, items and weapons and you, mostly, go from point A to point B, kill a guy or collect some item and then take it back again. While Assassin’s Creed has changed and evolved over the years, the core gameplay essentially remains unchanged from 2007 and it is starting to show its age. I’ve now explored and assassinated in 15+ games and although Odyssey and Valhalla managed to shake off the cobwebs, they’re back with Shadows which just doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself from those games.
All that being said, warts and all, I still enjoyed and played Assassin’s Creed Shadows to death. Despite all my complaints and frustrations, I still think Assassin’s Creed Shadows is worth playing. Even though the gameplay is dated and it feels too similar to previous entries, there’s still some special sauce that makes these games interesting and fun. There’s a reason why the franchise has been around for so long and has so many games; players love them.
Outside of the core Assassin’s Creed gameplay, there are a lot of other things to sink your teeth into here. Both Naoe and Yasuke have multiple activities to engage in that both present a challenge and reward players with experience and mastery points used for improving their skills. There’s the hideout which is its own little sim-city-building game which I’m sure is going to be a huge focus for some players when they dive in. There’s also my favourite radiant event, sneaking up on wildlife to paint their portraits. These moments exist in between missions and objectives and outside of killing and combat and are a real showcase for the gameworld and the artistry of Shadows.
Of course, combat is a huge focus for the game and both Naoe and Yasuke’s skill trees represent this. Each weapon has its tree as does each respective character’s fighting style. As players level up they earn Master Points which are used to unlock abilities and passives, but to unlock things higher up in the tree, players will need to earn Knowledge Points. Knowledge Points open up higher tier abilities but are not earned from levelling up.
Instead, they are earned through side activities marked with a Red icon on the world map. These are usually simple, quick activities like praying at shrines, locating lost pages or performing mini-games to learn combos etc. If you want to get the most out of your characters you’ll need to make sure you’re levelling up both your character and their knowledge.
If after reading this you’re left confused or unsure what to make about Assassin’s Creed Shadows, that makes two of us. While it often annoyed and frustrated me, it equally thrilled and entertained me and offered up a truly gorgeous game world. I think that after just how expansive and game-changing Valhalla was, Shadows was always going to struggle to measure up.
Equally daunting, must have been the task of meeting the expectation of Assassin’s Creed set in Japan after so many years of fans begging for it. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is not a bad game, but it is a flawed one. It’s also a beautiful one, an interesting one, a frustrating one, a janky one, a thrilling one and sometimes even a great one. It’s a game undone by its own desire to be multiple things all at once.
It’s trying to remain faithful to what Assassin’s Creed is while simultaneously attempting to offer something new that doesn’t quite work. It is, as usual, filled with too many things to do with some of them underbaked and some overcooked. Assassin’s Creed has always taken an everything and the kitchen-sink approach to game design and where it succeeded in games like Brotherhood and Valhalla it failed with Assassin’s Creed III and stumbles in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. I certainly wouldn’t say Ubisoft squandered the Japanese setting, but I do what it would have looked like if we got Shadows before Valhalla.
My bet? We’d have less franchise fatigue and Shadows would feel fresher, newer and what we always wanted. As it stands, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a decent game and an ok Assassin’s Creed. It has a lot to love and while not perfect will certainly keep fans happy and playing for many, many hours.
One final nitpick. Why is the world populated with Akita Inus but not one single Shiba Inu? Come on Ubisoft, I want my sheeb.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows was reviewed on PS5 using digital code provided by Ubisoft.
