Assassin's Creed Shadows Review

As a long-time fan of Assassin’s Creed, I’ve been eagerly waiting for the latest entry, Assassin's Creed Shadows, to finally release after its multiple delays. Fans have wanted to assassinate in feudal Japan for a while, after all, so how did Ubisoft do and was it worth the wait?

In a change to the usual formula of third-person action adventure, Shadows sees you controlling two entirely different characters: the shinobi Naoe and the samurai Yasuke. Both have a story intertwined with the historical figure Oda Nobunaga, which brings them into contact with each other, but unlike previous series twin protagonists, Jacob and Evie Frye, who could both do the same things, these two couldn’t be more different.

At a certain point in the game, you can freely swap between Yasuke and Naoe, allowing you to engage in missions in different ways. The shinobi is sneaky and can assassinate, the samurai is a powerhouse who can literally body doors open. If one of the characters becomes Wanted by the Guardians, you can also just switch to the other and carry on with what you were doing (a bit more carefully); you can actually change almost literally anywhere.

I found myself spending most of my time as Naoe because she moves faster and is more of a subtle instrument. Sure, Yasuke can cleave heads off, but Naoe doesn’t need to, as she can use a grappling hook and most importantly use Eagle Vision. More in tune with the original games, she doesn’t actually have a pet bird and can just sense enemies, but that’s something Yasuke lacks. He doesn’t even have an ability similar to Eagle Vision, nor can he quietly assassinate people. Of course, his strength makes up for it by cutting down enemies in a couple of blows, which makes half of Shadows feel distinctly not like an Assassin’s Creed title.

While I could list off all of the character’s differences, suffice to say that it’s almost like playing two games. If you’re outside of combat, you can switch at any time, and after a brief loading time, they will appear in pretty much the exact same place. This can be funny if you’re perched on an Eagle View, and I’ll leave it at that. But apart from play styles, they also have their own weapons so if Sengoku period warfare is an interest of yours, you’ll certainly be pleased.

Speaking of fighting, if you’ve struggled in fights in previous titles, Shadows has a “simplified” combat option, which will pull off combos and special moves without a flurry of button presses. That doesn’t mean it makes it easy, of course, as much higher-level enemies will still straight up obliterate you, it’s actually separate from the difficulty options. Oh, but a word of warning when considering whether you want objective markers or not: turning on Guided Mode will disable some Trophies/Achievements. It appears to literally just put markers on the still-clouded sections of the map rather than making you visit or send Scouts.

Past games have let you send out people on missions, but Shadows instead has Scouts who can search for objectives, as I just said, or they can come and grab crafting supplies, which are too big for you to put in your pocket (unlike baskets of rocks, apparently). They can also clear your Wanted status if you don’t want to swap to the other character. However, you have a limited number of them, and they won’t cool down to use again until the season changes.

It makes sense that traveling by horse or foot across Japan would pass time, so the season change mechanic in Shadows is an interesting one. Ponds will hide you in summer, your footsteps will be less audible in a winter snowstorm… It can tie into however you approach an objective, and you can force a season change after a certain point, but while the timer is a set amount (I’m unsure how long), the change won’t trigger until you fast travel, swap characters, or load the game, so it’s unlikely to happen while you’re mid-assassination!

One thing I’m enjoying is how often the game autosaves, and the fact that you can save at basically any time. Also, when you reload, the enemies don’t respawn! This was a huge relief when I fell through the ground into the water beneath a fortress, and had to load the latest autosave…

So yeah, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has some issues. My most minor one is that the subtitles are too fast, and even with the English audio language enabled, some characters still speak in foreign languages. Also, the symbols on the map and compass can be a little hard to differentiate. Then, I fell through the ground because I hit a rock from the wrong angle or something while sneaking around.

The major issues I have are graphical, so certainly not dealbreakers, but definitely take me out of the experience. There have been several crates in my dozens of hours which have the textures rez in and out rapidly, so badly that I tried to get a screenshot of them looking normal and just kept getting the blocky textures. Then there were story cutscenes with NPCs whose hair glitched into their heads, fingers went through their clothes, and that one necklace which kinda vibrated weirdly.

The moment-to-moment gameplay is enjoyable, and there is just so much side content to distract you from the main story. Meditate with a weird rhythm game, assassinate a list of people, practice combat, assassinate a different list of people, complete timed challenges, assassinate yet more lists of people, paint animals… You set out on a main quest to kill a list of people who wronged you, and basically every couple of hours you’ll stumble across something that just adds an entire list of different people that you need to kill. At least it puts the “assassin” back in Assassin’s Creed.

The meta-story lacks any of the “alien” stuff of past games, but does pose a mystery that you hope to solve through playing through the memories of these two distinct characters. Though, as a result, it doesn’t really feel tied into the previous games which can be a good and a bad thing, depending on your opinion of those. Some of that gets a little confusing for my liking, so I’m glad it’s absent here.

If you have played older games in the series, you may notice that you can no longer tell your horse where to go and let it take you there. This didn’t really bother me as I enjoyed just running around the place and finding the random events that cropped up, and didn’t rely on the horse. However, I did wind up mainly sticking to the roads and paths, as the forests are so densely packed that it was basically impossible to spot a dangerous drop due to the amount of foliage on the screen. I didn’t really find anything in the forests, though, anything interesting happened either on the road or close to it.

Instead of the horse following a path, now you can press a button to follow someone who is doing a walk-and-talk with you. It certainly makes a change from running ahead or flagging behind them. Another new feature is lying prone and shuffling across the ground, if the tall grass just isn’t tall enough to hide in.

Assassin's Creed Shadows with its two characters is a very good game which I’ve enjoyed a great deal. Even though I’m not a fan of Yasuke’s playstyle for the most part, I do appreciate that he’s very different to Naoe when Ubisoft could have just made the two a reskin of each other. While it does feel similar to a certain samurai game from 2020 in some ways, it manages to forge its own path with a compelling story of revenge set across Japan.