♫ Stabbing a man. Stabbing a man. Sometimes in Greece. Sometimes in Japan. Stabbing a man. Sometimes in a meadow. Here is our verdict on Assassin’s Creed Shadows ♫Nic: To kick off this verdict, I have no choice but to ask my most insightful question: how Assassin-y is this Assassin’s Creed Game?
Jeremy: This is the first AssCreed game I’ve engaged with since Assassin’s Creed II, which I watched my roommate play through in university. So my opinion is not especially scientific, but from what I’ve seen it is very Assassin-y. The story – which is serviceable if not anything original – revolves around tackling a group of masked bad guys known as the Onryo (that’s Japanese for ghost), who are introduced with cool chanbara-style music. You’ve got to kill all of them, and sometimes you have to kill other folks who are connected with them, and in general there is a whole lot of assassinating going on, either with Naoe (who slices and dices with the standard hidden blade) or Yasuke (who has a ‘brutal’ assassination where he shoves his katana into someone’s face).
The educated fanboys on YouTube who have filled me in on old AssCreed lore make me think that on the Assassin-y meter, this one probably ranks higher than other recent entries in the franchise. Generally I think that Shadows will be received well and perhaps compared with Odyssey once most people have played it, and anyone who’s felt that recent AC games aren’t Assassin-y enough should turn on guaranteed assassination mode, which returns from Valhalla and made the game a lot more fun for me. I prefer stealth over decent-but-not spectacular combat, and I like insta-killng someone without worrying about them blocking my blade at the last second.
Brendan: It’s pretty murdery. But generally a lot of the big targets just turn into boss fights, rather than assassinations per se. But one of my most-liked missions sees Naoe killing her target not in a rooftop attack or open battle, but in a cutscene. All you do in that particular mission is chat to a few people at a tea party and make some educated guesses as to the identity of your unknown target. The game does the rest. I want to ask for more assassinations like this, but then maybe I should just ask IO Interactive to make a Hitman game set in ancient Rome or something.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft
Nic: If I took one look at Valhalla’s map and decided that no, actually, I don’t think I will, is Shadows a bit less intimidating in terms of checklisting? If not, is there at least enough on the map to convince me to pour a billion hours into exploring?
Jeremy: So, one of the reasons I’ve avoided Assassin’s Creed games until I was forced to start this one is wonderfully petty – I was and continue to be a huge fan of Prince of Persia, and I resent how AssCreed started as a PoP spin-off and then became one of Ubisoft’s biggest stars while the Prince was left to rot for nearly 20 years. I also don’t think highly of Ubisoft for a number of reasons – but on the gameplay front, it’s because I hate the way they populate their open worlds with a bajillion doodads that remind me of the Reminders section of my phone. As someone who almost always prefers smaller, more realised maps over gargantuan playgrounds full of busywork, I’ve long considered the Assassin’s Creed games to be mighty offenders of excess.
Shadows didn’t really subvert my expectations in this regard. The world is undeniably beautiful, but there’s a lot of checklist-type stuff scattered across the map, ranging from collectible treasures, wandering ronin to fight, castles to infiltrate, places where you can sit on your butt and do a meditation mini-game, and even the odd decision to show you images that other players have taken with the game’s photo mode. (No, I don’t want to see anyone else’s pics of Naoe and Yasuke running around in their underwear! Yours do not compare to mine!)
Ollie: Why? Have you found special underwear, Jeremy?
Jeremy: That said–
Ollie: Oh fine, ignore me!
Jeremy: That said, I get the sense that Shadows has actually dialed the excess back a bit from the Valhalla days. Thus far, I’ve not been punished for ignoring half of the stuff I listed above. But it’s undoubtedly a map that feels like it was designed as big as possible to maximise CONTENT, and I’d rather have something smaller. The Prince never barraged me with so many distractions – he just had tight environments to parkour through. (If Ubisoft succeeds with their inevitable dream of turning the Sands of Time remake into a big-budget content grabbag, I will happily redact this statement.)
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft
Brendan: The icon clearing is something I doubt Ubisoft will ever abandon. But what I’ve found interesting is how they do quest waypoints now. Everyone made fun of Ubisoft for always mindlessly funneling players between waypoints, so recent Ass Creeds have built quests where you’ve gotta learn a thing or two before they’ll show you the precise location of your next goal. They do that again here. Instead of a straight shot to your target, you get some bullet pointed clues. “He is in Sakai” the objective text might say. “She is east of Amagasaki”. Stuff like that. Theoretically, you then narrow it down, observe things naturally, and find your target – whether that’s a person to kill or question, or just some object you have to pick up.
And sure, this diminishes the feeling of going from waypoint to waypoint, but its effect is suuuper limited. Mostly because quests lack memorable characters or dialogue (why am I helping this guy find a statue again?) But also because most players will just use eagle vision to spot the gamey “object of interest” markers that throb through buildings like pulsing blue pimples. In the end, the patching over of waypoints with treasure hunty “clues” just feels like another formulaic way for Ubisoft’s designers to systemitise meaning. This is my fancy way of saying: listen, a waypoint is a waypoint. If you want space, characters, and relationships to have meaning, the real solution is not to paste a riddle on the HUD. Try making a smaller game, without the waypoint at all. So yes, Nic. I absolutely understand how overwhelming that icon-strewn map is. I see the likes of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and I say to Ubisoft: no, smaller. Smaller.
Nic: I remember downloading a level cheat thing for AC: Odyssey because the level gating was so grindy that I decided it actually didn’t count as an open-world anymore. Are you free to actually explore this one at your own whims?
Jeremy: There’s only been one instance where I was underleveled and needed to run through a bunch of side quests in order to continue with story missions, so I’d say it’s not too bad, though once again, I haven’t played Odyssey.
But on the topic of exploring Shadows at your own whims, while you need to watch out for overleveled mooks if you venture to faroff parts of the map from the get-go, it’s still very possible. This game clearly wants you to wander around its vision of 1579 Japan and appreciate the research that went into its production, and despite my qualms with the open world, I have enjoyed the moments when I’ve meandered Naoe from province to province, sometimes by horse, sometimes by boat, sometimes by hopping across the masts of Portuguese ships. (You can find them selling Christian paraphernalia at shops that you can then use to decorate your base. Talk about foreign propagandists.)
Ollie: Quite early on I stumbled upon a couple of enemies with skulls instead of level numbers above their heads, and despite the visual feedback of gouts of blood spraying from them as I sliced them up, in damage terms I may as well have been wafting a hot dog stall sausage vaguely nearby. And then they killed me in a single hit. After that point, while I could definitely have delved deep into one of the later regions of the map, the big red numbers hanging above their names instilled enough terror into me that I’ve largely avoided doing so. On the whole I like that the game has made me feel this way, although I think the manner in which they did it could be improved. If an enemy’s too good for me, make me unable to land a blow. I’m okay feeling powerless against a superior soldier. Less okay feeling that my sharp-enough-to-cut-dimensions-in-two katana is powerless against a soldier’s blood loss apathy.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft
Brendan: Yeah, basically you can explore the regions that are beyond your level – so long as you don’t get into any fights or try any quests out there in the danger zones. I don’t think level gating is a great design trick, but I perversely like dipping into these places before I’m “supposed” to. It feels like trespassing. It’s one of the first things I try in MMOs too – see how far I can get into The Deathswamps before I get squashed by a level 999 Enfuckinator.
Nic: How’s the base? How are the deer? Also, can you kick bears in this one?
Jeremy: The base stuff is fine but honestly not what I’m here for, though I imagine some folks will dig it. You cannot kick bears as far as I know, but on the subject of wildlife, there are multiple spots throughout the game where you can sit and engage in sumi-e wildlife painting. There are no mechanical benefits to doing so as far as I can tell; just inner satisfaction, and out of all the checklist stuff on the map, I’d probably vote to keep these.
Ollie: I petted a cat once, and now I can add that same cat to my base a hundred times, so that an army of dupli-cats comes meowing whenever I return home. I hate that this brute force approach works on me, but it does. I’ll now forgive the game for pretty much anything.
Brendan: Same.
Nic: Any giant women about? Asking for a friend.
Brendan: Is the giant fella with the sad expression every time he is asked to kill not enough for you? You can romance people, if this is where your gutterbrain is going, Nic. I tried to flirt with a high-born lady and she was categorically against it. Snob.
James: I haven’t seen any giant women but I am sure that Naoe is the tiniest AC protagonist thus far, including No-Shoulders Desmond. I wish they made it so that if you have her copy Yasuke’s door-breaking sprint move, she just pings back off like a tennis ball.
Nic: What, if anything, does this game mean for the series? Is a question I definitely asked ahead of time rather than sticking it the doc later to make Edwin’s insightful observations flow better
Edwin: However intriguing or lacklustre Shadows proves, it’s a pivotal game because it’s launching against the backdrop of Ubisoft undergoing what could be a major corporate restructure, following a dismal 2024 and many months of investor whinging. At the time of my writing, the rumour is that they’re going to spin off a separate business entity to manage games like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. There’s also been talk that Tencent are looking to up their investment, in collaboration with the founding Guillemot brothers. Whatever happens, I do not have much confidence that it won’t involve further job losses.
Shadows has been delayed repeatedly – it’s hard to know how much that reflects the quality of the game, and how much is just Ubisoft playing 4D chess with release dates in the hope of securing a big win, after not quite setting the galaxy on fire with Star Wars Outlaws. Personally, I think Assassin’s Creed is too familiar at this stage to seriously change Ubisoft’s fortunes. I’m interested to know if Shadows feels in any way like a fresh start.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft
Jeremy: On that note, I know that Ubisoft is relying on Shadows a lot, both as a means of turning flailing company fortunes and possibly revitalising AssCreed by acquiescing to all those folks who wanted a set-in-Japan game. I also know that there has been much attention flung towards Shadows over its historical representation, including a whole lotta harassment over Yasuke’s inclusion.
Thanks to colonisation, I have tangential family links with Japan on my Taiwanese mother’s side. They’re probably not bloodline-related, but my grandmother supposedly burst into tears when Emperor Hirohito declared surrender at the end of World War II. I’ll use whatever authority that grants me to say that I think Ubisoft did a good job at touching real-world history here. I’m sure there are missteps, but as someone who cares about Asian representation in video games, I did not see anything that offended me. Frankly, Yasuke was my preferred character story-wise, since Naoe feels like she was pulled from the pages of a shonen manga.
That said, I’m also not terribly impressed when Western studios make a product set in feudal Japan, a time period that is everywhere in gaming, and dare I say media in general. If this game sells millions of copies, I’m sure Ubisoft will pat themselves on the back for being brave enough to delve into the world of shinobi and samurai. But I find myself wishing that a ‘fresh start’ came in the form of something more diverse.
Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I’d love to see AssCreed give us a game in an underrepresented region like Cambodia, Vietnam, or anywhere else in Southeast Asia. And even Japan itself has more to offer than samurai – just look at all the possibilities of the Meiji Restoration or the injustices suffered by the Ryukyu people in Okinawa. At least Ghost of Tsushima, which Shadows will be endlessly compared to, dabbled in Mongol-Japanese relations. Ubisoft can dig a little deeper, I think — and maybe I’ll continue to revise my feelings towards this franchise when they do.
