‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Is a Ninja Nerd’s Dream Come True

The Assassin’s Creed series tells the ongoing fight between the Templars and the Assassins. The former is an organization trying to usher in the New World Order by seizing political power, while the latter is a hidden peacekeeping organization protecting humanity. The series uses different historical settings to tell standalone stories, going all the way back to Ancient Egypt with 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Origins.

Since its debut in 2007, Assassin’s Creed has become an almost annual franchise like Call of Duty, with new entries releasing every one to three years. The latest is Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which was initially supposed to launch last year, but suffered through multiple delays. Due to Star Wars Outlaws’ reception, particularly about its glitches, developer Ubisoft took the extra time to polish Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

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The Assassin’s Creed series is now almost 20 years old and it’s taken Ubisoft this long to utilize Japan as one of its settings. It’s been highly requested by fans, and it makes sense, given the series’ emphasis on stealth mechanics and the trope of ninjas being assassins. Assassin’s Creed has also explored other Asian territories with the 2D side-scroller Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India and the upcoming mobile game set in China, Assassin’s Creed Jade. However, Shadows is the first mainline game in the series to feature an Asian country.

The game follows Naoe, a fledgling shinobi, and Yasuke, a samurai under Lord Nobunaga, as they take revenge against the Shinbakufu, a fictional organization that instills fear in Japan’s citizens. The Shinbakufu kill Naoe’s father at the start of the game and steal a mysterious box. Its 12 members have their own personal motivations for joining the group, such as using its influence to claw out of poverty or getting revenge on another clan. They’re the primary targets for Naoe and Yasuke — whose lord was betrayed by them — as the former goes on a revenge quest to find the box, while the latter searches for answers.

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Assassin’s Creed Shadows has story-rich side quests and its dual protagonist structure breathes new life into the long-running franchise. Their distinctive personalities, goals, and playstyles make the moment-to-moment gameplay fun despite some uneven storytelling, progression, and exploration.

During the first several hours, Shadow’s pacing feels strange. Yasuke is introduced first in the tutorial section, with Naoe’s introduction coming soon after. But then players are thrust into the open world and can spend more than 10 to 15 hours just exploring and completing side quests, before crossing paths with Yasuke. During the game’s opening hours, it feels like Yasuke has been sidelined, but once he joins forces with Naoe, that feeling dissipates and they’re on a much more level playing field with each other. They each have their own individual unique side quests but share progression like level ups and skill points, letting Yasuke catch up despite the extensive time already spent with Naoe.

Warring Halves

The Shinbakufu are also intertwined with Naoe and Yasuke’s side quests and personal stories, making the group feel more well-rounded rather than just one-note villains. Their personal stories also flip their motivations. What starts as Naoe’s quest for revenge ends with her trying to find her mother while Yasuke’s actually ends as a revenge quest — a ghost from his past comes back to haunt him. Without going into spoilers, Yasuke’s conclusion is satisfying, but Naoe’s is more anticlimactic. This continues the disjointed feeling that Shadows has, as her story’s conclusion feels too abrupt and it clearly sets up for some kind of sequel or expansion.

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Shadows is loaded with side quests, fleshing out its vision of Japan and its people. Not only do they provide extra story context, character development, and worldbuilding, but they’re great ways to become more powerful by earning new weapons and experience points. The most entertaining side quests aside from Yasuke and Naoe’s personal stories are the ones centering around Yokai, which are supernatural spirits from Japanese folklore. The Assassin’s Creed franchise doesn’t have mythical creatures like other more fantastical games like Capcom’s Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, an action-strategy game that’s filled with ancient Japanese culture, demons, and ghosts. It turns out that many of these Yokai rumors were silly coincidences, like reports of plant-like creatures simply being farmers who wear melon helmets. It’s a clever way to expand on Japanese folklore while staying rooted in reality.

Despite this, the Assassin’s Creed series has some sci-fi elements that were introduced in the first game. Basically, there’s an object called the Animus used by the multinational corporation Abstergo Industries, and it allows users to relive memories of their ancestors, and each Assassin’s protagonist is an ancestor whose life is being experienced via epigenetic memory in the modern day through the Animus. This created the historical basis of all Assassin’s Creed games, which is why the real-life Revolutionary War general Charles Lee is a Templar and plotted to kill George Washington in 2012’s Assassin’s Creed 3. The Animus is used as a suspension of disbelief in the series to tell its stories. 

Shadows has some of these sci-fi elements. In the game’s start menu, players are greeted with a futuristic interface, which is part of Animus Hub, a platform that hosts modern day Assassin’s Creed games, starting with Origins. It isn’t immersion-breaking for Assassin’s Creed veterans, but for newcomers, it can be puzzling as to why there are sci-fi bits in a historical drama. The game only briefly explains the Animus and then it doesn’t touch on it outside of some side quests.

They mainly involve collecting data shards in the open-world, and when a certain number are collected, cutscenes appear that shed more light into the Shinbakufu and other enemies’ motivations, something that could’ve been better weaved into the actual story. Players can go through the entire game without doing these sci-fi-related quests and still understand the story, as they’re non-intrusive. However, these quests also set up foundations of what could be in future Assassin’s Creed games, so they’re still helpful to experience. 

With the trend of ninja and samurai open-world games released recently, like 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima and 2024’s Rise of the Ronin. Assassin’s Creed Shadows stands out from the bunch thanks to its dual protagonists with opposite playstyles. In a meta sense, the two protagonists feel like crossroads to where developer Ubisoft wants to take the series.

The earliest Assassin’s Creed games placed emphasis on stealth, and it was quite difficult to fight multiple enemies simultaneously if players got caught. The other recent entries like Assassin’s Creed Origins (2017), Odyssey (2018), and Valhalla (2020), the series took a much more action-heavy RPG approach like God of War (2018). Yasuke represents this era of the series with his heavy attacks and offensive playstyle In 2023, the series went back to this approach with Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Naoe feels like a throwback to those days as only she can assassinate enemies from above and take them out quietly. By adding both gameplay styles, Ubisoft is trying to cater to long-running fans as well as more recent ones.

Naoe is the fast and nimble ninja character, making her the perfect person to initiate stealth kills and climb large structures. However, she has issues getting rid of opponents if she gets spotted, especially by larger enemies, because her damage output isn’t as high and her weapon’s can’t break through armor as well as compared to Yasuke. Naoe has many more tools to inflict instant death to enemies by stealthily killing them from behind or above, so making her weaker than Yasuke in direct confrontations helps balance out her strengths. 

This is contrasted by Yasuke, whose hulking figure couldn’t be more different from hers. As a large samurai, he’s much stronger than Naoe, which makes him much more suitable for direct confrontation. His attacks do much more damage and he doesn’t fall to strong hits as easily. On the flip side, Yasuke’s only form of stealth kill is the Brutal Assassination Here, he manages to sneak up behind an enemy. Instead of going immediately in for the kill like Naoe, there’s an animation of Yasuke telling the enemy to turn around before he bashes their face in. The animation is very long compared to Naoe’s quick kills and puts him at a much higher risk of being spotted by someone else. Both characters are well balanced to suit different combat approaches.

The differences between the two are highlighted even outside of battle. In the series, the player can scale landmarks and certain buildings to reach the top and unlock viewpoints. These unlock new fast travel spots and reveal other points of interests or towns surrounding the area. Naoe can scale the outside of nearly any building with her rope, while Yasuke has to go inside and climb the stairs. This makes Naoe the ideal character to unlock them with.

Assassin’s Creed is also known for its famous “Leap of Faith,” where players jump from tall heights and land unharmed in a cushion, like hay or a pool of water. Naoe performs the classic Leap of Faith with the grace of an Olympic diver, but when Yasuke does it, he plummets with his arms flailing, making for a moment of levity in this blood-soaked tale of revenge.

Naoe can also climb walls of enemy hideouts faster, but struggles with opening doors. Yasuke, on the other hand, can literally break down wooden doors just by charging into them. Yasuke proves to be the most useful when wanting to complete a quest as quickly as possible. His more straightforward playstyle makes quick work of enemy hideouts compared to Naoe’s more methodical approach.

Both characters also level up together, meaning that if someone has a preference for either of them, the other won’t be left behind. This completely gets rid of any needless grinding as quests have a recommended level before taking them on. Quests can still be undertaken even if the recommended level isn’t reached, but some enemies might prove tougher because your base stats aren’t up to par with theirs. However, they can be overcome with enough skill and smart play. Tackling other side quests before is also a great way to keep up with the leveling pace.

Mastery points can be earned by leveling up, completing quests, and eliminating unique enemies. These then go towards unlocking new skills and abilities, like improving Naoe’s blade so that she can assassinate large targets or giving Yasuke a new type of bullet for his rifle that can cause enemies to bleed and gradually lose more health.

The impact of Mastery points and level progression can be sensed throughout the game. With more abilities unlocked, both characters really do feel like they’re becoming stronger. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about weapon passive effects. Modifiers like inflicting more armor piercing with combo enders or extra critical hit damage don’t really feel like they matter much during the moment-to-moment combat. The numbers feel arbitrary and it’s just a much better choice just to equip the weapon that simply has the highest attack power.

Exploring Japan

Ubisoft recently revealed that it would be doubling down on open-world games, and Shadows exemplifies some common issues players have had, like poor navigation and lack of environmental variety. Its lush grasslands and graphics are beautiful to look at, but feudal Japan’s landscapes can appear homogeneous. Every region looks indistinguishable from another aside from the enemies that reside in them. The areas towards the edges of the map are the strongest, as indicated by the number level on the map, but both enemies and environments don’t visually look stronger or any different than the starting areas.

The open-world also lacks a few key quality-of-life features that contribute to open-world fatigue felt by players. Rise of the Ronin had an open world, but what made exploring its version of Japan a breeze is that it had the fantastic “auto-run” mechanic. By selecting a destination on the map, players could set their horse to guide them to the spot without any additional button inputs. This allowed for players to put down the controller and enjoy the scenery without having to constantly open up the map to see if they’re going in the right direction.

Given how large Shadows’ open-world is, having a similar feature would’ve been much appreciated. There’s a guidance system that shows players the exact way on how to reach a destination via narrow roads, but that becomes a problem when the place ends up in a forest or mountaintop. Sometimes, going straight through the terrain instead of using a roundabout road is quicker, and exploration is stifled where players can’t climb every mountain wall like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Instead, only certain ledges can be climbed.

When it comes to finding quest objectives, such as the next person to talk to to progress a quest or the target to assassinate, the map doesn’t immediately show where exactly to go. Instead, three clues are given to narrow down where it might be. Players can send scouts that’ll uncover the exact location of the next objective if they’re sent close to the area. This is an engaging way to uncover the map as it forces players to familiarize themselves with the map. Scouts can also be used to gather resources needed to build new structures in Naoe and Yasuke’s hideout. It’s a town builder mini-game that’s worth spending time as it provides useful gameplay benefits as well.

For example, upgrading the forge lets players improve weapons and armor, while upgrading the dojo trains allies to learn new skills in order to help Naoe and Yasuke prepare for the threats that lie ahead. They meet valuable allies throughout the game and can be summoned to fight alongside them, expanding their combat options.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows comes at a strange time for Ubisoft, as the company itself is currently at a crossroads about its financial future. The developer is trying to figure out what direction it wants to go in. Will it continue with its more recent action-oriented gameplay style or revert back to the classic stealth focus? Shadows finds a middle ground between both and comes out of the attempt with relative success.

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The two playstyles and weapons available to both characters constantly changes up gameplay and there’s plenty of worldbuilding that make Assassin’s Creed’s depiction of Japan unique. Although the storytelling pacing and open-world exploration mechanics aren’t as fleshed out as they could be, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is still a ninja nerd’s dream game.  

Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches on March 20 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and macOS.