All Assassin's Creed Shadows allies and how to unlock them

Assassin's Creed Shadows allies - A close-up of Yaya smiling after joining the League.

One of the surprise additions in Assassin's Creed Shadows is the allies system, giving you six companions who can come to your aid. Each one has up to three abilities and passives once you've fully upgraded them, and the best news is that they're not all designed specifically for combat as you'd expect. In fact, the stealth-focused ones are actually the most useful.

It takes quite a while to unlock all AC Shadows allies, and it's even possible to miss some of them as you need to make the right choices during certain quests. Don't worry though, I'll go over exactly what you need to do to unlock all six below. I'll also cover each of their abilities so you can decide which allies you'd like to upgrade since you can't preview all the boosts ahead of time.

How to unlock all Assassin's Creed Shadows allies

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

To recruit an ally, you need to make choices during conversations with them to gain their trust. A notification will pop up to say that a decision impacts the character, but while they're hard to miss, it's not always easy to make the right choice. Gain enough trust, and you'll be able to recruit them. Some allies will die before you can recruit them if you fail to support them, and other's quests will simply end.

Here's how to unlock the six allies:

Best Assassin's Creed Shadows allies

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Each ally has three tiers, unlocked by training them at your hideout's dojo. Allies start at novice rank with only an active ability. Upgrade your dojo to rank two to promote allies to initiates to acquire their first passive, and then upgrade your dojo to the maximum level to train allies to veteran rank, unlocking their final passive.

Allies can also be trained and managed at kakurega buildings once you've built a dojo at your hideout.

While each ally fills a slightly different role, in my experience the best allies are Gennojo and Yagoro for stealth and Ibuki or Katsuhime for combat. Given you can eventually equip two allies at the same time, I'd recommend bringing one stealth-focused and one close-quarters companion so you're ready for anything.