There’s a lot that Assassin’s Creed Shadows seems to be doing right ahead of its international release later this month. The dual protagonists seem designed to appease both old and new fans of the franchise. There’s a renewed focus on parkour controls after several entries deemphasized it. And the game’s open-world is less reliant on map markers allowing exploration to feel more organic than ever.
Now, the developers at Ubisoft Quebec have confirmed yet another promising detail: the length of the game’s critical path.
In an interview with games journalist Genki, Shadows Creative Director Jonathan Dumont said that the game’s main story will take players anywhere from 30 to 40 hours to complete. For players who want to explore every corner of the map and see everything, completing all the game’s side content will take players another 40 hours.
Of all the details about the upcoming game in Genki’s interview, this stands out. The last few Assassin’s Creed games (excluding the 2023 spinoff Mirage) have increased the length of its core adventure, culminating in 2020’s Valhalla.
While Valhalla proved to be divisive among fans for taking liberties with the series’ core gameplay and story, almost everyone agrees that it was a bit too long for its own good. A critical path playthrough could take over 60 hours to complete, and that’s if the player never takes a moment off the beaten path to explore. A completionist run of the game, not including its many DLC expansions, could take over 150 hours.
Shadows scaling things back to the size of Origins and Odyssey, both of which ran about 30 to 40 hours with an additional 40 hours of side content, is yet another great decision by Ubisoft Quebec. While there’s plenty of examples of games that are worth an expansive 90-plus hour journey (Baldur’s Gate 3 and Metaphor ReFantazio come to mind), there’s something to be said about a tighter RPG experience. Most recently, Obsidian’s Avowed showed that cutting out the fat of a massive RPG adventure could make a great game even better.
I am currently playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows for review, and I’ve already noticed some ways it's cutting the unnecessary bloat of its predecessors. The grind of the series’ RPG entries can be subverted altogether with a few useful gameplay options. For one, players can toggle whether the success of stealth assassinations depends on the players’ level. When playing as the nimble shinobi Naoe, this has meant not having to grind to the region appropriate level to prevent guards from automatically thwarting my assassination attempts. There’s also more incentive to remain undiscovered when sneaking into high-level enemy bases.
As fun as the exploration mode is, those who need an occasional reminder of where their next objective is can pull up a Dead Space-like guiding path at any time by pressing left on the D-pad. It works fairly seamlessly and was a helpful reminder when I’d go off the beaten path to explore the nooks and crannies of the Japanese wilderness.
Players who can’t wait to explore 16th century Feudal Japan for themselves are in luck as Ubisoft announced the early install times earlier today. Xbox Series owners can begin pre-loading the game as soon as today. PC players can pre-load starting March 17, while PlayStation owners can pre-load the game come March 18.
