After several delays and an extensive development cycle, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is finally gracing our screens.
Set in feudal Japan, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the first game in the series to let you play as two characters with distinct playstyles. These characters represent two different aspects of the series: Combat and stealth.
I’ve had a chance to play the game a week early and to cut to the chase, this is the first Assassin’s Creed game I’ve enjoyed in a long time. That’s not to say it’s flawless; I have some issues with the pacing, some of the open-world structure, and how the game’s two-playable characters interact. But despite all that, I’ve significantly enjoyed the game and have been eager to dive in and play it some more.
My big takeaway is that if you’re an Assassin’s Creed fan, you’ll enjoy this one a bunch. If you’ve soured on the franchise over time, it might take a bit to win you over — if you can make it through the first few hours. Speaking from experience, the last Assassin’s Creed game I truly enjoyed was Revelations back in 2011. I tried Black Flag, Odyssey, and Valhalla, but there was something about those games that couldn’t get me invested. Yet somehow, Shadows has been the one to stick the landing and get me to keep playing for over 30 hours.
So, let’s dive into this one and find out if this is the right game to get the franchise back on track.
What happens in Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Fans have been demanding an Assassin’s Creed game set in feudal Japan since the series started. Now, developer Ubisoft has finally delivered.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes place in Japan in 1579, towards the end of the Sengoku period. It’s an odd time for Japan, as countless wars are breaking out, driven by Oda Nobunaga‘s bloody determination to unite the country under his will.
You follow two characters: Yasuke, a legendary samurai who must confront his personal demons, and Naoe, a young shinobi on a quest for vengeance. The story takes place over several years, with countless flashbacks, flashforwards, and cuts to the modern world to remind you that there is supposed to be an overarching plot.
You start the game as Yasuke, the first Black Samurai, as he meets Oda Nobunaga and is recruited into his army. This event actually happened, and it’s the first time in the series that you get to play a real-life historical figure.
After a brief tutorial battle, the game suddenly shifts perspective from Yasuke to have you play as Naoe. Here, you see the battle from the other side, watching the horror of Oda Nobunaga’s army laying siege against your people. You’re also introduced to a mysterious MacGuffin, which is brutally stolen by a group of evil bad guys covered in the coolest drip. Of course, these are your assassination targets whom you’ll spend most of the game hunting down.
What are the opening hours of the game like?
Now, despite this setup, I personally found the first few hours of the game to be kinda messy and unfocused. You’re introduced to three main characters: Yasuke, Naoe, and another unnamed playable character using the Animus, a machine that lets you see the memories of your relatives in the past. It’s a series staple, and the game quickly lets you move on and dive into the historical setting. However, with so many jump cuts, time skips and perspective changes, it’s easy to feel nauseated and confused about what’s happening. It was also somewhat hard to feel attached to the characters amidst all the chaos unfolding.
After a multi-hour opening chapter, you’re soon let off into the open world to make connections and start your hunt for these targets. But if you think you’re done with the flashbacks, you’d be mistaken. Almost immediately, you stumble across these meditation points, which send you back into the past as Naoe sees her training and points right up to the invasion at the start of the game. If you’re a freak like me, you’ll hit most of these along the way while doing the main story.
All this back and forth makes me wonder if it would have been better to have all these flashbacks as part of the game’s tutorial. In these snippets, you lose all of your levels and equipment anyway. They also serve as a tutorial for the open world and how combat works. By having these as the tutorial from the start, I feel like you’d come away with more of a connection to the village and its characters before it’s invaded and torn apart.
How does the game perform?
Assassin’s Creed Shadows was meant to be released in November 2024 but was delayed due to the developers wanting to refine the game a bit more. This meant the game was pushed back until February 14, 2025, and then again to March 20.
For the most part, I think the game runs very well. I only noticed a few bugs here and there in my time, but nothing overly intrusive. I have seen the odd NPC glitching through the floors, and some janky interactions with the environment while climbing mountains. But overall, it’s been a polished experience. If anyone here remembers the launch of Assassin’s Creed Unity, you should be relieved knowing you won’t get haunted by floating eyes this time.
In saying that, I consistently had problems with the game’s main ‘Hideout’ location (it’s literally called The Hideout). Here, you’ll get to build and decorate your base to your heart’s content. You’ll need to do this to unlock more agents who can scout for you or gather supplies and progress the story.
However, the game would crawl to a laggy 15-20 frames per second whenever I entered the zone. I played the game on a PS5 Pro in performance mode, so I was really surprised that this enclosed area was where the game struggled most. It’s not a major issue in the long run, but it was a noticeable one that raised my eyebrow a bit.
Too much choice can be a bad thing.
I was invited to Ubisoft’s Sydney office back in January this year to try out a preview build of the game and interview one of the game’s Quest Designers, Luc Plante. At the event, he said the primary motivation for the game was to champion player choice. If players want to take their time exploring these historical landmarks, they can. If they wanted to live out the fantasy of a samurai or a shinobi, they can.
While I respect how ambitious this is, I think too much choice can be a detriment sometimes — and I think that is the case here.
This is one area of the game I have pretty messy feelings about. In my humble opinion, I’m not too sure if splitting the choice between Yasuke and Naoe works for me. Now, I understand that the game allows players to choose between the two depending on their play style. However, in my 30 hours of review time with the game, I didn’t really need to play as Yasuke at all.
After a certain point in the story, you’ll get to choose between Yasuke and Naoe to complete missions in the game. For me, this came 15 hours into my playthrough. At this point, I was already vastly invested in my playstyle as Naoe and didn’t see a reason to adapt to playing as Yasuke at all.
Even more importantly, Naoe can do everything Yasuke can do. Sure, she can’t charge through big doors, shoot guns, or demolish mobs of enemies as quickly as Yasuke. But she does the most important thing in an Assassin’s Creed game: she can climb, run and move swiftly. The game’s exploration and traversal hinges on being able to do so.
Yasuke, on the other hand, is a big, immobile tank in armour. He’s entirely built around combat and being a one-man army. As a result, movement with him can feel like a struggle. He climbs slowly, and his charge can feel unpredictable with what it hits.
I think the game’s giving you the choice to play between the two in the campaign might have been a bit of a mistake. Looking at how Spider-Man 2 delivered the same multi-protagonist experience, I feel like the game choosing who to play for you would have felt more fulfilling. I was always uncertain if I was choosing the right character for the mission. In a game as long and big as this, I don’t think I’ll have time to run another play-through and see the other perspective, either.
I’m not sure if this would solve Yasuke’s problems with traversing the open world, but I think it could have helped massively in making me enjoy Yasuke’s playstyle and have a bit more diversity in how I tackled the game.
Is Assassin’s Creed Shadows Enough To Save The Franchise?
We also need to address where Ubisoft is at the game’s release. 2024 was a rough one for the company. The company has been in a tailspin after Star Wars Outlaws famously underperformed and XDefiant shut down its servers.
There have even been talks that the company is looking to bring in new investors, with some shareholders accusing Ubisoft of looking to sell its IP. With that in mind, the success of Assassin’s Creed Shadows could very well shape the future of the company and the wider gaming industry. With countless monopolies continuing to form, diversity in the gaming space is getting slimmer and slimmer.
While Ubisoft has said that pre-orders for Shadows have been tracking well, it’s unknown what metrics it needs to hit for the game to be profitable. A big relief is that a niche title like Monster Hunter was able to sell eight million units just last month, and a relatively unknown title like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 was about to make back its entire budget in a single day. So gamers are still hungry in 2025, and I have no doubts that Assassin’s Creed Shadows will sell well.
With such a rich setting that’s been highly requested and the team at Ubisoft really buckling down to refine the game over the past few months, I’m rooting for this one to do well.
Should I play Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Don’t let my nitpicks take away too much from the game’s achievements. At the end of the day, I think this is the best Assassin’s Creed has felt in ages. The combat is the most fleshed-out and fun it’s ever been. The parkour systems in the game feel snappy, fluid and enjoyable (as Naoe, at least). And while I’m not totally crazy about the story, the setting in the game and the attention to detail shine through.
For anyone who’s a history buff, Ubisoft absolutely did their homework here. There’s enough detail involved that you’ll spend countless hours immersing yourself in Japan, learning about its culture and important figures from the era.
If it could sway a series cynic like me, I’m sure plenty of others will enjoy it.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows drops on March 20 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Steam Deck and PC.
Buy it from: Amazon ($79), PlayStation Store ($109.95), Xbox ($109.95), Steam ($99.95)
Image credit: Ubisoft
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