One of the major additions in Assassin's Creed Shadows is the scouts system. These guild allies offer a number of useful services to you, from narrowing down quest locations to smuggling resources back to your hideout. But these sneaky little helpers are a rare commodity early on in your trek across feudal Japan.
Scouts are primarily used to speed up clue-based quest steps and claim material caches, though doing so consumes a charge. Scouts pretty much become another resource for you to manage back at your hideout. It's one worth paying attention to, otherwise you'll end up like me, struggling to find Heiji in the Way of the Blacksmith quest.
How to get more scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Broadly, there are two ways to increase your scout capacity: recruit new scouts through quests and exploration, and build up the study at your hideout. You'll need to go out of your way to unlock a few of them and reach the maximum number of nine scouts.
Here's how to unlock all nine scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows:
- Build a kakurega during the From Spark to Flame quest
- Complete the Finding New Allies quest (you'll get two new scouts)
- Build a study at your hideout
- Upgrade the study to level two
- Upgrade the study to level three
- Defeat Yagyu Munetoshi during the Nobutsuna's Students quest
- Complete the Tea Bowls for Rikyu quest and choose to invite friends at the tea ceremony
- Complete The Fox and The Pirate Alliance quests
Once you unlock your hideout at the end of the From Spark to Flame quest, you'll have just one scout available to you, which you'll likely have already used to track down your first target.
Luckily, you can immediately permanently increase your number of scouts to three by completing the Finding New Allies sidequest. Calling this a quest seems generous as it's actually just a short conversation. All you need to do is leave the hideout via the western exit into the Katano Foothills and speak to Monta, the man directly ahead of you, and both Monta and his wife Shinobu will join your hideout as scouts. You'll see them wandering around the hideout afterwards, too. Other quests like Nobutsuna's Students also permanently give you more scouts.
You can also get more scouts by building and upgrading the study. Building the study gives you one extra scout and even reduces the search zone for quests by 25% to save you from wasting a charge. You'll need just 60 wheat, 40 wood, and 10 minerals to build the study, so it shouldn't take you too long. Each further upgrade also gives you a bonus scout.
Unfortunately, your work isn't done yet. Increasing the number of scouts at your disposal only goes so far. Eventually, you'll still run out of scout charges and be unable to use them. This is where intel comes in, among other things.
How to refill scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows
There are three ways to refill your scouts:
- At Kakurega buildings
- Helping civilians in open-world encounters
- Passively at the end of each season
The Kakurega is the main way you'll recover your scouts, since it's the only on-demand method to recall your helpers. Kakurega buildings are Assassin safehouses that you can set up, typically in each major city, to refill scouts and replenish your stocks of tools and rations. It costs 800 Mon to establish a safehouse, and a further 200 Mon each time you refill a single scout, which adds up fast with all the clue-tracking and smuggling you can do right away.
The good news is that you can build a kakurega at your hideout, which functions in exactly the same way as the ones out in the field.
You can also refill your scouts by helping civilians while you're exploring Japan. These won't be marked on your map and can be hard to find. Basically, you're looking for civilians who need a helping hand, whether they're being harassed by bandits or need you to fix something. You'll typically find these encounters along the side of roads. For example, I helped a merchant fix their broken cart just outside of the western Hideout exit and saved someone else from bandits up in the Senri Hills.
Help them and you'll get to choose a reward, either a 'world rumour' or 'scout intel'. A world rumour basically points you in the direction of side content while scout intel replenishes a scout.
Lastly, your scouts passively recharge at the end of each season. You can track the progress of the current season in the top right corner of the map. This isn't the quickest way to get your scouts back, but it's a nice boost you can plan around, especially since you'll get any smuggled resources at the end of a season too. You can actually change seasons slightly early, which you might want to do if you're desperate for scouts.
It's also a good idea to upgrade the stables at your hideout. Doing so reduces the cost of smuggling a stockpile down to just one scout, rather than the resource-hungry two it demands at the start of the game. In fact, rampaging through a castle and claiming stockpiles is exactly how I ran out of scouts, scrambling to figure out how to get some back to mark the remaining caches.
You should also build the nando at the hideout. This themed room provides your scouts with a restful sleep, reducing the cost of refreshing your scouts at the Kakurega by 30%.
How to use scouts in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Scouts are used for several important tasks, from helping you complete quests to collecting copious amounts of materials. Most of these functions are done through either a menu or a basic button prompt so you won't actually see your scouts in action, which is odd considering Ubisoft went to the effort of giving each one a name and design.
You won't have access to all these features right away though. You'll unlock more once you have access to Yasuke and finally leave the extended prologue, since this is when the wanted system and Guardians are introduced.
Narrow down objectives
You can use a scout charge on the map to pinpoint objectives using the clues you're given. All you have to do is press X or square on a controller, or the F key on your keyboard and it'll immediately scan the area for the objective.
Use the clues you're given to work out the general area and then use a scout to confirm it. The more scouts you use, the larger the search area. If you guess wrong, your scouts won't find anything and you'll have to try again.
It's worth keeping in mind that you don't have to use scouts to progress quests. You can also use the clues and head to the area yourself. In fact, I've accidentally stumbled into a few quests like this. Using scouts to reveal the locations just saves you time.
Smuggle resources
You'll find material pallets in enemy castles and camps that require a scout to collect them. That's right, you can't pick these resources up yourself like you can with the bundles of wheat, wood, and minerals for gear upgrades. Interact with them to tag them and they'll automatically be collected at the end of the season.
Initially, this will cost you two scouts, quickly eating up your available charges. Build and upgrade the study and this goes down to just one scout per smuggled cache, letting you quickly stock up. You can keep track of how many of each material your scouts will smuggle at the end of the season in the top right corner of the map screen.
These material crates are invaluable to build and upgrade your hideout, and I recommend you put most of your scouts towards this each season. This is the only way to get the materials you need to upgrade your hideout in the massive quantities you'll need. Put these upgrades towards the scout-enhancing buildings I mentioned earlier and these workers quickly pay for themselves.
Reduce wanted level
Later on in the game, after you've got access to Yasuke, you'll unlock the wanted system. If you're detected when infiltrating a restricted area, and the guards ring the alarm, the region gets put on alert. You'll be hunted by Guardians and guards will be on the lookout for whichever character you were playing.
Once you've got a kakugrega, scouts can be used to remove a bounty Naoe or Yasuke's head and clear these provincial alerts. While provincial alerts are automatically cleared at the end of each season, this is a handy perk if you've fumbled at the start of a new season.
Passive material gathering
Scouts occasionally fill up the stash back at your hideout stables with various materials, Mon, and even gear at higher hideout levels. It's not much, but it is free so it's hard to complain. Remember to check back here often to see what gifts your scouts have brought you.
