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0 Assassin’s Creed Shadows is an Action, Adventure, RPG developed and published by Ubisoft. This game is a part of the Assassin’s Creed franchise that’s first started way back in 2007. Available on PlayStation 5, Xbox and PC, I got my hands on a PC copy to review.
Sneak and make sure to not get caught. But if you do, leave no witnesses!
I originally played the first game in the series, yet stopped when I finished Assassin’s Creed Revelations. I would have played more, but I just wasn’t able to move on after playing three games with Ezio Auditore. No joke, I still say “Requiescat in pace” when I play any game with an assassin in it. Or when I pretend to surprise/kill any of my friends when I sneak up on them. But, let’s not get side tracked with memory lane.
AC Shadows was met with a lot of controversy before it was even released over it’s “wokeness”, and historic accuracy. I’ll touch on both. First, I don’t see the problem with the game having a female lead in the game being a problem. If that was going to be a problem at the started at either AC III or on AC Syndicate because both those games had someone that was of a different race or gender. And as for historic accuracy, the very people of Japan have already voiced that Yasuke was a real black samurai. Yet, people need something to argue and say his rank wasn’t correct. However, I have to ask the people this…when has the AC series ever been about complete historic accuracy? Do I have to mention aliens and the apple of Eden?!
Let’s just throw a smoke bomb on this topic and sneak our way into the review.
Storytime
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has you playing both as Fujibayashi Naoe and Yasuke. We start the game with a glitchy intro video about the Animus and how their system works. After that odd trip, we start with Yasuke (real name at the time, Diogo) during a missionary trip with Alessandro Valignano. After meeting and impressing Oda Nobunaga, he is taken under his wing and given the new name i.e. Yasuke. During the raid on the people of Iga, we move on to Naoe.
Naoe is a kunoichi, otherwise known as a female shinobi or ninja, following her father. Thinking they were heading to join the fight she instead finds they are heading to retrieve a mysterious box in a cave that her father mentioned. Only to have someone attack and steal the box. Her father rescues her not once, but twice from almost dying. Only for him to die by 11 masked samurais, and told that we should die a slow and painful death. I won’t tell you everything else that happens the first hour, because you should see for yourself.
Gameplay
It has been some time since I was last an assassin in this series and I did I notice a lot of improvements. I want to touch on the size of this game, as it is the biggest I have seen in this series. I’ve honestly spent over 20 hours in one part of the map doing bounties, raiding castles and hunting for things. Spending almost 2 hours in Osaka Castle alone was nuts due to how big and how spread out the Samurai Daimo are. I’m glad when looking for a where certain missions are, using the scouts come in clutch helping on this front.
Kind of has me thinking I’m playing a huge game of battleships with cliff notes in the corner. Although I don’t recommend that you use your scouts to retrieve materials…unless it’s minerals, always go for the minerals! There was a bug that I kept encountering, wherein I would assassinate someone and they would come back to life! Had me questioning if I was dealing with a necromancer somewhere nearby?! Sure, I could just kill them again, but I worked hard to kill a Samurai Daimo, only for them to Thriller right back up! But, I can forgive this glitch since I could still get my kunai back after the first night-night attempt.
I have been enjoying this whole concept of having two different protags with different fighting styles. If I feel like working my brain, I’ll go Naoe. If I want to go on a rampage and leave the whole place with crimson dirt and natural red roses, Yasuke is my guy.
Graphics
I don’t think I can honestly explain how beautiful or breath-taking this whole game is. The opening and cutscenes in the first hour of the game had me glued to the screen. Seeing the seasons changing with their transition cutscenes after a few days pass in game or fast traveling was beautiful. Climbing a snowy mountain to kill some bandits and fill in the map? Amazing. Even the adorable animals you can pet either in town or in the wild were well done.
I remember getting on a pirate ship to scan the area, only to look down and see these two big sting rays swimming by. From that, to the behaviour all the animals have when either interrupted or curious was a great touch. Yet, my favourite thing to see was when Naoe does her meditation. Watching the scenery around her go from having colour to a beautiful ink brush drawing continues to have me in love with this style.
Lastly, I want to touch on the weapons and UI design before we move on to the audio portion. I wish I could give every artist who worked on the different weapon designs a raise. Especially weapons that show whether they’re poisonous or could actually cause someone to bleed. There were beautiful touches on those. The UI for not only inventory, but to the skill trees and the objectives is brilliant. The UI appearance for the objections is the best dessert for my mind because it’s all looks like the ink brush style appearance.
Audio
Now to the audio, I want to rank what I felt was really good and and I wish they improve on. We’ll start on what I think needs to be either improved or polished which is nothing. The sounds made when blades clash with blades or guns firing sound as accurate as you’d get when it comes to games. Honestly, I enjoyed listening to music playing whenever the situations call for them. Like always, I’m a complete sucker for a great flute instrument being played or a beautifully strummed shamisen. If only they allowed Naoe or Yasuke to play their instruments when trying to blend in when eavesdropping. Though it’ll defeat the purpose of eavesdropping if you can’t hear them.
Longevity
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a lot and I mean A LOT of things to accomplish if you’re going for 100%. I know that I could have just blitz my way through the story in about two to three days by just focusing on the story.
Yet, that’s not the point when you play this series. You play to collect everything on the map, enjoy the open world of the game and to take our time when pushing forward. To me, this game is better enjoyed like a meal rather than some food challenge. Sure, you’ll get the meal finished, but you would have missed the flavour of the dish the staff work hard making.
Final Thoughts
Assassin’s Creed Shadows was the second game I’ve reviewed being placed in the Sengoku period recently. In fact that gives me a good idea for a feature: a comparison of both games and what one did better than the other. But back to this game. I loved that the two protags had different fighting styles idea since you can’t just have use keeping doing the same thing on loop. Having something different is always refreshing for the body and soul. It honestly has me wanting to get the rest of the games and see what else I’ve missed out in this series!
Ubisoft Things
I won’t lie, I almost was going into this slightly cheesed with Ubisoft having me use their Ubisoft Connect software to play this game. Reason being, the crazy amount of hoops I have to jump to play this game on my Steam Deck. I was really looking forward to see how steam deck verified it would be, but oh man was if difficult. Yet, I persevered and enjoyed playing the game when I had an internet connection on it. Even when I have to sign into Ubisoft Connect each time I switch between my PC and back to my Steam Deck. I stopped doing this after the fourth time of having to go through that rigmarole.
I understand that they have their reason to make their own store to keep their games in house, yet it won’t replace Steam. If you have a Steam Deck, buy it on Steam. But if you’re only going to play only on PC, then do give Ubisoft Connect a chance.
All in all I award Assassin’s Creed Shadows the Thumb Culture’s Gold Award
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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