Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PC
Fans of Assassin's Creed have been begging for an entry set in Japan almost as long as the series has existed. Maybe Ubisoft thought it a bit too obvious to take its stealth-focused series to a country popularly known for ninja — especially so after Ghost of Tsushima beat it to the punch — or perhaps it was more interested in twisting expectations by making shadowy killers out of pirates and vikings instead, but it's finally bitten the shuriken with Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Set at the end of the Sengoku Era — the late 1500s if you're not up on Japanese history — Shadows weaves a tale of vengeance and honour around its dual protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke. The former — a young woman whose father is killed by a mysterious group of masked samurai — fills the classic Assassin's Creed role of a blade in the darkness, while Yasuke — based on the real-life figure of the same name, here left a ronin after his master dies — is closer to Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Eivor, a powerful tank of a fighter.
Whoever you favour [of Naoe and Yasuke], Shadows has them exploring one of the series' most spectacular open worlds to date.
The hook is that you can switch between heroes throughout, allowing players to tackle the game with whichever approach they prefer. However, the focus very much feels to be on Naoe's journey. Even if you're not playing in "Canon Mode" — a new addition for Shadows, removing many dialogue choices and branching paths but allowing you to play the official events as they occur in Assassin's Creed's complicated timeline; a great touch for series adherents — Yasuke feels very much second fiddle. Outside of a brief intro section detailing his arrival in Japan, most of the game's opening hours are centred on Naoe, and depending on how far off the beaten track you go, it can easily be a dozen hours before you get back to Yasuke.
Even when you've got through what feels like an extended prologue, Yasuke never really seems as well incorporated into the world as Naoe. While her shinobi skills are perfectly suited to everything from combat to exploration — a grappling hook lets her scale towers with ease, swinging around like a feudal era Spider-Woman, while tools including throwing daggers and smoke bombs are perfect for unseen kills — Yasuke's slower, heavily-armoured approach locks out several options.
His raw power can come in handy though, as Shadows' adoption of the level-based RPG structure of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla also means a return of the inability to, well, assassinate opponents of a higher level, no matter how stealthily you slide a hidden blade into them. Yasuke will still need to be broadly on par with enemies, but engaging in direct sword-to-sword combat can sometimes get you through battles that would otherwise feel impossible as Naoe. It's still worth regularly swapping between the pair though, as distinct abilities give each a different feel to play as, and mixing them up means you won't be caught off-guard when faced with a character-specific quest.
Whoever you favour, Shadows has them exploring one of the series' most spectacular open worlds to date. Its depiction of Japan is nothing short of glorious, with stunning mountains, forests, and fields changing with the seasons — a mechanic that affects enemy behaviours as much as it does environments — and its landscapes peppered with temples and villages still in ruins, casualties of the many conflicts of Japan's Warring States period. Impressively detailed and thriving cities serve as hubs, and even chattering NPCs — a port city has Jesuit missionaries and Portuguese traders, accurate to the time — add to a sense of authentic immersion.
It all makes for a game of massive scope, as you'd expect of a mainline Assassin's Creed entry (unlike Mirage, which returned to the comparatively smaller, focused approach of earlier entries). Shadows is replete with secondary objectives including a Sim City-style base building component, scouts to recruit and send on info gathering missions, sumi-e paintings to make of wildlife, and a seemingly endless stream of side quests to pursue alongside chasing down key targets. If you're not playing in Canon Mode, there are even romantic diversions. Yet despite that glut of arguable distractions, it never feels as bloated as Valhalla did, which is a big plus.
Long-time fans may balk at a couple of the smaller changes Ubisoft has made here. There's no longer an avian partner to serve as aerial recon for one, changing how you navigate enemy spaces. The familiar Eagle Vision feature itself returns though, partially, with Naoe able to tag enemies, while both leads can use a new "Observe" feature to highlight important or valuable objects in the vicinity. Enemies can also now hear you if you're not careful, and get more suspicious of strangers climbing walls in public, which can lead to unwanted conflicts. And, while it's not entirely divorced from the series' meta-plot rooted in Animus technology, genetic memories, and the war between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order, that all very much takes a backseat for the majority of Shadows.
That last part may be for the better though, as this is one of the most accessible entry points to the series in years. Assassin's Creed Shadows is historical adventure at its finest, let down only by the fact that its twin protagonist approach never quite clicks into place.