Seven ways Assassin's Creed Shadows shakes up the series' formula

1.23.2025
By Rick Lane, Contributor

Assassin's Creed Shadows realizes a dream fans have had for years, finally bringing the historical action-adventure series to feudal Japan. Set smack in the middle of the Sengoku period, Shadows lets players experience its story through the eyes of two very different characters: the burly, combat-focused samurai Yasuke and the more stealth-oriented shinobi Naoe.

Since its announcement last year, I've been intrigued by the implications this has for the series. Would Ubisoft seize the opportunity to overhaul the series for a new era? Or would Shadows merely be Assassin's Creed wearing a kimono?

Earlier this week, I got the chance to find out, playing through the game's prologue and several hours of its open world. And while Shadows is recognisably Assassin's Creed in its structure, it also makes major changes to many of the series' underlying systems. Here are seven ways Ubisoft's latest revitalizes its open world formula.

 

Shadows kicks off much faster than previous Assassin's Creed games


The last two Assassin's Creed games, Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Valhalla, were massive open worlds with equally massive introductions. With Odyssey, players spent considerable time exploring the island of Kephallonia before commencing their journey across the Aegean archipelago, while Valhalla kept players in snowy Norway for nearly a dozen hours before they set sail for the game's actual setting of Dark Ages Britain.

Although Shadows appears no smaller in scope, it cuts to the heart of the matter much faster. Yasuke and Naoe are each introduced via a rapid succession of playable vignettes, which quickly establish Yasuke's rise to prominence under Japanese Daimyo Oda Nobunaga, and Naoe's connection to the Order of the Assassins. It's a pacey, action-packed opening, with you partaking in several large-scale battles and completing your first assassination in less than 90 minutes.
 

You can switch between the two protagonists at (almost) any point


While Assasin's Creed has let players choose from different characters before, Shadows is the first since Assassin's Creed Syndicate to feature playable dual protagonists—and like Syndicate, these characters are designed to play in different ways. Yasuke excels at carving through swathes of enemies with his katana, but is slower in parkour and less adept at stealth. Naoe, meanwhile, is nimbler and sneakier than Yasuke, but more vulnerable in open combat.
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I expected the demo would let me try both characters, but what surprised me is how rarely Shadows locks you into one perspective or the other. Indeed, you can switch between Yasuke and Naoe at virtually any point.

You can use this to your advantage while exploring the open world. Following the prologue, the demo fast-forwarded to a wide-ranging mission that involved tracking down the kidnapped son of a local lord. For the investigative phase of this mission, I played as Naoe, using her advanced parkour and stealth skills to infiltrate secure areas and interrogate informants. Yet when the investigation led me to a shrine that had the distinct whiff of an impending ambush, I swapped to Yasuke, relying on his combat prowess to get me out alive.

More surprising still was how Shadows seeded this flexibility into its showcase set-piece. The demo culminated in an elaborate castle-infiltration involving both Yasuke and Naoe. Rather than locking me into one perspective for the whole set-piece, it offered regular intervals where I could choose who to play as, deciding to infiltrate the castle as Naoe or walk through the front gates as Yasuke, then giving me the option to swap characters for several other sequences and the climactic boss fight.
 

It retires your eagle companion, replacing it with deployable scouts


In keeping with more recent entries to the series, climbing towers and vantage points in Assassin's Creed Shadows no longer unveils every nearby location on the map. Instead, you'll need to find many objectives, points of interest, and assassination targets yourself, assembling and piecing together clues you gather through various other means.

Previously, this was achieved primarily with the aid of your eagle companion, who provided a literal bird's-eye view of the landscape. But Shadows removes your trusty avian pal, replacing it with a more thematically appropriate network of scouts.
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Scouts are deployed on the world map, revealing and identifying points of interest within a certain radius. In the demo, my first contact for finding the missing boy was the wife of a samurai involved in the kidnapping. The clues I had suggested she lived in the western part of the city the demo was set in, so I deployed a scout into that area, revealing the precise location of the objective.

To be clear, you don't need to use scouts to find things, and in this case, the city was small enough that I could easily have found the location on my own. But it's clear how useful scouts will be for unveiling the wider map of Japan. And while I didn't see this in action, Shadows will let players recruit additional scouts over the course of the game, and sending more of them to investigate a location will widen the search area.
 

Naoe is the series' most maneuverable character yet


Naoe isn't just faster and quieter than Yasuke. She has several unique abilities that make her one of the most versatile characters in Assassin's Creed ever. Equipped with a grappling hook, she can not only swing between platforms, but rope-climb to any overhanging ledge. During the demo, I found this ability especially useful for evading guards while exploring buildings, zipping up to the next floor or roof of a building if they came sniffing around on the ground. She can also perform assassinations while suspended on the grappling hook's rope, enabling her to swing over the heads of targets and then drop onto them for a surprise kill.

Naoe's abilities also extend to other methods of traversal. She can descend as quickly as she ascends, able to cartwheel neatly off a ledge without needing to clamber down or risk a damaging drop. And while she's capable of fighting her way out of a jam, she can quickly flee if she's overwhelmed, leaping over obstacles with a unique sprint-dodge ability.
 

You can go prone


"Lying down" wouldn't normally be an exciting feature for a video game, but going prone is an essential ability in many stealth games. Shadows finally adds it to Assassin's Creed, letting Naoe lie on her stomach and commando-crawl around. This proved useful on numerous occasions during the demo.

When searching for the wife of my informant, for instance, I found mercenary thugs accosting her at home. Using the prone ability, I crawled through the long grass running along the perimeter wall of the compound's interior until I found an unguarded door that I could quickly move through. Moreover, on the way out, I found a trapdoor that let me crawl out of the house, making my escape even easier than my infiltration.

As someone who has often found Assassin's Creed to be a reluctant stealth game, the ability to snake across the ground feels transformative. You can also assassinate characters from a prone position, and roll from side-to-side, letting you shift quickly in and out of low cover.
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Yasuke is a human wrecking ball


Yasuke doesn't play like any other Assassin's Creed character. His parkour is slow and clumsy compared to Naoe's fleet-footed acrobatics, while his bulky samurai armour makes him a mediocre sneak. But he makes up for this in his ability to utterly rip-up the joint. Not only can he tear through enemies with his katana, he can just barrel them out of the way by sprinting. This ability can also be used to batter down obstacles like fences and paper doors. This makes him surprisingly adept at chasing down enemies if they try to run away. While slower than Naoe, Yasuke can take more direct routes through areas, smashing through whatever's in his path to catch his quarry.

The demo also revealed more specific abilities at Yasuke's disposal, like a powerful kick (handy for crowd control) and a devastating attack where he sheathes his katana and then darts forward at lightning speed, slicing through any enemies in his path. Finally, if you're not in the mood for swordplay, you can also blast enemies with an arquebus.
 

Combat is more brutal (and stylish) than ever


Assassin's Creed has never shied away from violence, but Shadows surprised me with its gratuitous combat. Fighting with either character is a gnarly parade of decapitations and throat slashings, while Yasuke has a particularly nasty habit of impaling enemies on his katana and then lifting them off the ground. Outside of combat, Yasuke also has an ability called "brutal assassinate" which is as nasty as it sounds.

This extra layer of grisliness feeds into a more stylised depiction of combat. When assassinating a notable target or using certain abilities (such as Yasuke's sword-rush) the screen will flash white, depicting characters in silhouette with a crimson spatter of blood, resembling a Japanese shodō scroll. It's a neat stylistic flourish that complements the more cinematic action of Shadows' combat.

You can pre-purchase Assassin’s Creed Shadows right now on the Epic Games Store ahead of its March 20 release date.