The Assassin’s Creed series is in a weird spot these days. After diverting heavily from the more linear series staple gameplay with open-world titles like AC Odyssey and Valhalla, the penultimate series entry as of now, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, returned to AC’s roots in a big way. Fans were happy to see the stealth-centric gameplay of old come back, but it also begged the question: where could the franchise go from here?
Many players were thrilled to hear that the newest AC title, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, would be depicting feudal Japan, which had been highly requested for some time. The game has seen its fair share of controversy already, including a delay, but a four-hour hands-on preview gave us at CBR a sneak peek into a little bit of what players can expect from AC Shadows.
AC Shadows Debuts Dual Protagonists in a Series First
Along With Two Distinct Playstyles
As seen in previous trailers and gameplay demos, AC Shadows’ main selling point is its dual protagonists: Naoe, a shinobi trained from a young girl as a member of the Japanese Brotherhood of Assassins; and Yasuke, a former slave turned samurai (notable for being a real-life historical figure who was a black man in feudal Japan, a detail that has drawn attention and criticism from the gaming community).
Players have the opportunity to swap between the two characters at will during their playthrough. The demo showed off both characters’ play styles in a few quests: one in the prologue, and a couple in the mid-game. The crux of the gameplay is that one can choose to play as either Yasuke or Naoe on any given quest, therefore choosing either a more melee-focused, brute-force path in the former, or a stealthy, ninja style in the latter.
From there, each character has their own host of weapons to choose from, which allows variety in the range, speed, and area of effect of attacks, as well as some skill trees where players can further customize their loadout with different abilities. Aside from a few story missions that are bound to specific characters, it appears thus far that players will have a great deal of freedom in how they want to play the game, depending on their preferences.
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Naoe’s stealth approach will also be familiar to fans of the Assassin’s Creed series in particular, although there is a new twist on the formula — players will be able to utilize the dynamic lighting system at night to extinguish lights, using the shadows as a form of cover. It’s a small change, but it could prove enough in combination with various loadouts to give stealth purists something substantial enough to chew on. Yasuke’s gameplay is slightly more puzzling — his melee combat is a dodge-and-parry style that has seen massive popularity lately, as characterized by Soulslikes.
The inclusion of this gameplay style is emblematic of much of Shadows’ larger issues: it’s perfectly fun to play if one is already into the genre, but players have seen these systems time and time again. This title isn’t bringing anything new to these tried-and-true mechanics, and can tend to make one ask themselves, “why would I come to Assassin’s Creed for this combat when I could play any of the other games that specialize in it, and ultimately do it better?”
What’s more, players can’t climb with Yasuke, or at least not nearly to the extent that they can with Naoe. It just feels strange to have one character that completely embodies classic Assassin’s Creed gameplay, albeit while upholding the formula, while the other tries something different but feels so out of place, it almost doesn’t feel worth it.
The World is Beautiful and Vast
But Ultimately Something Players Have Seen Before
The game’s world is certainly large and lush, with beautiful sights being one of the title’s best features so far — photo-mode lovers will have a great time with this one. The game will cycle between the four seasons organically, not only lending to how picturesque the game’s environments are but also corresponding to certain story events. However, there’s little to suggest that the seasons system will have any major bearings on the game’s mechanics based on this gameplay demo alone.
The open-world structure will be very familiar to fans of the genre; players will roam freely, either taking on quests or simply exploring at their leisure. The world includes locations full of enemies and loot and gives the player plenty of fun challenges — deciding how they want to take out enemies will be a big part of the gameplay loop’s appeal.
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Reaching assassination targets and people of interest in quests often requires some infiltration, and the previously discussed gameplay styles for each of the corresponding characters will dictate how players go about achieving their goal: either through a more direct main path as they crash through doors and take down hordes of enemies, or a meandering path of jumping across rooftops and performing stealth takedowns.
The open-world exploration itself is also standard fare — players have access to a mount to traverse more quickly, which can be summoned with a whistle. Naoe can climb and parkour around in environments, while Yasuke is forced to more or less stick to the beaten path. There are large open spaces for players to soak in the peaceful atmosphere, where social hubs add vitality and the usual stop-off points to shop and upgrade.
It’s worth noting that Ubisoft is responding to fans’ criticisms that past games were too “hand-holdy”, so now fans will have the option to turn off navigation for a more organic exploration experience. While checklists of clues to follow will still appear for the player, they’re at least further encouraged in this title to poke around for information and follow their intuition, rather than be completely on autopilot the entire time.
Choice For Choice’s Sake Isn’t Enough
This Gameplay Demo Fails to Relay a Larger Creative Vision
Another point of dissonance is that despite all of the customization in combat, this player choice ultimately rings a bit hollow. The story certainly seems to have ambitions to tackle larger themes of honor, duty, and sacrifice, but at least what has been shown so far fails to rise above the plethora of other media set in ancient Japan that covers the same subject — but likely much better. Despite compelling character origins on paper, the narrative fails to capture any attention so far.
Dialogue feels like a slog to get through (and there’s a lot of it, at least early on), taking its time to lay out the necessary information players need to move forward without much else to offer other than bare bones. There’s always a chance that the story could develop in interesting ways as it continues on, especially as the dual character storylines and motivations inevitably overlap, but when the moment-to-moment is dull, it doesn’t inspire much confidence for a groundbreaking narrative experience.
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AC Shadow’s greatest weakness, then, is not that it is in any way a poorly designed game (at least that one can ascertain from a four-hour gameplay demo). Rather, the game is designed with sufficient competency, but its overall vision doesn’t feel like it’s in service of anything greater. By now, players know Assassin’s Creed inside and out — those who are fans of the game have likely played its most recent titles for dozens of hours, and those who aren’t have at least heard the chatter around the series for years.
It’s certainly expected that franchises will evolve to remain relevant over such a long period of time, but in an era of games that are increasingly large-scale, free-to-play, and multiplayer, there’s an air of players craving a return to classic, smaller scope single-player games, especially for a franchise that made a name for itself as the latter.
Over the past decade, Ubisoft’s name has practically become synonymous with formula – they found what works for them, and they have stuck to it: open worlds, light RPG elements, and repetitive side content, among other staples. But one really has to wonder: what is the terminus of the Ubisoft formula? How much longer can the company continue to push out the same, safe titles every year?
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Could Be Make or Break for Ubisoft
Fans Will Be Watching Closely
It’s also impossible to ignore that 2024 was a rough year for Ubisoft. Shadows has already been delayed. After a series of controversies and titles that weren’t as successful as the company would have liked, the stock price took a hit, and rumors have been swirling that Tencent is allegedly ready to swoop in and buy them out. The studio needs a win, and as of now, it’s looking shaky as to whether AC Shadows can be the saving grace that Ubisoft needs.
The general consensus seems to be a sense of fatigue surrounding this title, and the franchise at large. Players have seen everything that the current state of Assassin’s Creed is willing to offer, and the series’ new take on a different time period has had diminishing returns for years now.
Despite the quiet but strong praise that Assassin’s Creed Mirage received after its partial return to the series’ early days in its more linear approach, it appears that the title may be living up to its name. It was a nice diversion, developed by one of Ubisoft’s smaller support studios, the brief foray back into a more focused experience inspired by the early AC titles has all but evaporated.
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Feudal Japan has been one of the most highly-requested eras from fans for AC to tackle, but as Shadows’ release slowly creeps closer and closer, the hype has died down significantly. The franchise’s power creep as it continued to grow larger and larger in scope with each successive title is now impossible to ignore, and now, it feels like the developer is coming to a stalemate with fans: if they refuse to change, players will continue to slip away, finding other titles that suit their cravings for truly innovative mechanics.
There will always be an audience for formulaic Ubisoft titles, which is fine if Ubisoft wants to simply maintain; but if the company wants to truly grow, both in a business sense and creatively, the franchise is going to need a serious overhaul, whatever that ends up looking like. Assassin’s Creed Shadows could be just another title that comes and goes this year, or its failure to meet expectations could have huge implications for Ubisoft. What does feel certain at this point, however, is that Shadows is not likely to secure a place among the most prestigious in the company’s catalog.
If nothing else, it’s been fascinating to watch this title’s development and leadup to release as a case study in corporate gigantism’s hold over much of the games industry; this title feels more like a symptom of reserve engineering than it does something born out of pure creative inspiration. Now, fans will simply be waiting with bated breath to see just how Shadows shapes the future of Assassin’s Creed, and Ubisoft as a whole. The only certainty is that this feels like a breaking point, for better or for worse.
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows follows a skilled assassin navigating the treacherous world of feudal Japan. Tasked with uncovering and dismantling a secretive Templar conspiracy, players utilize stealth, parkour, and combat skills to complete missions and uncover hidden truths. The game combines the rich historical setting with the iconic Assassin’s Creed gameplay, offering a blend of action, strategy, and immersive storytelling.
- Released
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March 20, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Ubisoft Quebec
- Publisher(s)
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Ubisoft
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