After years of fans clamoring for it, Assassin’s Creed has finally come to Japan. Assassin’s Creed Shadows drops you into late-sixteenth-century Japan as two distinct characters – the classic assassin, Naoe, and the revolutionary samurai, Yasuke. So much has changed since this series first debuted in 2007, both in the series itself and the industry outside it. We’ve been blessed with great samurai and shinobi games, like Rise of the Ronin and Sekiro and Ghost of Tsushima in 2020, which made people wonder if Assassin’s Creed missed its opportunity. Now that it’s finally here, Assassin’s Creed Shadows delivers a great and personal open-world AC experience, though the usual Ubisoft tediums do creep up every now and then.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows begins with a spotlight on Yasuke, known as Diogo at the time. He accompanies Portuguese Jesuit priests as they are granted an audience with Lord Oda Nobunaga, a lord hellbent on unifying the country. Diogo impresses Nobunaga and thus starts his path toward becoming a samurai, eventually taking the name Yasuke. The story then shifts to follow Naoe, a young shinobi, for a good chunk; her path didn’t cross Yasuke’s until around the 10-hour mark at the conclusion of Act 1. For plenty of games, 10 hours is a sizable chunk, but for Shadows, depending on how long you want to spend in its world, it’s a drop in the bucket.
Shadows is abundant with beautiful and well-staged cinematics.
” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/aiptcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SHARE_20250318_0202010-scaled.jpeg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/aiptcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SHARE_20250318_0202010-scaled.jpeg?fit=740%2C416&ssl=1″ class=”ezlazyload size-large wp-image-611426″ src=”data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20width=%22740%22%20height=%22416%22%3E%3C/svg%3E” alt=”‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ has something for everyone and is better for it” width=”740″ height=”416″ title=”SHARE 20250318 0202010″ data-ezsrcset=”https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184029704.jpeg 1024w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184030910.jpeg 300w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184031121.jpeg 768w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184031959.jpeg 1536w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184031357.jpeg 2048w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184032266.jpeg 1000w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184033291.jpeg 560w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184033528.jpeg 1480w,https://image.cdnwindow.com/image/wordpress/2025/03/20250318184034203.jpeg 2220w” sizes=”(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px” ezimgfmt=”rs rscb4 src ng ngcb4 srcset” data-ezsrc=”https://aiptcomics.com/ezoimgfmt/i0.wp.com/aiptcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SHARE_20250318_0202010.jpeg?resize=740%2C416&ssl=1″>
Shadows is abundant with beautiful and well-staged cinematics.
For the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve played, I’ve always felt like they’ve had slow beginnings, often taking too much time to establish their protagonists as assassins as well as introduce the various open-world side activities. Assassin’s Creed Shadows starts explosively; however, Yasuke leads an assault on a village in Iga, and then you switch to the Igan Naoe to experience her side and begin her quest for vengeance. There are hints to her family’s association with the Creed – her father gives her a hidden blade – but otherwise, no time is spent initiating Naoe into the Order; she’s on a personal quest for revenge and to find a MacGuffin her father tasked her with securing before it was stolen by the Shinbakufu, a dozen mysterious figures that Naoe, and later Yasuke, will assassinate.
When the characters link up, the game really gets its hook in me. Themes of vengeance and forgiveness are prevalent in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Naoe must forgive Yasuke before they can work together to weed out the corruption of the Shinbakufu. Naoe also learns that her actions can paint her as a monster in the eyes of others, and she must contend with what it means to wield this blade and take lives with it. What happens to those the dead leave behind?
There’s already so much on my board to do, and this is from early in the game.
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There’s already so much on my board to do, and this is from early in the game.
Both protagonists get flashback missions that flesh out their characters and their supporting casts. I appreciated that these missions were flashbacks that could be done at the player’s pace rather than frontloaded in a bloated prologue. To further flesh out the characters, Naoe and Yasuke can select dialogue options at times as well as pursue romance options. I welcomed this aspect as it allowed the characters and their relationships with NPCs to become more developed and life-like; you can even reject NPCs entirely and deny them entry to your cause.
While the story is very personal, it doesn’t engage with the larger Assassin’s Creed narrative too much, at least in the earlier chunks. I found this for the best; at this point, the franchise has had too many entries to count, and only a handful of players are coming into Shadows having played them all, let alone having remembered all the various plot machinations. I last played Mirage and, before that, half of Unity, so I personally haven’t kept up with the latest happenings in the Assassin/Templar conflict. No matter, as Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ story works very well on its own and its characters have very engaging journeys divorced from the larger series’ conflict.
Never gets old.
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Never gets old.
Once Naoe and Yasuke are united, the game opens up properly. The duo will encounter a variety of NPCs, new faces, and familiar friends who act as quest-givers. However, they often do not give just one quest each; some will open up new investigation boards with leads on several targets or rumors of yokai to investigate. At a certain point, the amount of available quests will be so large that it can feel a little overwhelming – nothing new for a Ubisoft open-world title. You’re technically free to tackle assassinations and side quests in any order, but each quest has a recommended level and enemies, even just a few levels higher than you can decimate Naoe in one strike, for example.
At this point, you’ll know what you’re getting into with a Ubisoft open-world game, and specifically with an Assassin’s Creed title. You’ll climb up viewpoints – still my favorite thing to do in this series after 18 years – to scan the world, adding question marks to your world map. While admittedly, some of those question marks led to tedious tasks, like a QTE kata minigame or painting sumi-e animals, others were fun tombs or parkour paths to explore for loot.
Dynamic weather creates a misty morning at a temple.
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Dynamic weather creates a misty morning at a temple.
Most side quests branched out in interesting ways, too – nary a fetch quest in this open world – and often expanded upon their initial premise in ways that developed characters well. All in all, there’s enough engaging content in the open world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows that you can bounce between activities that you enjoy while ignoring those that may not land with you. It’s the type of game I could play for five hours in one sitting and wouldn’t mind five more.
One new element I didn’t engage much with, however, was the base-building aspect. Naoe and Yasuke invite other NPCs to live at their hideout. You can use collected supplies to build additions and personalize them with artwork and armor displays. It’s a neat idea and will certainly land with players who grew up with base builders like Minecraft, but once I got a blacksmith and built him a forge, I personally stopped caring about expanding the hideout.
While not the most engaging activity, it is beautiful.
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While not the most engaging activity, it is beautiful.
After Mirage brought the series back to its roots with a focus on stealth, Assassin’s Creed Shadows looks to please both old-school and new-age players. Naoe is very much a classic assassin, most deadly from the shadows, assassinating an enemy before they knew she was there. Yasuke is more in line with the newer AC games that placed a heavier focus on combat out in the open. He’s brutal, relying on his strength to cut down foes. Both characters have their advantages and drawbacks; Naoe is squishy, while Yasuke can’t sneak around. You can swap between them freely in the open world (outside of hostile zones, that is) and utilize each PC when the situation demands it. Trying to take a base but found yourself outnumbered as Yasuke? Switch to Naoe to eliminate your foes one by one from stealth instead.
No matter who you’re playing with, the combat is fun, though it does have its drawbacks. It’s heavily reliant on making sure your gear is up to snuff compared to your enemies’ levels, but even then, some basic enemies still feel like they have massive health pools, “stab sponges,” if you will. Naoe can easily get in a multi-hit katana combo on a guard, drenching everywhere in sight with blood, yet the guard can still be standing like ‘tis but a scratch. Because of this feeling of being weak, combat can drag at times, and even Yasuke can be overwhelmed when outnumbered by foes. Assassin’s Creed Shadows made me long for the ability to counter into a one-hit kill like Altair could in the OG entry.
Yasuke’s “assassination.” Stealthy, he is not.
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Yasuke’s “assassination.” Stealthy, he is not.
Stealth is still my preferred way to go in this series, and it’s serviceable in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Parkour is a blast, as always – climbing up castle walls and rocky faces never gets old. The presence of a grappling hook modifies Naoe’s parkour. It enhances, rather than demeans, her parkour abilities, giving her new ways to infiltrate bases or get out of trouble. However, there’s still some classic AC jank here; Naoe may not always react to your controls how you intended, and suddenly, a leap of faith off a tower is instead her tumbling to her death in a ravine.
Naoe makes for a great, and stylish, assassin.
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Naoe makes for a great, and stylish, assassin.
I’m not sure if we’ll ever get the kind of immersion in an AC title that I’d want; enemies still react to the dead bodies you leave behind with confused head scratches instead of going into states of alarm, defense, or panic. While playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows, I’d remember the ways goons would react in the Batman Arkham games when they came across a fallen ally and knew Batman was in their midst. The panic, the careful sweeping of rooms – that’s missing in Shadows. Instead, guards will ponder their dead allies and effectively shrug. Stealthily navigating a castle to assassinate its samurai daimyo is still fun; I just can’t help but think of how much potential it holds.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a lot riding on its shoulders. Ubisoft is in the midst of a tenuous time as a company, and one has to wonder if the franchise itself is growing bloated and stale. Thankfully for the company and the series, Assassin’s Creed Shadows delivers. It takes players to a long-requested setting to tell a very personal story with two interesting protagonists who deserve their place next to prior assassins like Ezio and Basim. While it still suffers from open-world exhaustion at times – I can only handle so many question marks on a map beckoning for my attention – the main story quests are expertly crafted and provide a great experience. Assassin’s Creed Shadows will please every type of AC player, whether it’s their first Assassin’s Creed game or their tenth.
‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ has something for everyone and is better for it
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Assassin’s Creed Shadows successfully takes fans where they’ve always yearned to go: Japan.
Personal and emotional story that swells with themes of vengeance, forgiveness, and trust.
Engaging side quests and assassination targets.
16th-century Japan is beautifully rendered and enjoyable to explore.
Easily swapping between Naoe and Yasuke creates plenty of gameplay variety.
Open world teeters on the edge of bloat with some tedious content.
Enemy AI needs an upgrade in terms of stealth detection and alert behavior.
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