A fine addition to the Assassin's Creed world, Shadows lets you explore the fascinating world of Sengoku-era Japan
The long-awaited new Assassin's Creed entry, Shadows, takes players to feudal Japan in the 16th century and introduces two main heroes—the formed enslaved Diogo who takes the name Yasuke and becomes a samurai, and Naoe, a young female shinobi (ninja) hell bent on revenge. They team up to tackle a secret band of bad guys, as per Assassin's Creed style, and along the way you learn about this era of Japan and its history, art, and culture.
I was a bit hesitant at first to get excited about this game because I had loved Ghosts of Tsushima so much, a game also set in medieval Japan (though a few centuries earlier). The games have a lot in common, especially their quiet devotion to aspects of Japanese culture but totally different vibes, so I'm glad I got over my hesitancy.
I mentioned a while ago how much I love Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and it's the video game I've played the most in my adult life. Roaming around Ancient Greece and playing as the formidable Kassandra is one of the highlights of gaming for me, and no other Assassin's Creed has held my attention quite like it.
Shadows comes in at a close second, I think, now that I've dropped 50+ hours into it.
A convoluted tale of revenge
The first main character you meet, Naoe, is a young shinobi who witnesses her father's death at the hands of a masked group of marauders. With his dying breath, he asks her to retrieve the mysterious box that they stole from him. She sets out on a Kill Bill or Arya Stark-worthy quest of vengeance against the group known as the Shinbakufu, masked evildoers that must be revealed and destroyed.
Along the way, she meets and teams up with Yasuke, a former enslaved man who ended up in Japan via the Portuguese (the first group of Europeans to reach Japan). If this sounds familiar, it's because the recent adaptation of Shogun gave modern audiences an extraordinary look into this era when Japanese people were interacting with Portuguese traders.
I won't get into spoilers about the ending of the game, but those familiar with Assassin's Creed games will understand that it all gets a little confusing. At a certain point, you're just doing assassinations and side quests, and it's easy to lose track of the latest target's backstory and motivation and how it relates to the main storyline. Fortunately, for me most of the fun in these games just comes from roaming across the countryside and happening across people, places, and events.
Two main characters with wildly different playing styles
You begin the game playing as Naoe, and she's lithe, fast, and flips around from roof to roof with incredible grace. She stalks the shadows and gets into places quickly and quietly, and when fighting she jumps, rolls, and dodges like the wind.
After a few hours of story play, you get to unlock Yasuke, and the difference hits you like a ton of bricks. Yasuke is sheer power and force, and can literally run through walls. The shoji doors in interior buildings hate to seem him coming, and he's constantly breaking them down like a bull in a china shop.
What he lacks in grace, however, he makes up for in absolutely wild gameplay. Using him, I can regularly fight and beat enemies with a higher rank than mine, something I definitely can't do with the willowy Naoe.
His strength comes at a slightly funny cost though—he struggles climbing up even small walls, and when it comes to the iconic and gorgeous "leap of faith" that AC characters do into haystacks, he more or less falls, and always follows up with a self-deprecating statement like "It is harder than it looks," "Any landing you can walk away from is good enough," and "Next time will be better."
While playing, both characters get to use an assortment of awesome weapons, from samurai swords and daggers to kusarigama (a blade on a chain) and teppo (early guns). Despite how cool they are, I found myself primarily using the sword.
The world is gorgeous, expansive, and full of nature and nuance
Roaming feudal-era Japan is a pleasure for the senses, and the game delivers visually, sonically, and emotionally. The seasons change every so often, and you get rewarded with flowers, red leaves, and even snow-covered roads as you gallop around Kyoto. Much of the game is spent on horseback, and some of the things you encounter will simply take your breath away. You'll pass by a small village and see a man sweeping his stoop and it's like something out of a Kurosawa movie.
There's vendors, food sellers, rogue ronin, and monks inhabiting this world, and it feels very lived in. One of my favorite parts is all the animals you come across. There's the requisite deer and eagles, of course, but feudal Japan is absolutely chock a block with dogs and cats. As a cat person, I stopped (almost) every time to get in a little scritch. Evidence:
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You explore and pillage Sengoku castles, climbing up the multiple levels and gaining entry to the upper floors to access coveted legendary loot. One of my favorite parts was discovering that castles used "nightingale floors"—wooden floorboards that chirp/creaked very loudly to alert that an intruder was near.
You also get to explore Shinto temples and shrines, allowing you to pray and pay respects as needed.
Building your hideout is like getting a free Sim City Zen garden for free
When I played Valhalla for a bit, which is set in the Viking era, I didn't quite understand building the village, so I skipped it. (I also didn't really jibe with that game at all, but that's another story.) But in Shadows, I'm completely hooked. Your hideout is a respite from gameplay where you can upgrade weapons, chat with NPC team members, and landscape and build to your heart's content. At different vendors throughout the world and after certain achievements, you gain access to new things to add to your hideout, from types of bamboo to dogs, cats, and even giant sakura trees.
I found myself concerned with roofing choices, shoji wall materials, and whether a mossy boulder placed just so was the right choice. In other words, I loved it. Sometimes, I'd just head to my hideout at night to walk around the property and bask in the fire light while I pet my chow. (I've basically made it into an animal rescue, too, what with the sheer amount of cats and kittens I've amassed.)
Designed for 9th generation consoles, the tech behind it is stellar
In terms of pure visual spectacle, this may be the very best next-gen game I've played so far. While it has the same mechanics as Odyssey, the difference in graphics, gameplay, and functionality is lightyears apart.
The graphics alone are breathtaking, especially when it's raining. Rendering water can be especially challenging, but it looks so good in Shadows that you can even tell when wood is wet—absolutely wild.
My quibbles
I have two primary quibbles. The first is how much the game pushes you to use the existing roads. I get the point—it introduces you to roadside sidequests. But in other AC games, I literally will choose the shortest distance between two points and muscle my way up mountains, across bodies of water, and through dense forests. AC Shadows doesn't really let you do this.
When you can climb no further, especially on mountains, you start sliding down. It's frustrating. Running at an angle may help, but I've basically just stopped trying. And if you try to run your way through dense forest, the foliage doesn't really clear and everything looks like this:
Fortunately, they added a recent update bringing back Follow Road auto-riding, so I'll just set my destination and go wash the dishes or something until I arrive.
My other quibble is with the Objectives screen. Usually in AC games it's a list, but in Shadows it's this weird overlay map thing, and there's no sense of urgency or hierarchy I find. The Shinbakufu is in the middle, and that's the primary goal, but everything else is hard to figure out what's important. It seems players are mixed on this—folks either love it or hate it. I find myself missing a text list, but I am a writer after all, I suppose.
This format also is related to the non-linear gameplay that results in my losing interest occasionally, as it's always: get a target, track them down, kill, repeat.
Overall, I have loved playing Shadows, and intend to keep spending time in feudal Japan long after the main quest has finished (I accidentally lost 20 hours of gameplay, so I have had to rebuild my world a bit). The sneaking and fighting is incredibly fun, and the glimpses I get into this historical period have been informative and meaningful—and I love being able to say that about a game that's primarily just assassinating people.
Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.
POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.
