Assassin’s Creed Shadows Preview: A Stunning, Familiar Approach to Feudal Japan

Ubisoft’s latest Assassin’s Creed offers fans a setting that they’ve craved for years; feudal Japan. With stunning environments, dual protagonists, and revamped mechanics, Assassin’s Creed Shadows could be a welcome breath of fresh air for the wider franchise. That said, it seems to walk some well-trodden ground, sharing a lot of similarities with a certain other RPG set around the same period. The setting alone might be enough to entice players back to the franchise, but is this Assassin’s Creed shaping up to be its own beast or does it walk in the shadows of games that came before it? 

The Samurai and the Shinobi

My hands-on experience with Assassin’s Creed Shadows was split into two sections. The first allowed me to play through the game’s prologue, introducing our two protagonists: Yasuke and Naoe. Yasuke arrives in Japan in the company of Portuguese priests as a slave, though he has been given the name Diogo. He serves the priests as a bodyguard on their way to meet with Lord Oda Nobunaga to negotiate free roam across the land. Lord Nobunaga grants them their wish, only in exchange for Diogo, who he’s intrigued by. Soon after, Diogo, now given the name Yasuke, fights alongside Lord Nobunaga as his samurai.

We also meet Naoe, a young woman who, along with her father, is defending her home and people against Lord Nobunaga’s forces. With forces closing in, Naoe is sent by her father to retrieve and protect a special box in the mountains, for which the series’ iconic hidden blade is the key to finding. Unbeknownst to her, though, she is followed and attacked. The secret box is stolen, and Naoe takes it upon herself to retrieve it from her attackers. 

With a few battles and some linear progression, the prologue is finished and I’m dropped into the second part of the preview set much later in the game’s open world. Our two protagonists, now working together, initiate a questline centered around thwarting an attack on Lord Hideyoshi’s allies. With little context for the importance of this questline, owing to this being a preview, I’m presented with the choice to undertake the task as either Yasuke or Naoe. Very little changes outside of a few dialogue lines, regardless of who you pick, and you can swap between the two throughout the questline. 

In between quest beats, there’s ample space to roam around the open world, pick up side quests, and do some good old-fashioned exploration.

A New Approach or Bold Replica?

Assassin’s Creed Shadows will inevitably be compared to Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima, a game which brought the dynamic style of Kurosawa to video games. While not as dramatically executed as Ghost of Tsushima, Ubisoft seems to be pursuing a slice of that style in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. 

Aside from both games being set in feudal Japan, there are a lot of visual similarities. What stood out the most was the UI, as Ubisoft appears to have made a few changes from what we saw in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Mirage. For one, the weapon and healing interface now appears in the bottom left of the screen alongside the health bar. Icons for weapons and abilities have a black and white minimalistic appearance. Even the world map is depicted as if it’s been hand drawn, sticking to a grayscale colour scheme with the odd splash of red. All of this seems heavily inspired by Ghost of Tsushima. Some aspects even seem directly lifted from Sucker Punch’s title, such as the detection meter when moving in stealth. Should Naoe or Yasuke be spotted, the bar of the black detection meter will fill up with a white arrow, switching to yellow once detected and then red once combat is initiated. 

All of this doesn’t necessarily equal a negative; Ghost of Tsushima is a stunning game elevated by its minimal HUD and immersive mechanics, and there are far weaker games to take inspiration from. But there’s a risk, here, that Assassin’s Creed Shadows might struggle to forge its own identity right from the start. 

Diving into the game’s open world, more similarities start to reveal themselves. Leaves and petals frequently blow across the environments, and our protagonists can take part in a few extra-curricular activities: praying at shrines, or drawing pictures of animals found in the wild — not too dissimilar from Jin Sakai’s shrine excursions or haiku writings. But again, if you’re looking to portray a certain tranquility of 16th century Japan, there are worse games to take inspiration from. While it might not be much in the way of uniqueness, it has resulted in one of the best looking Assassin’s Creed titles to date. The world is visually stunning, ripe for exploration, and designed in a way that feels like there’s always something to grab your attention. Usually it’s a dog, though. I petted a lot of dogs during this preview.  

Fight or Flight

Assassin’s Creed Shadows features two protagonists which players can switch between pretty much on the fly. You could start a quest as Yasuke and finish it as Naoe, swapping between them to play to their strengths. Yasuke is essentially your tank, better equipped for combat and damage dealing in lieu of speed and stealth. Naoe is the opposite and plays more inline with a typical Assassin’s Creed protagonist. Where Yasuke plods along, Naoe makes light work of any traversal obstacles. However, in direct combat, she’s far less effective than our nonnative samurai. 

Having two protagonists does allow for a wider range of abilities and gameplay styles, but I found myself wishing I had the best of both worlds condensed into a single character. Having Yasuke’s combat proficiency with Naoe’s agility could make for more satisfying gameplay. I had the most fun running along rooftops and scaling structures as Naoe, with gameplay reminiscent of more classic Assassin’s Creed titles. But in moments when combat becomes inevitable, either as a scripted event or a failed stealth move, Naoe’s abilities render her a pretty fragile warrior. More often than not, the best course of action was to scarper back over the rooftops and run away. But, if Naoe had even a smidge more combat prowess like Yasuke, she’d at least be able to hold her own that little bit more. I’m not saying she should be an infallible fighter, but that if push comes to shove those combat encounters could become that bit more thrilling rather than annoying. 

In contrast, playing as Yasuke alleviates those combat woes. Yasuke fights as a samurai, equipped with a sword but also a firearm. It’s slow to load but effective if you’re able to put some distance between you and your enemies. The problem is that Yasuke is also slow, and creating that distance is tricky with all that armor weighing him down. Forget escaping to the rooftops; Yasuke isn’t a skilled climber and, should he make it up there, he’ll be carefully treading across every tile at a snail’s pace. 

No, Yasuke is built to be in the thick of battle. He can slice at foes with a quick katana hit, strike them where they stand with an otherworldly dash, or send them flying 10 feet away with a powerful kick. Ubisoft isn’t aiming for realism, evidently. 

With mechanics split across two characters, I found myself switching between them more frequently than I would have liked. I’d start making my way to the top of a vantage point as Yasuke only to get so far before noticing there were no handholds for him to latch onto. I’d then have to switch to Naoe, who has a grappling hook at her disposal, to complete the rest of the climb. Switching protagonists has its uses, like if one character is Wanted you can switch to the other, but it’s certainly a little jarring on the immersion front. Given that the two protagonists seem to be so interchangeable, it raises some worries on whether there’s enough space given to ensure they each hold their own identity. But I suppose that’s a question to be answered in the full release. 

What Waits in the Shadows?

Whether it was taking out the Knights Templars as Altaïr, or scaling the structures of the Italian Renaissance as Ezio, Assassin’s Creed is a franchise I have very fond memories of. But recent entries haven’t quite caught my attention in the same ways, boasting more convoluted plots and occasionally clunky mechanics. While I’m unconvinced that Assassin’s Creed Shadows won’t also suffer from these features to a degree, its setting and execution feels polished enough to warrant intrigue. I came away from the preview excited to see more of the game’s open world, and spend that little bit more time getting to know and learn our two new protagonists. The similarities to Ghost of Tsushima might seem a bit conspicuous, but not in a way that’s completely off-putting. Perhaps it’s a less stylized, more mechanically-driven Ghost of Tsushima — at least judging from this very brief glimpse into what Assassin’s Creed Shadows is shaping up to be.