Assassin's Creed Shadows Review in progress - 30+ Hours Impressions

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is Ubisoft’s next major title, finally bringing the long-requested Japan setting to the storied Assassin’s Creed franchise. I’ve been playing it extensively for a week and have reached over 30 hours with the ending nowhere in sight. This game is massive, reminiscent of the Odyssey and Valhalla days as there’s a crazy amount of content and land to explore.

It’s intimidating in size and thankfully packs various features and design choices that make it the first game to find a solid middle ground of mixing what makes the older titles iconic and what made the newer titles so popular within the Assassin’s Creed community. I have a few issues with the game, but overall I’m having a blast traveling through Ubisoft’s interpretation of 1500s Japan.

What works so far

Based on recent entries, I’ve been impressed with the visual environments seen in Assassin’s Creed games. Valhalla and Odyssey have blown up the open world series scale and it’s’ really no different here in Shadows. Nearly every Viewpoint in Shadows is visually stunning, showcasing Ubisoft's world-building expertise. Long-time fans know this all too well, but the big surprise is how each location have different variations thanks to the game’s day and night cycle, seasonal changes, and weather effects working together to create this visual spectacle.

For example, an area that starts as a lush, vibrant landscape transforms into rustic autumn hues as leaves fall in strong winds. Hours later, I return in winter, now covered in snow, altering both the aesthetic and the atmosphere. This dynamic environment is still rare in open-world games and adds a refreshing layer of immersion.

Nothing about the game’s environment feels static as everything feels organic and alive as I travel from one area to the next either by foot or by horse. I haven’t really tested it but weather effects help the stealth part of the game as formed icicles from winter suddenly become interactable objects that I used to distract nearby enemies. Heavy rain is supposed to muffle footsteps, but this is harder to witness if it’s working as intended.

Performance and Technical Stability

What’s doubly impressive is how minor technical issues are found in this game. With its scale and visual fidelity, it’s impressive to rarely experience glitches or bugs that pull you off the immersion found in the world. Frame rates most of the time feel like they remain steady during key moments but obviously drop when you return to the player's Hideout, a space where you can build and customize your Hideout space with new structures and decorations for upgrades and features such as having more scouts to help pinpoint the location of your objective to building a forge to upgrade and breakdown your weapon and armor. With me on the PS5, I can’t seem to stop it as every time I fast travel back to the Hideout I can clearly see the frames dropping close to 30-40 for a few minutes and eventually evening out. 

This is consistent in just the Hideout area as combat, cutscenes, and even riding around the countryside felt mostly smooth. The next worthy mention of a performance issue is when environmental textures wouldn't load once I reached a particularly large town by horse. These textures took so long to load that they even stopped the game’s background music, making me feel like a crash was imminent. It didn't crash and it was a one-time occurrence so far as it was hard to replicate it. A quick restart fixed it.

A solid take in stealth

The other beauty of Assassin's Creed Shadows is its stealth approach. Valhalla and Odyssey pretty much benched the concept of stealth gameplay while Assassin’s Creed Mirage brings it front and center, reliving the series’ roots. Shadows, thankfully, steps it up, improved with two additions – lighting affecting stealth, and the ability to go prone. 

Sounds simple on paper but it really opens up the game in a refreshing way, as taking out light sources to create these perfect pocket shadow spots to conceal your presence is a concept that should have been implemented years ago. It’s like Ubisoft was reminded that they did this in Splinter Cell, and have finally implemented the concept of taking out light sources like lanterns and candles resulting in you creating opportunities to hide. 

They then added the ability to go prone, an option that again opens up new ways to approach certain angles to their objective. It’s satisfying to close the distance by simply crouching and hiding in short grass, receiving the same effect as hiding in a bush, or crawl slowly to not give out too much noise as certain floors can now give sounds that could expose your position. The game is finally beyond bushes and haystacks as I didn’t find myself doing the same approach or even doing the same motion when stealth is my approach. Despite the sheer scale of the game, this added layer to the game’s stealth made each guarded location I find feel like an inviting place to dismantle silently.

So far, enemy AI for stealth and combat feels almost identical to past games. No improvement there from what I can tell, so don’t be surprised by hilarious moments of enemies being dumb or being easily manipulated. 

When stealth breaks out, actual combat is pretty fun on both protagonists with one’s fun factor thinning out the longer you play. Naoe is naturally more capable through stealth but can hold her own when she needs to fight. Each weapon in her arsenal has its own set of skills and move sets that expand and grow stronger depending on the gear you have equipped. Each attack and parry animation doesn’t look clunky and doing them looks fluid as it didn’t feel awkward going head-to-head with an enemy. With me playing the game on the hardest difficulty, I like that there’s a chance that retreating is your best option as you can slowly be swarmed, but taking them out right there was not out of the question. I’m an assassin, I should fall back and find a more advantageous engagement, but if put into a corner, it’s thrilling to come out there as the victor. This is why I preferred playing the game on the highest difficulty as there’s little room for error in those modes.

Accessibility and Customization

Accessibility is there as I was able to fine-tune my playthrough by setting the difficulty on combat and stealth separately, and removed a lot of unnecessary UI clutter, as Ubisoft open world games are notorious for cluttering the players view with too much information. Its good to know that players will have the option to customize their preferences on various parts of the game as I was able to remove motion blur, increase text size, to even picking Japanese voice over English, a big plus as while the English voice cast does a decent job, it just sounds like i’m hearing a bad Anime dubbed in English at times. 

Unlocking skills are pretty straightforward and similar to past games as you gain skill points from leveling and doing side activities in the open world. There’s enough variety for both characters that there isn’t an obvious choice as to where you want to spend your points on as I found interesting passives and skills on all available trees so far, pushing me to go off the beaten path to get a skill point by praying on a nearby temple, boast Yasuke’s ability with the bow in horse archery contests, or draw animals with Naoe just being in their natural habitat, uninterrupted. 

It’s the usual Assassin’s Creed formula packed to the brim that slowly opens up as you go from one area to the next. 

What doesn’t work

Yasuke’s Gameplay Feels Out of Place

Yasuke is a completely different experience if you compare him with the nimble and acrobatic Naoe. His raw strength is undeniable but his heavy, slow playstyle often feels at odds with the game’s core stealth mechanics. His lack of agility makes exploration cumbersome and combat feel repetitive over time. Unlike Naoe, who thrives in both stealth and direct engagements, Yasuke feels restrictive—his climbing limitations even make basic traversal frustrating.

I couldn’t shake the fact that Yasuke feels disconnected from the series' core mechanics. He felt out of sync with the game’s flow as I struggled to find more reason to play him beyond utilizing his immensely powerful strength as he felt like a cheat code activated. I was hoping his role as a playable character would be expanded beyond this, but the game never materialized to the point that when I need to play Yasuke, I’m excited to do so. Maybe this will change in the latter parts of the game, but I highly doubt it now that I'm over 30 hours into the game. Mostly, I use Naoe 90% of the time and dread the times when I need to use him.

The Notoriety System Feels Half-Baked

The notoriety system feels underdeveloped—I didn’t even realize it existed until 10 hours into the game. If you don’t allow enemies to trigger the alarm bells (which I did unintentionally), you’ll likely never see the special Guardian enemies that patrol the area when you’re in the game’s Wanted state.

You can't kill or even harm innocents, as they’re completely immune to your attacks. Strangely, taking out guards in the streets doesn’t put you on the Wanted list either—they just keep calling reinforcements until there’s no one left. This feels like an odd choice, given the freedom Shadows offers, as a proper consequence system could have kept players on edge when resorting to violence. It would have made sense for the Wanted state to trigger after missions involving assassinations, forcing me to adapt to the aftermath—or even just deal with the consequences of causing chaos in the streets. This mechanic could have also complemented the fact that only one character becomes Wanted at a time, adding more incentive to switch between them strategically.

The story so far

The whole narrative revolves around the height of Oda Nobunaga’s power, a famed Daimyo that any history will know. Without revealing too much, his war against neighboring regions in Japan spawned the likes of Naoe, a shinobi who loses her home and family, and goes on this revenge journey to hunt down those responsible. On the other hand, we have Yasuke, a black warrior deemed a samurai by Oda himself, who goes on his journey that eventually leads to the two characters teaming up to go against an even bigger organization operating behind the scenes. 

The story follows a familiar Assassin’s Creed formula—a shadowy organization pulling the strings behind historical events, slowly dismantled by the protagonists. Ubisoft takes its time establishing each protagonist’s origins, so it has a slow build up before all the key components and systems of the game are in place. Various turns felt a bit too obvious and predictable, but entertaining enough to make it difficult to go off the main path.

So far, it’s nothing groundbreaking as Shadow feels like it’s using a similar narrative that I wouldnt be surprised if some fans see similarities between this story and previous Assassins’ Creed before it.

In Shadows, players are given the opportunity to make major decisions on key scenes, which at first glance felt like pressure moments that could steer the overall narrative. That sadly wasn’t the case as it’s mostly dressing as your choice determines how a scene will play out, not necessarily guiding the narrative’s path. These decisions have their moments but it’s disappointing to feel like whatever I choose in the most heavy moments doesn’t impact all that much in the end. One particular moment that came to mind was, without spoiling, the option to spare or kill a particular character. I chose to kill and found the result of either choice to be minimal as the outcome played similarly in the end, making my choice feel pointless to a degree.

Right now, the story feels more like Odyssey than anything as I'm not feeling a deep historical depth that would remind me of Assassin’s Creed 2, or a deep intrigue narrative filled with constant plot twists and political drama. It's more straightforward guided by vengeance and loyalty.

Beyond the main story, the game is packed with various side stories that populate each region of the game’s massive map. As you progress through the story, various organizations start popping up as potential targets. Key characters have their own storyline that leads to them joining your cause, and hidden treasures come to your attention due to you stumbling on a conversation about it or intel from a random farmer you saved from bandits.

The real problem I see in this game is it struggles to remind us that this is an Assassin’s Creed game. Beyond the game’s Animus elements, landing on haystacks from a highpoint, and Naoe wielding an Assassin’s Blade, nothing else in the narrative or the setting pulls back on the fact that this is a series about the Assassins versus the Templars, and that there are people using devices to relive their ancestors’ memories. These elements usually show up in the latter half but so far you can easily think you are playing some other open world stealth game set in Japan.

Overall Thoughts

Right now, with how much I’ve played so far, I find that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a solid entry that greatly embraces the franchise’s stealth aspect while retaining a vast open world that just oozes for reasons to explore. But this isn’t a game that would greatly change your impression of the series as a whole, just a solid product that would appease those invested in this long-running franchise. The story is serviceable so far and is what I'd expect from Assassin’s Creed, but it’s entirely possible that it could fall flat in the end, especially when the future and past start to collide or surprise me into delight. We’ll see.

I need a couple more days to deliver a full verdict as the missing pieces are how the game feels in the remaining two regions I have yet to set foot on. I’m also curious how combat and stealth feel with the high-level skills available, Shadow’s high-level gear, and how the story concludes, so expect a full verdict hopefully at the end of this week or even earlier.

What Stands Out

• Stunning open world with seasonal changes

• A step up in Stealth mechanics, as it feels more meaningful

• Combat is fluid and rewarding

• Few major technical issues despite its scale

• Yasuke’s slow, restrictive gameplay feels out of place

• Notoriety system is barely noticeable

• Story choices feel superficial

*This review-in-progress is based on a PS5 review copy provided by the publisher

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