Following the traditional leaks and rumors that have accompanied the Assassin’s Creed franchise throughout the years, Ubisoft announced it was ready to unveil the next game in the franchise, Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Today, Ubisoft released the official world premiere trailer. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is set to launch later this year on November 15, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, and PC.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes place in the 16th century during the late Sengoku period, also known as the Azuchi-Momoyama era. During this time, three of Japan’s most important and well-known figures successfully took power during an extensive Warring States Period. Social reforms reshaped and reorganized the land, farmers, and religious leagues rose up to oppose powerful military clan warlords, and an artistic renaissance began that would later bloom during the Edo period.
Shadows feature dual protagonists, a Japanese shinobi, Naoe, and – in a series first- a real-life historical samurai, Yasuke.
At the start of the game, Naoe is 17 years old from Iga, and the daughter of one of the era’s most iconic shinobi, Fujibayashi Nagato. The development team at Ubisoft Quebec describes Naoe as “determined but compassionate,” capable of taking down any enemy due to the training from her father while showing compassion to victims of war and corruption. With her home province of Iga squarely in the path of Oda Nobunaga’s conquest, she sees first-hand the destruction that war can bring, and vows to use her skills to help her people.
Yaskue arrived in Japan enslaved by the Portuguese. He impressed with size, strength, and wits; he served under the Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga. There must have been something exceptional about Yasuke to succeed in the service of a personality like Nobunaga’s, the team explains, and the goal has been to expound on this in Assassin’s Creed Shadows through his curiosity, openness, respect for values and tradition, valor, warmth, and charisma.
Naoe and Yasuke get brought together by Nobunaga, whose goal of unifying Japan takes his army – and Yasuke – to the province of Iga for the Second Tenshō Iga War. The Igan resistance, though greatly overpowered by Nobunaga’s army, is courageously led by Naoe’s father. The two protagonists find each other through Nobunaga, although, for obvious reasons, they don’t exactly get off to a great start. The pair provide the player with opposing perspectives on Nobunaga and the means he used to achieve his goal of unification, and their overlapping perspectives throughout Shadows ultimately allow for a more nuanced look at the late Sengoku period.
With dual protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke represents two distinct playstyles. Naoe, as a shinobi, uses stealth, parkour, and gadgets. On the other hand, Yasuke is combat-oriented and armored. As a samurai, Yasuke can use his weapons to block incoming attacks and perform parries. Naoe can engage in combat, but she cannot block or parry, she deflects. As a shinobi, Naoe is the most skilled at stealth. Yaskue can use stealth, but his size and armor-plating means he’s better at getting the drop on enemies rather than trying to infiltrate a location silently.
Some of the biggest new features of Assassin’s Creed Shadows include some of its new stealth systems and the addition of seasons. Enemy perception is impacted by everything around the world. Light and shadow has a big impact on stealth and whether or not the player remains hidden. Players can “vanish” in the shadows and can get rid of light sources to make things easier. The developers also worked on enemy behavior to interact with the environment, slicing at bushes when they think the player is hiding for example. Seasons will progress throughout the game and can affect gameplay in a variety of ways. If it’s raining, enemies will try to stay dry, providing new routes for players to go through a location. During the Summer, there are more things like bushes to hide inside as there are more throughout the world. In the Winter, everyone gathers around fire sources, tall grass is not available so players have to find different types of cover like deep snow to hide. Dynamic weather also affects gameplay. Visibility won’t be the same if it’s heavy rain and fog but the player’s footsteps are masked. Players will have to adapt.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is available to pre-order now with three editions to choose from. Pre-ordering the game provides access to a bonus quest. The Gold Edition of the game gives players access to Assassin’s Creed Shadows three days early access and a Season Pass which includes 2 upcoming expansions and an extra mission at launch. The Ultimate Edition includes everything in the Gold Edition plus the Ultimate Pack which features the Sekiryu character pack, Sekiryu hideout pack, 5 skill points, and the Red Dragon photo filter.
The Collector’s Edition features the Ultimate Edition of the game with everything that comes with that plus a variety of high-quality physical Collector’s items including a Naoe and Yasuke character statue, a unique steelbook case, collector’s art book, life-sized Naoe katana tsuba, world map, Creed wall scroll, and 2 sumi-e lithographs.