a few steps in the right direction

Things aren’t exactly going smoothly at Ubisoft right now. The publisher had a tough 2024, p Star Wars Outlaws failing to meet sales expectations and word for XDefiantthe death of comes about six months after the tactical shooter’s debut. Skull and bones it finally arrived too but it was a bit damp.

Against the backdrop of rumors of the company is for sale or transferring part of its assets in a joint venture with TencentUbisoft really needs a win. He won’t have a better chance to do that soon than with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. After several delays, the latest entry in the company’s flagship series is should arrive on March 20th.

After a few hours with AC Shadowsthere are positive signs. The game at least looks and plays well enough for what Ubisoft needs it to be, with the company toeing the line between playing things extremely safe and trying something different.

After the successes of AC Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla (as well as pleasantly smaller scale Mirage), Shadows marks new territory for Assassin’s Creed to some extent. It is the first game in the series to be directly powered by the Animus Hub project (formerly known as Infinity).

Before diving into a swan Assassin’s Creed Shadowsyou will enter the Animus Hub. From here you will have access to various Assassin’s Creed games (Shadows and the previous four main entries) from the memory section. They’re laid out on an easy-to-navigate timeline.

The Anomaly section of the hub includes missions for Shadowswhich will offer exclusive rewards such as weapons and gear. You can change your character loadout from the exchange section and explore the stories of modern AC games through the vault.

The Animus Hub will expand over the coming years as Ubisoft releases more games. It’s an ambitious project that aims to connect the series. It has been reported that the company will try to reverse the series in a live service project with the Animus Hub and we see glimpses of that with these missions. It has nothing to do with it as it stands, but Ubisoft clearly has big ambitions here.

Shadows takes the action to the long-awaited frontier for Assassin’s Creed: 16th Century Japan. The other big twist this time around is that you can switch between two characters. Different points in the story will have you choose to play as Yasuke or Naoe, and, at least in the open world, you’ll be able to switch between them on the fly. Swapping can be useful when one character is wanted by enemies, as the other can remain anonymous.

Yasuke is the tank of the two, with the ability to knock down certain doors while sprinting. He can take advantage of ranged weapons such as rifles and bows, so some players may want to use him to take down a few enemies from afar early in the mission. He can smite the bad guys using his kanabo military club too.

Naoe plays more like a traditional Assassin’s Creed character. She is much more agile and her parkour skills are up to par. The shinobi can quickly climb the walls of buildings and has a grappling hook to help her reach higher parts of structures and swing across gaps. In direct combat, Naoe can kick an enemy in the teeth with a spin, or turn behind them to slash their throats.

Perhaps most importantly (at least from what I’ve seen in-game), Naoe is the only one of the duo to have the classic hidden blade. Yasuke can still sneak up on an opponent to eliminate them with the press of a button, but his “brutal kill” sees him drive his sword through an enemy and lift them into the sky. Not exactly subtle.

Switching between Naoe and Yasuke is almost as seamless as switching between, say, Peter and Miles in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The latter requires some quick in-game action and the action quickly shifts to the other Spider-Man. c Assassin’s Creed Shadowsswapping characters means going into the menu, holding down a button, and waiting just a few seconds for the other character to swap them.

However, there is no instant character switching in the prologue, which is one of the two sections I played. Unsurprisingly, this acts as an introduction to the story and how to actually play the game.

In a first for Assassin’s Creed, one of the playable characters actually exists in real life. It won’t take long for players to learn how Yasuke, a black African, became a samurai. After a brief lore drop, we jump ahead six months to a series of battles. It’s an effective way to start dealing with what Yasuke can do, including special attacks like a sword slash.

After his short action sequence is over, we flash back to earlier in the night and Naoe’s introduction. After an important box (the contents of which remain a mystery) is stolen, she sets out to retrieve it from a compound. This short mission highlights some of the stealth features.

One of the cooler additions to this game is the ability to pull out light sources at night to create ad hoc hideouts in the shadows. Naoe can blow out candles and destroy lamps from afar using a kunai or shuriken. This may not be necessary depending on the terrain (and difficulty level) and how quickly you can get it over the rooftops when spotted.

The second part I played was an investigation mission. I had to get to the bottom of a mystery by completing some tasks and gathering information. All of this led to the inevitable but enjoyable boss fight and a satisfying resolution to the mission.

The structure of Assassin’s Creed Shadows it will lend itself to numerous games for those who really dig it. I spent most of my preview as Naoe, but I’m interested to see how many different things play out as Yasuke. There are dialogue options throughout the game, but there is a canonical mode that will eliminate those choices and present you with the canonical story. Players may also be inclined to switch the dialogue languages ​​to Japanese and Portuguese for deeper immersion after beating the game in their native language.

Some of the gameplay changes introduced by Ubisoft this time around really shake things up. The eagle vision ability now allows Naoe to locate and mark enemies through walls. Her smoke bombs and distraction bells are useful when there are too many enemies for her to fight head-on. Both characters can lie prone, which offers more options for hiding and sneaking.

I quickly tried a few of the side activities, like the peaceful act of sneaking animals into certain situations to sketch them out. In terms of slowing things down for a drop of calm, this feels a bit close to the haiku compositional sequences in the Ghost of Tsushima (of note, the sequel to this game, The Ghost of Yotei is planned for 2025. and can provide competition for Assassin’s Creed Shadows.)

It wasn’t entirely clear based on what I saw, but I have a feeling that Ubisoft has toned down a lot of the gore that usually fills Assassin’s Creed maps, which will help this game feel less overwhelming. Climbing to a viewpoint and syncing only reveals important places, not everything worth seeing in the area. The company pulled back on the card bloat a bit Mirageso they may have learned some positive lessons from this approach.

Add it all up and I left the session feeling like I was on the right side of satisfaction. The game looks absolutely fine. It’s pretty much what you’d expect from an Assassin’s Creed game these days, but with enough tweaks, new wrinkles, and quality-of-life updates to make it compelling enough. It feels like a decent entry point into the series while still maintaining enough interest for long-term fans. For what it’s worth, I’m willing to play more as a graduate Assassin’s Creed Mirage but dropped out of Valhalla in about 10 hours.

I look forward to playing more Assassin’s Creed Shadows and see, for example, how the weather system changes things. Lakes freeze in winter, eliminating the ability to swim or hide underwater. Icicles can also be used as a distraction. I didn’t get to try out the spy recruitment system, which looks like it could be useful during investigations.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows it inherently has an advantage over many other Ubisoft games given the popularity of the series. He already looked ready to do well, but he appears to be in good enough shape to reap success. If so, it could help Ubisoft finally steer its ship away from the rocks.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows will hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, Mac (and eventually iPad), Ubisoft+, and Amazon Luna on March 20.