Despite how similar each game in the series plays, the Assassin’s Creed franchise always tries to do something different with every iteration. For example, the past three mainline games focused on the RPG elements of the franchise. Meanwhile, the more recent Mirage successfully reemphasized the game’s stealth roots. Now, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the first mainline game since Valhalla, finds itself with a complex balancing act between an RPG and a stealth game.

Two assassins in one

Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes place in 16^th-century Japan during the military campaigns of daimyo Oda Nobunaga. Naoe, a vital member of a resistance movement, fights against the incursions of the daimyo. On the other hand, Yasuke, a respected samurai under the Nobunaga regime, tries to find his place in a foreign society. Both suddenly find themselves on a collision course with one another after a political conspiracy threatens to upheave the country. It’s one of the most anime stories I’ve seen in a game.

For the first time since Syndicate, Shadows will feature two playable protagonists: Naoe, the female shinobi, and Yasuke, the male samurai. However, unlike the older game, there are significant reasons to choose one over the other.

Naoe, a much nimbler shinobi, favors stealthier approaches to an objective and avoids fights. She represents the classic Assassin’s Creed experience, albeit with a weaker constitution, so direct fights can get deadly. Meanwhile, Yasuke, a stronger samurai, prefers fights and mostly fails at masking his movements. In fact, he doesn’t have access to Eagle Vision and can destroy haystacks when falling into them from too high up.

Over time, you’ll likely prefer one character over the other. Personally, I prefer balancing the two: Naoe for when I want a more surgical assassination, and Yasuke for when I want to fight everyone. I appreciate how the choice between the two isn’t just cosmetic.

However, do take note that the game is absurdly long. It took me 15 hours of Naoe time before I could finally play as Yasuke freely.

Webs of intrigue

In past games, the Assassin’s Creed franchise faced a problem with side quests. The series tended to bloat its gameplay with endless fetch quests and lackluster side stories. Shadows tries to fix this problem by turning most of the side quests into small webs of assassination targets.

Throughout the game, characters will share the ills of their respective communities. Often, these problems stem from a group of evildoers scattered around the map. It’s your job to find and assassinate these targets, while uncovering their motivations and who their leader is.

For me, this system works so much better than a downpour of fetch quests and stories which I’ll forget immediately after completing them. For one, the quests have more involvement. You have to find the targets yourself using a few clues. Though you can always use Eagle Vision or Scouts to narrow your search down, allowing players to find the targets themselves harkens back to how the original game wanted you to uncover who the target is by yourself.

It feels meaningful to complete a full web. In some cases, it’s even personal for the characters. For example, one web consists of traitorous samurai who went against Yasuke’s daimyo, Lord Nobunaga.

In the center of these smaller webs is a larger board called the Shinbakufu, the main group behind the events of Shadows. For a main story, the bigger web feels like a well-balanced approach between allowing players to accomplish targets in chunks at their own leisure and compelling them to go through the plot.

A gameplay loop that can test your patience

As with all open-world games, part of Shadows’ gameplay loop involves exploring the entire map to check off points of interest. In the quest to address criticisms of the past, the game no longer turns the map into a checklist of chores to do. Rather, the game now wants you to explore everything organically.

As intended, I don’t feel obsessed to collect every single point of interest anymore. However, I still think that there is a lot of room for improvement. The map still has some vestiges of the past lying around: Viewpoints and enemy-heavy bases called castles.

Let’s talk about Viewpoints first. Introduced in the very first game, Viewpoints are climbable points which can reveal more of the map once climbed. The feature has been an important part of the series since its inception. These points are back in Shadows, but they just don’t have the same gravitas as they did.

They don’t reveal the map as much anymore, for one. Instead, they just give users a bird’s eye view of objectives around the area. Players can still use them as fast travel points, but this feature is mostly obsolete because of assassin hideouts. These are unlockable fast travel points — 800 mon to unlock — that allow players easy access within urban centers. Because these hideouts already spawn you in the ground, it’s a lot better than Viewpoints which spawn you way high up and often cause you to land in inconveniently placed haystacks.

Castles are tedious

The other returning mechanic is the enemy base. Like other games, enemies will pool around concentrated areas ripe for infiltration. These castles can be “conquered” by eliminating a number of samurai daisho, or heavily armed minibosses lurking inside the premises. Eliminating all of them unlocks a huge chest with a legendary item inside.

I’m not a fan of this system. The daisho aren’t marked, so you have to find them yourselves but without any clues. Like other targets, you can use Eagle Vision to find them. However, if the castle is too big for Eagle Vision to cover the entire area, you still have to run around aimlessly, and this can take a long time.

Additionally, most of the daisho aren’t killable in a single assassination, especially in lower levels. Even if you play in the stealthiest way, you’re forced to engage in combat. Plus, they’re usually surrounded by minions, so you’ll end up outnumbered in a fight.

Completing a castle also does not make it non-hostile. To make matters worse, main and optional objectives can show up inside castles even if you’ve completed them previously. Since the area remains hostile, it’s as if you have to approach them from scratch again. It disincentivizes early exploration.

Should you play Assassin’s Creed Shadows?

Though I’m not a fan of the gameplay loop, Assassin’s Creed Shadows still manages to shine with an interesting story and fairly gripping side quests. It’s also the most graphically beautiful games I’ve played in the entire series.

There is room for improvement, but Ubisoft has discovered a true path to rekindle the spark and excitement from way back in the Ezio Auditore era. If you’re a fan of the franchise, Shadows is a worthy play, especially if you have the time to explore its vast map.