''THIS IS MY NINJA WAY!''
Developed: Ubisoft
Published: Ubisoft
Genre: Action Adventure
Release Date: March 20th, 2025
Platforms: PS5/Xbox Series/PC
*Review copy provided to me by Ubisoft
Assassins Creed Shadows is the latest entry into the long running hit and miss franchise and it is developed and published by Ubisoft. With Ubisoft needing a win in the games department after recent underperformers such as Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft decided, ok, lets just bring forward one of our main franchises and swing for the fences. But was this the direction to go for the next Assassins Creed game? or should things have been done differently? Only one way to find out, so lets go!
''SHAKE AND BAKE!''
GAMEPLAY:
Assassins Creed Shadows hasnt exactly been given the nicest reception since its first announcement was made and has since been riddled with controversy, some of which are warranted and others have people reaching farther than Stretch Armstrong if you pulled on his limbs long enough. However, controversaries aside, warranted and unwarranted aren't the point here, its best to judge the title on the actual gameplay, premise and characters themselves in order to truly get a feel on if this title is a hit or miss, or has been improperly judged. Pretty much for the last decade or so, fans of Assassins Creed has seen this franchise go all over the world and even to the realm of pirates, but the one place that always seemed elusive was feudal Japan, a setting just ripe to be the perfect setting for Assassins Creed and one you'd think on paper would be tailor made for a franchise such as this since the core of each game deals with stealth, action and mostly some historical referencing and immersion involved. Like seriously, how can you go wrong? you have a time period that has shinobi, samurai, gorgeous settings and a plethora of history to pull from in order to use to make the best game possible, but this time in a massive scale RPG product rather than a pure open world simulation like games such as Ghost Of Tsushima. Its a tough task, but Ubisoft made farting Rabbids funny, so this should be a cake walk, right? well... yes and no. Going into this game, I kept in mind the pros and cons the media were already throwing at the game, but at the same time, I didn't give them much weight as some of these views were coming from people engagement farming or getting their clickbait, and others just had their own opinion, viable or not. However having said that, I made sure they werent the sole focus of my own opinion, but instead more of a guide to see who was exaggerating or telling the truth about the game and at the end of the day, I landed somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of the people who were ragging on the game since day one and the people who were praising the game since day one - both ended up being factual in their own form and their own way, but never 100% right in either venture. So they're pretty much like me when I say I'm going to start budgeting better, but end up telling myself ''ehhh its only $20, one more day of chinese food is fine, i can do that'' and then fast forward to a week and $100 later and the ''one more'' day turned into multiple one more days, oops.
In Assassins Creed Shadows, you can play from the perspective of two characters, first being Yasuke, who in the historical sense was a retainer for Oda Nobunga and his story sets him off as a new arrival in Japan, and your second playable character is Naoe, who is a shinobi in training that is involved in a large conspiracy and mystery that only threatens her in general, but even her family. Premise alone gives it promise and honestly I liked it, both characters starting off feel more realized than the last few entry of the series from the get go and your early hours of doing your usual Assassins Creed thing of climbing, stealthing, exploring, slain villains in your way, learning how to use the dual protagonist system with Yasuke and Naoe teaming up, which works extremely well due to the distinct styles both Yasuke and Naoe have to offer. For example Yasuke is the more tank type of class using sheer power and force to slice and blast through enemies, smash doors and hurl enemies to their doom due to the sheer amount of overpowering he's capable of, whereas on the other hand, Naoe plays in a quicker style and more akin to the usual Assassins Creed format by excelling in stealth while you hide in the shadows or hop from roof top to roof top. Thankfully no bright orange sweater to give you away - like what the heck Naruto, you're a NINJA, way to stand out. Being able to have a split protagonist narrative actually opens up this title way more than you're used to in past Assassins Creed games as those mostly are focused on a singular hero or task to tackle, but here, it lets each character feel more fleshed out and given more personality since you can constantly hop from one character and their narrative to another, helping at least in the story beats, for the game not become as competitive as some of the combat can become if you aren't careful enough due to the basic striking you can pull off and issue with the cooldown abilities - which can put a slight damper into your journey, should you attempt to play long hours trying to complete everything the game has to offer. In the visual department however, going hand and hand with the games exploration and narrative, Japan has never looked more beautiful and some of the scenery and wide shots of this game are simply superb in their showcase, which trickles down to its overarching narrative too that lets you add some flair and grit to the mix by being able to sever peoples limbs, combo slide people into oblivion, behead people and entertain yourself by making a ''lost your head'' type of pun for every kill you make. What? come out, you know I'm not the only one who has done this, deep down, were all about terrible puns as human beings, especially animal lovers as they shout at the violence and gore, mortified like ''Oh the Hu-Manatee''. Get it? not laughing? alright then.
Like Ive already done in this review, I feel this game is going to be compared a lot visually to Ghost Of Tsushima, but honestly, while I feel that title was more stylized in its presentation with what it was aiming for, here in Shadows, it feels more grittier and world thats more lived in compared to Ghost with traversal being a big part in this game thanks to characters like Yasuke being able to use brute force to open brand new paths that are blocking your path or hindering you and Naoe herself being able to take to the rooftops with her agility and proceed to use her grappling hook to explore higher venues and outlooks via vertical exploration, which gives you an even grander scaled look at the beautiful world of Shadows. This in turn leans heavily into exploration and freedom for us as the players, making us focus on uncovering objectives we normally might not have cared about otherwise due to freedom we are given with the dual protagonist system, however, this is also where the game starts showing some cracks in its armor, especially the longer you play. While there are tons of positives in the early going, its not able to be maintained your full way through with nearly the halfway point in the game, you start seeing struggles with the games overall balance of combat and mission structure and bleeds into the games narrative. When you begin the game, even heading into the middle portion, you are invested in both Yasuke and Naoe as they both start off fleshed out, engaging and characters you can relate to in some ways, however, they end up feeling more like vessels and empty husks as rather than the people you liked at the start of the gaming because they are more about mechanics of the game, then pushing the narrative of said characters forward. In a nutshell they start off great, but become mere tools for gameplay over character progression, which makes the latter half of the game feel mundane, dry and eye roll worthy due to the fact they become completely one dimensional from where they started and that's a huge bummer. The problems do not stop there either. Once more, yes there are positives and the first half of the game genuinely feels like a solid 7 or 8 out of 10 game, however once you get passed the initial story beats, hide out creation system that lets you create your own home, fun unique gameplay mechanics of both characters and come to grips with your awe of the world, you run into the quest design itself... and yikes, its structured really bad, even for the Assassins Creed series itself. Through these set quests and missions, majority off the time you will be completing the same type of quests, just in a different setting with no real change up to its format and basically giving you fetch quests but instead of fetching an item, its go here kill, go here kill and repeat that dozens and dozens of times in repetition. This is made even more head scratching as the game utilizes a ''Scout System'' which is your typical pathfinder mechanic that shows you where to go. Ok thats fine? I'll just turn it off, so you do and then the markers still show on your map, just not as in your face, but still, it shows you where to go... so whats the point of the system if theyre just going to show you anyways? The same holds true for the dialogue consequences that can be turned off, if your choices don't matter, then why have the feature that you can turn off and on? seriously, it hurts my brain, its like going to McDonalds and being like yeah I'd like a Cheeseburger but hold the cheese please. Like what.
''I WONDER IF I CAN FLY?''
OVERALL:
At the end of the day, Assassins Creed Shadows ends up a very mixed bag, one thats filled with tons of promise and even more woes. Obviously its got tons of upsides to it, some of which show that Ubisoft CAN make a hit title if they focused more with a gorgeous world and detail, fun and brutal combat, some of the best stealth sequences in the franchise with Naoe, initially having great character development, etc. But even with the positives, the negatives are far too great and outweigh them due to the lack of balance between the first half of the game compared to the second half with bad mission and quest structure, loss of character direction, Scout System that adds nothing to the game and can just be turned off, consequence system for dialogue that can be turned off whenever you want it, which means your choices do not matter in what you pick for NPC's since leaving them on and turning them off yields the same results. Its extremely frustrating to see because there is a really good game here for the first half and you can SEE the vision realized for what they were aiming for, but they just couldn't keep up the pace and fell into same formulaic structure their games tend to do and the second half and the overall game suffers because of it. Ubisoft showed they have what it takes to make a truly great game, however, Assassins Creed Shadows, while being not outright terrible, still becomes a very big underachiever. So with all that having been said, my verdict is clear, GameNChick says WAIT
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