Since the original Assassin’s Creed and the adventure of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad through the age of the Crusades, I have loved the series. When the series pivoted from action-adventure to more action-rpg, it did take a moment for me to click with the updated gameplay, but in the end I also loved this new approach. While I was not enamoured with Valhalla, I was one of the many chomping for a game set in Japan and now that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is finally here, was the long wait worth it?

Short answer, yes; long answer, even more yes. There is a lot that I could say about the story, well stories as there are a lot of branching paths from this narrative tree, but I will only say the basics. I won’t say who you will meet, or dies, or lives, or anything like that, so you can enjoy the game in full. Going into the game I knew that Naoe would be the character that I played as the most, because if I was finally getting to play an Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan, I wanted to be the ninja character. When there were missions where Yasuke was required, at first I was annoyed that I had to play as him, but over time I came to enjoy his style and character so much, that it became a non-issue. What I will say is that because I spent so long after the prologue, running around as Naoe, I didn’t actually play as Yasuke again for around 15 hours, which just goes to show how large the world is.

Perhaps the one aspect of the game that I was quite curious about, going into it, was how it might tie into the grander narrative of Assassins and Templars, something that has been a constant since the series began. It took almost 50 hours, but they did eventually appear in the game and of course I won’t say how or why, but that connection is there. There is also stuff with the Animus and I understand why it is there, but I kinda wish that Ubisoft would drop that, as I don’t think it’s needed anymore, though I do like the season pass-esq nature this time. Because there is no single path that everyone is going to follow, there are going to be story beats and characters that you will find earlier than I did and vice versa, but I don’t think the game is impacted by those choices. There are also countless times when you are given a choice, sometimes it is as simple as giving some money to a beggar on the street, or electing to kill or spare someone after a fight. The massive game world, dozens and dozens and dozens of characters and countless choices that you will need to make, result in this being one of the most personal games in the series.

There are some issues with the story though, a few times I would have preferred to play as the other character, if only because they were better suited to a task at hand, but those missions were exclusively for the selected character. Don’t get me wrong, it is not bad to play as Yasuke, but when the mission requires stealth, sending in the giant samurai in full armour seems like a silly choice, when you have a shinobi as a partner. The other gripes that I have with the story are minor, but in order to explain them, I would need to spoil things and I won’t do that.

Story aside, there was always going to be a lot of attention put on to the gameplay, because again, we finally get to be a ninja in Japan. I will dive into the characters in a bit, but I wanted to highlight the biggest evolution for the series, it no longer holds you hand by default. Now you can turn that option back on, if you require it, but with it off the game will give you a basic idea of someone’s position and then it is up to you, to narrow it down. In past games, when someone told you to meet someone else, the icon for where that person was, appeared on the map and you just went towards it. That is no longer the case here, if you want to find someone you have to go looking for them, unless you can use a scout, but more on them in a bit. This lack of direction might seem counterintuitive to gameplay progression, but it actually is the opposite, because no longer are you just being told where to go. You have to make use of your abilities in order to locate the target, item or whatever it is you are after. For that reason alone, it made my time in a new city or castle, feel important because I had to learn where things were, what targets were up to and it truly made me feel like an assassin.

When you play as Naoe, she has the skill set that most aligns with the other characters from the series history, she has the eagle vision, has the hidden blade and can leap of faith like the best them. Playing as Yasuke, he has none of that and sure he can jump from high places, but grace is not his strong suit, his strong suit is in fact that he is strong. If I knew that I was heading into a siege of a place or a big fight, and I could, I always picked Yasuke as he was able to charge into battle and lay waste to all those who got in my way. The dynamic of the stealthy shinobi and the strong samurai could have been explored via their own games, or completely separate adventures, but I honestly found their gameplay style of being so different, to be a great selling point. Naoe grew up learning the ways of the shinobi and because of that she has the speed and stealth, which lends to her infiltrating and taking out targets with minimal fuss. Because of her upbringing there are a lot of things that she can do that Yasuke cannot, climbing up high is one such example, Naoe climbs like the wind, but when Yasuke does it, he climbs like I would, slow and with a lot of effort required. This dichotomy between them ended up being one of the parts that I loved about the game and I am sure you will as well. The differences in their playstyles also means that missions will play out differently, as I previewed the game a few months back, in one of the missions there I played as Naoe, so here I did it as Yasuke and it was fun to see the mission from the other side and the challenges it brought on.

Outside of finding people and stabbing them, the amount of things to do borders on the insane. There is the hideout upgrades, building new facilities and training folks up to help you out. This is where your scouts can be upgraded and managed, which can narrow down target locations for you and can retrieve marked supplies, in order to grow your base even more. You can also find companions to join your cause and then help you out in battle, or if that seems to pedestrian you can even romance some of them. Beyond that, both characters have the chance for personal growth, for Naoe it is done via a meditation exercise and while four of them are required for story progression, there are more across the land. In a funny little twist, these meditations are done by Naoe creating hand signs, like in Naruto of which Ubisoft made two games about. Yasuke has his moments via learning new skills from students of his sword master or mounting his horse and undertaking a series of challenges. Those character growth moments result in knowledge gained, which also unlock new tiers for skill upgrades, which are important for surviving some of the fights later in the game. You need to earn a set number of knowledge points in order to unlock a new tier of skills, as such when I was focusing on story beats, whenever I unlocked a new tier of skills, I found I usually had points to burn. It also helped that I didn’t care for some of the options for both characters, Yasuke wields a long katana as his default, but you can opt to replace that with a kanabō or naginata, but neither of those appealed to me.

As the game is RPG in nature, there is going to be a lot of dealing with your inventory, swapping to a better main weapon, changing out your alternate and even picking up a new outfit to look cooler. Most of that is quite easy thanks to the game colour coding everything like most RPG games, but there are issues. The first major issue is that you can’t just throw things away, yes you can put them in storage in the hideout or mini-hideouts, but you can’t just get rid of something. You can’t also mark items are useless for easy selling or dismantling, you have to do everything one at a time, which can drag on. Finally, even when you go to upgrade items, not all the items will show up, even if they are on your person. When you have two characters, with 8 weapon types between them, plus four outfit types and you pick up new items like candy from a piñata, I would have loved to have seen better management options.

Much like anyone on a blind date, weather is a big topic, but for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it actually means something. As the game offers seasons to enjoy, you can revisit locations and they can feel completely different. Now this is not the first game to deal with seasons, Assassin’s Creed 3 had those, but they were tied to the progression of the story, here they are dynamic. What this means is that when you set off from your hideout to ride to Obama, it could be Autumn, the leaves being brown and yellow, but by the time you leave Obama, Winter might have rolled in. Each season brings its own challenges to over come and its own advantages to exploit, Summer is full of bright sunny days and verdant fields, but storms can roll in very quickly. Winter is the opposite, rice fields are empty, ponds and small creaks are frozen over and fog or snowstorms can blanket the land. Much like how night can give you an advantage in remaining unseen, so too can a heavy rain or thick fog. Seasons won’t just look pretty or cover your tracks, walking in snow can leave footprints behind for people to see and a fun summer storm can turn the ground to mud, making it harder to move sometimes.

There are a few weird issues with the seasons though, first is that they appear to have no impact on the story, if you take a quest from a child in Winter and return the next Winter to tell them its done, they look the same. There is one character that lives at your hideout and even after like 15 years’ worth of seasons, he remains the same as he was upon his arrival. The other issue with the seasonal changes is that they often change to quickly, there are some changes that take place in order to align with the story and that is fine, but others just seem to happen. Don’t get me wrong all the seasons are fine, but if its Winter and you are going to raid a fortress, having the season change just as you get there can be annoying.

All this talk of seasons is a good segue to talking about just how amazing the game truly looks; the presentation is incredible. Now do not misunderstand, the game has issues at times, but those are more like niggles than problems. The first time that the season changed to Autumn, I was blown away by the colours on offer by the world and with Winter, the white landscape could have easily been a one note wonder, but there is such variety, as each region is impacted by seasons differently. The games many characters are also incredibly well done, yes quite a number of the NPCs are basic, their faces often stiff, but the majority of the people you meet are vibrant. Naoe and Yasuke themselves are a pleasure, you will see their faces express so many emotions over the course of the game as well, from Naoe’s rage to Yasuke’s boundless delight. Even when you have them wearing the most outrageous outfit you can, they will look as serious as they need to, but having them show proper emotions is just a real treat. Another great touch to the presentation is that as many of the games cutscenes are real-time, there is no telling how the weather will play out. There were a lot of times when I was walking towards someone for a serious conversation, only for a rain storm to start and we would be having words in the rain.

Like I said above though, there are some issues and while most of them are just typical large open world, there are a few that become annoying. There were a number of times that in cutscenes, the game would often render a spotlight upon the main characters, which basically made them light up like a billboard at night and it was hard to watch. The wild animals that you can draw are fun, but having deer, pigs, dogs and more run away from you became annoying after a while, as they would always run in the direction you were heading, which made no sense. What makes the animals worse is that they would often freak out, sometimes moving around in a spot like they were having a seizure, it was weird. One bizarre issue I encountered was with the games photo mode, which I used a lot, but the issue was with its Ink filter. I took the photo I wanted with it on and then when I quit the photo mode, the filter remained on and it made the world much harder to explore, thankfully quitting the game did fix that issue, but it was even applied to the menus, so it was a weird one. Perhaps the most common issue I encountered was with textures being slow to load on treasure chests and other small items, even staring at some items would have the texture load in after a few seconds, which could be linked to the size of the games world.

The other half of the presentation is of course the games audio and there are good and bad here. The good is again the characters and the world, with each main character having distinct voices that breath life into them. Naoe and Yasuke are again delights, especially when they have their moments of banter, usually which made me smile. Even the villains of the piece are wonderfully acted and while it won’t have convinced me to join them, there are some that have such conviction in their voices, I could see why some would. I did play the game mostly in English and it was great, but I did try the Japanese voice track, but the subtitles would often be basic, so it forced me to go back. There are times when Naoe would talk about her father, in the English voice she calls him chichiue, but in the Japanese she would use otousan, oyaji and more, but the subtitles always said chichiue. Now I know I don’t know a lot of Japanese, but I know those words are different and if the subtitles said father, it would not have been an issue, but because of them sticking to the one word, it concerned me that other words would be shown differently in subtitles, so I swapped back to English.

The NPC voice work is fine, but there are often a number of voices that exist over a range of characters, which again makes sense from a game development side of things. The parts of the games audio that annoyed me were mostly the music, don’t get me wrong there is a lot of fun with games score, but there are times when it just didn’t fit into the action on screen. The most common time was when I would sync with the viewpoints, a common aspect of the series and the music would be a grand sweeping piece, except for those times when it was more rock based. Like there are no bad tracks, just some used in the wrong spots, at least for my liking, but you might not have an issue with that. The only major audio issue I discovered was a Japanese NPC speaking with a Portuguese voice and that was more just a ‘what the’ moment more than anything.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows had a lot it needed to do, in order to convince me that it was worth my time as Valhalla and Mirage didn’t move the series forward in ways that mattered to me; but Shadows finally did. Much like the series evolved between Syndicate and Origins, Shadows is another massive leap forward. The world is incredible and filled with things to discover, with each season providing the sense that each place is worth exploring once again. The characters are rich and feel like complete persons, so taking the time to speak with them does not feel like a chore. There are some visual oddities that show up from time to time, but nothing that truly mars the experience, though having a photo filter stuck on was a fun issue. Assassin’s Creed Shadows should now be considered the baseline for the series, it offers a fun world, interesting quests, delightful characters and more. After 50 hours you might think I was out of things to do, but I am honestly just getting started, so take a leap of faith and you won’t regret it.