Ubisoft has revealed the next series Assassin’s Creed game. Previously on its 15 year of anniversary Ubisoft has a project called Assassin’s Creed: Code Name RED which made fans excited that the Assassins were coming to the far-east.

The new instalment of the stab-heavy series is finally got a name, it is ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’. As it is shown through the trailer, after a long journey the franchise is heading to the feudal Japan, and probably take place during the Sengoku Jidai (the Warring States period).

Japan during feudal-era has been the most requested setting in Assassin’s Creed’s 16-year history, according to Marc-Alexis Côté, the franchise’s vice president executive producer. During a presentation about Codename RED, it was announced that the game, now officially titled Assassin’s Creed Shadows, will fulfill this popular demand.

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Set in 1579, the game will offer an intricately detailed digital recreation of Japan, featuring samurai, shinobi, Portuguese merchants, and Jesuit missionaries.

“As always for an Assassin’s Creed game, we try to pick a setting that is a pivotal moment in history that can also allow plenty of gameplay opportunity,” explains Stéphanie-Anne Ruatta, world director and historian at Ubisoft Québec as quoted from IGN.

“It would be the last time that samurai would fight a major battle and the last time that they would have a strictly military role,” Ruatta continues.

Given that the samurai were an active fighting force during this era, it’s no surprise that players will take on the role of a samurai. What is surprising, however, is the samurai’s heritage. For the first time in Assassin’s Creed history, the game will allow players to embody a real historical figure. As the game is gearing many hypes, there are some features that Shadows will deliver.

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More Realistic Open World

Assassin’s Creed Shadows will feature an open world approximately the size of Egypt in Assassin’s Creed Origins (2017), but with a more realistic scale. Ubisoft has designed the environments in Shadows to feel wider and more expansive compared to those in Origins.

This is because Ubisoft “really wanted the mountains to feel like mountains” in its depiction of feudal-Japan and needed to account for the era’s expansive castles. Players can expect an open world filled with cherry blossoms, rolling hills, shinobi, and samurai. The upgraded Anvil engine powering Assassin’s Creed Shadows can now realistically replicate the damage caused by various weapons, from precise sword slices to accurate arrow puncture marks.

 “When we have a mini-boss type of fighter, we really want it to feel like a duel,” says the Game Director, Charles Benoit. “So this exchange of blocking, parrying, dodging. So it’s always like a dance.”

Much of Shadows’ new design aims to create a living, reactive world. The even more significant system is the introduction of seasons. The open world cycles through spring, summer, autumn, and winter, each bringing unique weather conditions and terrain changes. This adds realism, with dynamic winds blowing pollen in the spring and pulling leaves from branches in the fall. Each season also dramatically impacts gameplay.

Hiding Assassination from the Shadow

That needed modernity is found in a fully dynamic lighting system, where radiance from sunlight, torches, and lanterns illuminates both the land and the player. However, players can escape into the shadows to become invisible.

“The thing that shines the most, I feel, in Assassin’s Creed, it’s really the hidden blade, the assassination, being able to stay hidden,” says Benoit. “So that’s the core that we want to keep. What we needed to push forward [was to make it] feel a bit more modern in the approach.”

Shadows’ renewed emphasis on stealth makes it a worthy successor to the style of Assassin’s Creed Unity, where kill quests featured multiple methods for dispatching targets. There are variety of ways also in taking the enemy down in Shadows.

Of course, the RPG era of Assassin’s Creed has demanded robust combat experiences and that’s where Ubisoft plans to let Yasuke, one of the characters from Shadows, shine. “We want the combat to feel spectacular, so we’ve pushed quite a bit on having a lot of the objects destroyable or sliceable,” explains Jonathan Dumont, Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Creative Director.

Dual Character Story of a Shinobi and a Samurai

Ubisoft is introducing two protagonists in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. They are Naoe, an agile shinobi armed with a hidden blade, and Yasuke, the historical Black samurai who confronts his enemies head-on.

While Samurai Yasuke excels as a warrior, Shinobi Naoe demonstrates nimble prowess, particularly in castle environments where her agility can shine. With ample shadows for concealment, Naoe thrives in stealth. Naoe, whom the announcement trailer showcases, is a young shinobi trained in the Iga province and she’s out on a revenge mission.

The fictional daughter of real historical figure Fujibayashi Nagato, Naoe is a very different character to Yasuke. Where he is a bold fighter, she’s the hidden blade in the shadows. It’s through her that Ubisoft are seemingly rediscovering the series’ special roots, a stealth.

However, players can still opt to engage directly as Yasuke. Shadows will allow seamless character swapping, even mid-mission, allowing players to alternate between the two protagonists. So, it can be expected that most of the missions (not all missions) in Shadows can be tackled as either character.

With the double protagonists system there will be two fantasies: the samurai and the shinobi. Players will be able to experience both and of course the game couldn’t combine both characters into one. It is because the samurai and shinobi have different traits and style also they came from different social classes.

Sources: IGN, Games Radar, Rock Paper Shotgun

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