A couple of weeks ago I made the trek to the Ubisoft Australia Offices to play a “work in progress” of their upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The version included the Prologue setting up the story of the main characters and a mission that comes later in the open world which showed off the mechanics and how the world worked for the player.
In the game, you play as two main characters who are very different to each other. Naoe is a shinobi from the Iga clan on a quest for vengeance while Yasuke is a giant powerful samurai who is more of a brute force.
Both protagonists have a really solid interwoven storyline that will draw you in and at times reminded me of the TV series “Shogun” especially with Yasuke being adopted from another culture entirely. It makes for a compelling story and you only need to play the Prologue to see that.
During the quests, you can swap between the characters at any time and this is a great way to tackle certain situations in very different ways. I won’t say it’s a seamless change as there is a load screen between that breaks the momentum a bit.
I chose to play as Naoe for around 70% of my time with the game as I enjoyed the more stealthy “Ninja” approach to the particular quest we were playing. It’s a strange comparison but at times I was genuinely transported back to my younger days of playing “The Last Ninja” on the Commodore 64, it was an iconic game of the time and playing this new AC title made me wonder why we have never seen a remake.
I was lucky to have some time at the event to talk to the dev in charge of quests, the Level Design Director – Luc Plante. I asked what took the Ubisoft team so long to set the game in Feudal Japan a setting that seemed like an obvious choice he told me that “It’s been requested for a long time and from us as developers as well. So, it was really a good moment when we learned that we were to work on that project. And we want to make sure that we deliver for the expectation that we set up ourselves to create, but also for the fans. So obviously, feudal Japan had an incredible setting and beautiful environments.”
The setting and environment are on show in the game with the vast stunning Japanese countryside and villages. I saw the game in two different weather seasons that were available within the limited experience and they changed the overall look and feel and even seemed to have an impact on the mission when choosing a more stealthy approach.
The level of detail is also evident in the character design as they graphically look really good especially when you think about the backlash a few other games in the last 6 months have had on looking “last gen”. Naoe especially looks excellent and as you unlock different armour and clothing the level of detail in the design of each is superb.
It’s the little things that make an open-world title like this stand out and one of my favourites was something called an “observable moment” I asked Luc to explain the reasons behind this
“So we want to make sure that we renew the experience as well. So we need to have core elements for the fans to recognise that we haven’t changed into a complete direction, the series, but something they can rely upon. But also we want to make sure that they are up for surprises. And same thing with the sumi ace, where you need to sneak and draw animals and their behaviours, we wanted this time around to be truthful and respectful for the animal life and make sure that we, yes, we can chase animals, quote, unquote, but it’s to get to them and to draw them rather than killing them for their resources.
So to respect the animals, but at the same time to make it for a cool mechanic that will again renew the overall experience.”
During play, I observed some deer fighting in the woods and a crane eating a fish and loved how it created a living world around my journey across the map. The feature blends quite seamlessly into the gameplay while at the same time giving you a slice of the culture of the period the game is set.
Other options that keep the world “alive” are features like the scout system that allows you to use NPCs to explore the world for you.
If you came here looking for first impressions of a game then I can tell you that I really enjoyed my time with the game and I’ll be eager to explore more when the game is released on the 20th of March.
The game release was famously pushed back and in turn, met with some online backlash from various sources. Holding back a game to make sure that it is ready is something that those same sources criticise developers of not doing. So I guess you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I think it was a great choice as even from the unfinished version I played I could see improvements on what had come previously, particularly to the parkour element which flowed better.
If you are a fan of other games in the Assassin’s Creed series you are sure to enjoy Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The game will undoubtedly be compared to titles like “Ghost of Tsushima” and I’m in two minds about that as even though it is very much an AC title, I can see where the comparisons will be made. Considering that GOT is such a phenomenal game I’d like to think of it more as a compliment as ACS has the promise to be something special for the Assassin’s Creed franchise and is worthy of your attention.
