Also on: PS5, Xbox Series X
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft
Medium: Digital/Physical
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: M
I can’t speak for everyone, but when Ubisoft announced Assassin’s Creed Shadows I was fairly excited despite previous public opinions on where the series has headed. After a few delays and some updates from the studio(s), Assassin’s Creed Shadows finally was given a release date of March 20th, 2025. Courtesy of Ubisoft, I’ve had the opportunity to play it for review, and it…leaves a lot to be desired, unfortunately.
Going into Assassin’s Creed Shadows, I wasn’t sure where my expectations were at, so I kept them relatively low. Previously, I’ve sunk a couple hundred hours into Sekiro and Ghost of Tsushima, so I knew I would already have a hefty comparison point. Now, this isn’t to say Shadows is a bad game, because it’s not, but it has a bunch of issues that just really impacted enjoyment. From the weird progression scaling that the series has had for the last several entries (albeit slightly more toned down in Shadows), combat that feels untuned, and a gear system that seems relatively pointless, it seems undercooked despite the delays.
The first big thing I really couldn’t get over was the combat. The trailers and pre-release information showcased emphasized that Naoe was more focused on stealth but could still hold her own in combat and that Yasuke was very anti-stealth and parkour but excelled in combat. This isn’t untrue, but it’s not entirely accurate. Yasuke does in fact tear through enemies like a hot knife through butter, but that’s about where his role comes to a close. He can’t do any of the major parkour stuff, so even if you clear an enemy encampment, you still have to switch to Naoe after anyways. If you use Naoe for combat, it really feels like a chore more often than not. The katana weapon feels fairly useless compared to the other weapon types you can unlock, and of the bunch I played with, only one really felt like it was viable to deal with enemies.
Enemies I ran into beyond the initial prologue felt like damage sponges and had more and more amounts of armor. Fights just started to drag on as I progressed more, and other than unique skills to gain new abilities, the skill tree to increase effectiveness felt relatively worthless. A lot of it outside of “carry more of X item” is just minor percentage boosts to damage, but as the enemies scale higher, the boosts feel more and more meaningless. As a downside to that scaling, assassinations can be completely pointless because there are enemies that, despite you having a skill to assassinate, still can’t be assassinated. This necessitates active combat with enemies unless you reload the area and switch characters.
Unfortunately, if you don’t want to switch characters, this means you’re stuck with Naoe who does very little damage to “Elite” enemies. It becomes tedious and time consuming to slowly chip away at enemies in later game content and it only gets worse when these same enemies will one hit kill you. I don’t mind the longer fights but including instant deaths that force me to restart from whenever the last checkpoint/autosave was gets incredibly frustrating. I will admit, this could also be player error. As previously mentioned, it definitely feels like combat inspiration is a blend of what Sekiro does and what Ghost of Tsushima does. For me personally, it did not feel like it meshed well and lended itself to a worse overall experience.
Exploration was honestly pretty fun. The map is still absurdly large, but it didn’t feel super time consuming to traverse, especially once it fully unlocks for you. Obviously you’ll want to be mindful where you go, as it very much is level-gated content, but the landscapes are very pretty to ride through and navigate. The parkour can get stuck on things sometimes, but that’s just been a common thing since Origins now that the series is more free-form when it comes to traversal on foot. Not a major complaint, just a little hitch that occurs sometimes if you’re trying to be specific on movement in an area with a lot of clutter.
The story is fairly consistent. It kept me interested in each story beat that unfolded, and when I finished the prologue I was surprised that there was a lot more in the game. The prologue story lasts roughly 8-10 hours in total depending on how much side content you do. Noae’s path of revenge is genuinely well written and keeps you wanting to figure out more about the people responsible.
Unfortunately, this leads me to another complaint that started to grind my gears a little bit. Progression in story/skill trees are gated by how much side progress you do, which means you’re very frequently railroaded into doing other content, and sometimes it can be very tedious having a hand come down and push you away to go to something else. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it sometimes does feel like it doesn’t respect my time as much as other games.
On a technical level, I have no complaints about Assassin’s Creed Shadows. It runs great and looks gorgeous, especially with the changing seasons. As you play, the seasons will periodically change, modifying the environments along with them. Without frame generation enabled, my 2070 Super/Ryzen 9 3900x was able to push 60fps on a blend of high and ultra settings at 1080p. Definitely a big congratulations to the technical team behind Shadows, because performance is a huge problem nowadays in gaming, especially recently. Those of us with older hardware can still enjoy the game with beautiful visuals and get consistently decent framerates, and if we turn settings down, can get even higher numbers. Hats off to Ubisoft, because I’m pretty certain this is consistent with all their games. Snowdrop (and other Anvil spinoffs) are great for modern experiences.
The last thing I’d like to touch on in this game is the new base building mechanic. As you play, you’ll eventually unlock a hideout of sorts. You’re given free reign to re-arrange it as you please, upgrading facilities and whatnot as you stockpile resources from your time out exploring the rest of the world. This will grant you other buffs elsewhere such as more scouts to deploy, higher tier gear upgrades, and more. In a weird roundabout way, I enjoyed it as if I was working on my town/island in Animal Crossing. It’s not a huge feature to focus on the decoration, but it’s still an enjoyable side option to take a break from the typical gameplay loop of Assassin’s Creed. If you wanna make the most of your facilities, you’ll wanna keep an eye out for loot, but I find that if you’re clearing the bases you get sidelined to frequently, you’ll usually always have the materials required, so at least upgrading that isn’t tedious.
I don’t think Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a bad game, but I don’t think it’s a great one either. With patches I think it could seriously become a great game, but as it stands with what I was playing, I’m not impressed with the systems/gameplay. I really, really want to like Shadows more because of how much the total package feels, but those few issues are enough to really hamper that. If you’re someone that enjoys going everywhere to do things and unlock everything, you’ll definitely have a great time, so it’s not inherently a super negative. The combat experience is definitely a damper though. Fingers crossed Ubisoft and the team behind Shadows really polishes and shines it up!
Note: Ubisoft provided us with an Assassin’s Creed Shadows code for review purposes.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows - Limited Edition (Amazon Exclusive), PlayStation 5
11 used & new available from $67.77
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