I’m not proud of the fact that I’ve beaten all 13 mainline Assassin’s Creed games (and all their DLCs). At their best, Ubisoft’s flagship series delivers tense stealth-action exploration while teaching you historical trivia. At their worst, they’re a hamster wheel of repetitive tasks, pointless busywork, and incomprehensible sci-fi nonsense.
As the credits rolled on the interminable Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I vowed that this would be the last time I’d get suckered by the franchise. Last year, I was gifted a copy of the refreshingly concise Mirage, which made me recall the many things I’d once enjoyed about this series. Now, with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it’s clear Ubisoft has given the series a serious style transfusion.
Since the early days of Assassin’s Creed, fans demanded a game set in feudal Japan. After all, with hooded, stealth-focused, assassin heroes, doesn’t a game where you just play as a straight-up actual ninja make logical sense? And yet, possibly because this setting was low-hanging fruit, Ubisoft waited… and waited.
Having now sunk a ridiculous number of hours into Shadows, I’m glad they waited. This is the best the franchise has been in at least a decade, leaving the stodgy Valhalla in the dust and improving on the great bits of Origins and Odyssey. At least on paper, not much has changed: you have a list of targets to stab, an open world to explore, and characters and bases to upgrade. But there’s a streamlined sleekness to this iteration, feeling like everything from character control to combat to the design of the world has been tuned up.
Let’s take lead character Naoe as an example. She moves much faster than previous assassins, can lie prone (a feature I’ve been craving for years), has a nifty grappling hook, and a fine line in flips and rolls. Controlling previous assassins occasionally felt like driving a station wagon: you point them in the right direction, hold down the parkour button, and hope for the best. But Naoe is more like a sports car, capable of quick, precise maneuvers and sudden exhilarating bursts of acceleration.
That’s counterbalanced by secondary lead Yasuke, whose design philosophy appears to be based around him being the biggest guy in all of Japan. He’s a true powerhouse in battle, can charge right through the scenery, but is frankly bordering on comedic when he tries to sneak. If Yasuke were the only lead in Shadows it wouldn’t feel like an Assassin’s Creed game, but his presence is like being able to swap between Naoe’s sports car and an armored Humvee.
The overall narrative is also vastly improved. The best Assassin’s Creed games have all been revenge stories, which may be repetitive but at least gave the characters clear motivations. In the (somewhat cutscene-heavy) introduction, when the game introduces you to Naoe’s peaceful village and her kind and supportive middle-aged father, most people will be able to see precisely where the story is going.
Though the overall arc might be familiar, it’s at least well-executed. Care has clearly been taken to improve the cutscene direction, which is a huge improvement over Valhalla‘s parade of static dialogue and talking heads. The story also smartly zeroes in on Naoe and Yasuke’s social status at this period: Naoe bristling under an implacable patriarchy and Yasuke finding himself thrust into a high-status role after years as a slave.
Given the samurai-packed setting, it’s perhaps inevitable there’s a lot of Kurosawa influence on show, though there’s also a neat leaning towards more pop-inflected fare like 1971’s Lady Snowblood. This dovetails into a loose Tarantino feel when the action cranks up, with the best bits accompanied by a killer needle drop. Samurai movie purists will probably be demanding their shamisens and hyōshigi, but if watching ninjas battle samurai while a 60s-sounding psych rock track blares out is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
All that’s buoyed up by some truly incredible graphics. Ubisoft’s evolution of the Anvil engine is a sight to behold, particularly when running on 4K on a beefy PC or PS5 Pro. For once, ray-tracing doesn’t feel like a resource-hungry marketing gimmick, with the game so consistently pretty that I’m really putting the photo mode through its paces. Appropriately given the title, it also feels like there’s an aesthetic shift towards high-contrast visuals, where daytime feels sunkissed and night is an inky blackness that (unlike practically every other game) actually feels dark.
And the weather! Not since Metal Gear Solid 2 has rain felt so wet and oppressive. When a proper storm kicks up, the game excels, particularly if you’re playing with surround sound/headphones and can hear every drop splatter on the roof above your head and the wind whip through the trees.
As an aside, I’ve also been playing the game on my Steam Deck, knocking out a few side quests or exploring a waypoint during my daily commute. Frankly, Shadows has no business running this well on the Deck and, while it’s severely visually cut back and only ever lands in the rough territory of 30FPS, it’s very much playable.
Focused design, a firm directorial style, and those killer graphics combine into a polished package. This franchise has had a reputation for visual bugs and glitches at launch, but I suspect the last-minute delay from Nov. 2024 to Mar. 2025 gave the developers time to iron out any rough edges.
And, finally, it’s deeply satisfying to see this game succeed, as its victory is infuriating the worst people on the internet. From the moment the first trailer launched, there’s been a constant social media screeching from – let’s not mince words – racists annoyed that there’s a black samurai in the game.
That dovetailed into a full-on hate campaign spearheaded by the most pathetic people imaginable, all of whom have been slavering over the prospect of Shadows‘ failure and frantically trying to generate puffed-up ‘controversies’. All indications are that Shadows is not just a critical hit but a sales success too. That crunching noise you can faintly hear? That’s the sweet sound of racists grinding their teeth in frustration.
All of which means Shadows has me firmly back aboard the Assassin’s Creed franchise for the foreseeable future. All indications are that this will kick off a new trilogy of games based around the same incredible graphics tech, and I’ll be shoving a wristblade into unfortunate mooks’ necks in all of them.
Published: Mar 25, 2025 12:26 pm