Assassin’s Creed Shadows hands-on preview: A leap of faith into a (hopefully) promising future

So there I was on a Sunday morning, walking down the quiet streets on my way to Ubisoft Mumbai Studios, on a quest to experience Assassin’s Creed Shadows. I had the good fortune of representing Sportskeeda Gaming at the closed-door hands-on event.

Even though I was first introduced to the franchise on the high seas of Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed has become my favorite video game franchise over the last decade. I spent the better part of the past two years raiding English monasteries as a Viking and exploring Baghdad as a hidden one (which was a great shot of nostalgia, as discussed in my Mirage review). I was understandably looking for something new, be it narratively, or be it gameplay-wise, and Shadows promised to deliver on that.

Swinging between being an ardent fan and a video game reviewer, I took my seat, plugged in, and watched the familiar logo come up. My mind was filled with questions: Is this going to be a breath of fresh air, or exactly what the last few entries were? Can it deliver on everything it has promised? Is the game ready after multiple delays?

---

The prologue of Assassin’s Creed Shadows: A captivating start for a promising duo

My hands-on session with Assassin’s Creed Shadows was split into two parts. The prologue sets up the characters and the mechanics of the game, and a questline tracking and taking down one of The Shinbakufu - Shadows’ version of the Templer Order or Order of the Ancients (although I’m not sure if they are directly or indirectly connected with any of the Orders yet).

All in all, the total gameplay session lasted around three hours, with the prologue taking around one-third of it. While I won’t go into story details for spoiler reasons, there are a couple of things that immediately stood out for me.

Yasuke and Oda Nobunaga in Assassin's Creed Shadows' prologue (Image via Ubisoft)

At the start of the game, the Ubisoft developer on the floor mentioned that there are two new options while starting a new game, Canon Mode and Immersive Mode. You can either choose to play with both Canon and Immersive Modes or select one or the other.

The Canon Mode essentially meant that the choice aspects of Odyssey and Valhalla are hidden, and choices are automatically made based on what is canon. This is a great addition for players like me who want to enjoy the story as the developers intended, while also having the option for others to create Yasuke or Naoe in their own way.

The Immersive Mode meant that instead of all characters having English voiceovers, the Japanese characters would speak Japanese while the Portuguese characters would speak Portuguese, adding to the immersion. Even though I play AC games with English voiceover, at least for the first playthrough, the addition of the Immersive Mode is certainly something appreciable.

The prologue perfectly sets up Yasuke and Naoe’s personalities, while touching on their motivation for doing what they are doing. The prologue does not show them meeting and working together. However, considering how well it establishes the contrasting backgrounds and personalities, I’m certainly looking forward to experiencing their first interaction and the two eventually working together.

---

Exploring the world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows: A questline set in Harima

After the prologue, I jumped ahead a significant portion of the game and found myself in the city of Himeji, which is located in the Harima district. There, I played through a full questline, hunting down a Shinbakufu called The Noble by finding out who that was across multiple missions.

Here, I saw the return of the mission board from Mirage. I think it would be great to decide which Shinbakufu to hunt down and when.

A leap of faith in Assassin's Creed Shadows (Image captured in Assassin's Creed Shadows)

The first thing I did as a true Assassin’s Creed fan was to climb to the top of the Himeji Castle and synchronize the viewpoint. Not only was I blown away by the amazing design of the world, but this is also where I noticed a new way that Shadows has changed compared to previous games. Instead of marking all the closeby locations immediately after synchronizing, it just leaves question marks, encouraging me to go and find them out for myself.

This also played into the new scout system. Instead of instantly marking the location where I needed to go, the game gave me a set of clues regarding it, and then I could deploy scouts from the map screen to correctly identify the location. There are a total of five scouts, with player being able to deploy three scouts together at most. The more scouts you have on the map, the lesser the target area becomes. The scouts replenish over time.

Just from the exploration itself, Shadows already sets itself apart from its predecessor all the while establishing its own identity driven by exploration.

---

The RPG of Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Exploring the skills and gears of Yasuke and Naoe

As a player who have spent countless hours grinding gears and skills in Odyssey and Valhalla, I checked out the inventory and the skill system with somewhat of a concern.

I was relieved to find a far more manageable system. Instead of five gear slots like Odyssey and Valhalla, Shadows scales it down to a more approachable system with two slots for gears, two for weapons, and one each for your horse and an amulet, which I assume will give you some kind of a buff.

The stats on the gear also seem to be scaled back to just three factors instead of five or more. All in all, the gear system seems to be a lot more approachable and a lot less grind-heavy.

The Assassin's Creed Shadows gear system (Image captured in Assassin's Creed Shadows)

It is also a similar case for the skill tree in Shadows. Instead of a constellation of skill trees like in Valhalla, it has taken a much more streamlined approach similar to Odyssey or Mirage, where each skill matters.

Both Yasuke and Naoe have a selection of six skill trees each, focusing on their weapons and gameplay style, with each tree having the skills divided across five tiers called Knowledge levels. This is a far better and more approachable tree, especially when compared to Valhalla’s constellation, where each skill boosted a small percentage of an ability.

---

Exploring the Animus Hub: Can Assassin’s Creed be a live-service title?

Since we have completed our main mission of Shadows preview, we will do a quick side mission now - of looking at the Animus Hub.

One of the most interesting points of discussion surrounding Assassin’s Creed Shadows is that it is the first in the franchise to launch on the Animus Hub platform. Originally revealed as Assassin’s Creed Infintie, Animus Hub promises to be a live-service platform tying all the entries in the franchise together, offering a unified storefront and being the main vessel of the modern-day storyline.

I must admit that I did not get to explore the Animus Hub this time around beyond launching the dev build of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. But thanks to a pre-recorded briefing and the amazing people at Ubisoft Mumbai studios, I got a pretty good idea of what Ubisoft’s live-service vision is for Assassin’s Creed, and I have to say, it has my interest piqued.

The Animus Hub (Image captured in Animus Hub)

The primary function of Animus Hub can be divided into four distinct parts: Memories, Projects, Exchange, and Vaults. Projects contain a set of missions called Anomalies, completing which will reward in-game items in a tiered system (something akin to a Battle Pass, albeit free of additional cost).

One of the rewards offered by Projects is Keys, which are, yes, the paid currency of Animus Hub, like Helix Credit. You will be able to get gears and items from Exchange, the Animus Hub shopfront with the Keys.

Keeping the microtransaction aside, and moving on to the more exciting part of Animus Hub, Vaults is how Ubisoft plans to move the modern-day storyline ahead within Assassin’s Creed. From the biggest twist of the original title to more inconsistent references in recent entries, the modern day has been a point of contention for fans.

While the details on it seem to be limited, from the brief glimpse I got, it seems to be a series of videos. This could be interesting, and might even be better than taking you out of the game every time.

Memories is the part of Animus Hub I got most excited over. It is the part from where you launch Assassin’s Creed Shadows. But that’s not all, as Memories serves as the hub for a few older Assassin’s Creed too, including Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla, and Mirage. I am happy to see Ubisoft is not entirely abandoning its previous entries, and also leaving the door open for future remakes (?).

All in all, Animus Hub seems to be a promising new step for Assassin’s Creed as a franchise. And even if the Exchange storefront and Project Anomalies aren’t up your alley, the promise of a more cohesive modern day storyline with a unified place for all the franchise entries is certainly exciting.

---

Assassin’s Creed Shadows initial impression: Onwards to a brighter future

It isn’t far-fetched to say that Assassin’s Creed Shadows may make or break the franchise’s future, but nevertheless, the preview holds promise. From its drastic increase in graphical fidelity and the beautiful and mesmerizing world of Feudal Japan to its refined approach to the RPG mechanics, Assassin’s Creed Shadows seems like the breath of fresh air that this franchise needed to reinvigorate itself.

A massive thanks to the amazing team at Ubisoft Mumbai for making this possible, and while I was already hyped for Shadows, this preview has me more excited for the future of the franchise. I can’t wait to head back to the world of Shadows and explore not just Harima, but what might end up being (hopefully) the most beautiful open-world game out there. Is that the fan bias speaking? Only time will tell.