Assassin's Creed Shadows might not provide a fulfilling parkour experience like AC Unity

The release of Assassin's Creed Shadows in November 2024 has longtime fans excited to explore Feudal Japan. The new setting has been requested by the gaming community for years, and after Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed will now be set in the Land of the Rising Sun. So far, the cinematic trailers and gameplay reveal have impressed fans, with Shadows looking like a great game to try out on the next-gen consoles.

Although the graphical fidelity and the combat mechanics look impressive as seen in the trailer, the parkour looks like nothing to write home about. Parkour is a very crucial gameplay mechanic that defines why Assassin's Creed has been popular for over the years.

Over the years, this mechanic has evolved with each new entry to become a fully robust climbing system, allowing players to traverse with fluidity across different structures. While Assassin's Creed Shadows is trying to evolve the parkour to make it feel smoother, it is still not able to surpass what AC Unity did 10 years ago on the 8th generation of consoles.

NOTE: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows could fail to replicate a parkour experience like AC Unity

Assassin's Creed Unity still holds up even 10 years after its launch. (Image via Ubisoft)

The only real issue that held Assassin's Creed Unity back was its buggy launch on the 8th generation of consoles. It had several game-breaking bugs and glitches that took players out of the experience and even crashed the title at times. This ruined the game's reputation and many players in the community never gave Unity a fair chance, even when it was fixed with future patches.

However, what many fans later realized was the fact that Unity featured the best parkour out of any game in the franchise. The seamless animation elevated the parkour as the movements were smoothly executed. The setting helps too, as Paris allows more options for traversal, which were not present previously in Black Flag and Rogue.

What is it with AC Unity's parkour being so loved? byu/Wajajan_697 inassassinscreed

The reason why Assassin's Creed Unity's parkour is loved so much now is that no game in the series has reached that fluidity ever since. It allows players to take advantage of narrow alleyways and open windows, to traverse Paris using minimal button prompts. Since the franchise shifted to being an RPG, the parkour mechanics have taken a hit.

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What does the parkour in the RPG era of Assassin's Creed feel like?

Assassin's Creed Origins is a great game with a bad parkour system. (Image via Ubisoft)

Ever since Assassin's Creed turned into an RPG-focused franchise, the gameplay mechanics have been overhauled, including the parkour mechanics. The climbing system has been completely changed, which no longer makes the animations feel smooth. Every time you climb a surface, it doesn't feel satisfying, as the animations feel like they have been slowed down on purpose.

This has been an issue in the series since Origins, which plagued the franchise the game until Valhalla. However, when Mirage was trying to advertise itself as going back to its roots, people expected a parkour system similar to Unity. They were disappointed when the gameplay system was similar to Valhalla, just with a few more animations, which didn't look appealing to the fans.

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Parkour in Assassin's Creed Shadows feels sticky

Shadows looks janky in the clip released by Ubisoft. (Image via Ubisoft)

Ubisoft recently released a short clip of AC Shadows on their X account, showcasing the game's parkour in all its glory. While some were excited to see the clip, many were not satisfied with how sticky the gameplay looked. They have expressed how the parkour looks like the character shown is weightless, and she is floating in the air.

AC Shadows / Red. : Official Parkour showcase byu/dVizerrr inIndianGaming

In the clip, we see the protagonist climbing down the building, but as soon as she starts jumping from rooftop to rooftop, she does these flips which feel unnecessary and kind of monotonous.

While this might be done to show how acrobatic she is, seeing the flips very often might get annoying. Her animations also look lousy at times when she lands on a surface, as she loses all her momentum before moving forward again.

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Conclusion

The parkour looks slow and a direct inspiration from Assassin's Creed Mirage, but with a few more animations. The traversal on rooftops looks janky, and there are no diverse moves, as per the clip provided so far. While the clip was short, it has certainly impacted the fans as they wish for AC Unity's parkour to make its return someday, which, by the looks of it, won't be in Shadows.