Assassin’s Creed Shadows Hands-on | It Takes Two

There is a lot of history when it comes to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, both literally and figuratively. Fans are finally getting the most requested setting since the franchise’s inception with feudal Japan. Hooded figures parkouring around iconic Japanese landmarks with hidden blades? The easiest win for Ubisoft by a landslide. But after the game’s reveal, a number of online conversations expressed their concerns about historical accuracy, narrative strengths, and what is going to make this game distinct from all the other recent Ubisoft titles that have done nothing much to truly innovate on established open-world formulas. We got the opportunity to head to Ubisoft Singapore and talk to some of the developers about the game and even got our own extended hands-on session. And we came away fairly impressed with what we saw and played. Here’s our Assassin’s Creed Shadows first impressions.

We were allowed to experience about 4-5 hours of gameplay with a work-in-progress build of the game. While the game looked and felt great already in our hands, it was still not fully representative of what the final release will look like as the dev team is all hands-on deck in polishing up what’s left in time for the March 20, 2025 release date.

Meet the assassins

The demo first threw us into 2 prologue sections wherein we were introduced to the 2 protagonists, Yasuke, the samurai, and Naoe, the shinobi. Two very distinct backgrounds, personalities, and cultures. This also has effective implications in the way they are played. I won’t go into detail about what exactly happens, but what I will say is that both of them have their own past they have to carry as they try to move forward with their own story.

Immediately, there are emotional stakes at play not only for the 2 main characters, but for me as a player who genuinely wanted to see them succeed. I grew sympathetic and attached to their journal fairly early on.

Yasuke has been a big topic of discussion among fans about what is his place in the narrative and how exactly is it faithful to the real historical figure he’s based on. While not a lot is known about him, it is said that he is a foreigner who somehow stumbles into Japan and builds a reputation for himself by forming relationships with interesting and powerful figures at the time. Ubisoft has said that this was one of the most enticing aspects of his character, being a perfect vessel for the player to discover Japan in the same way Yasuke does. He’s the one who charges in and provides the muscle, but he is far from just being a big brute. He is intelligent, calm, and so much more than what is shown in the surface.

Naoe is where the core of classic Assassin’s Creed stealth gameplay lives on. As a shinobi, a lot of her capabilities are a direct contrast to Yasuke’s more upfront approach. She is someone who is very passionate about her beliefs and is capable of being the most dangerous person in the room without you even knowing she is there. An early tragedy places her in a position where she has to do right by her past while at the same time trying to discover what her place is in all of it.

On paper, these 2 characters should not get along and something happens in the early part of the game shows exactly why but in other ways, they’re also the perfect team to come together. Yasuke provides the loudest punch, and Naoe is the silent blow. While I no longer saw when and how they settled their differences as the demo then jumped us into a major story quest that takes place in an undisclosed time of the game, I remain invested in how these opposites attract to one another.

Work in the dark to serve the light

The demo skipped us ahead into the story to play through one mainline quest. We were allowed to either mainline the whole thing or stop to explore the open world and some of its side content. With the limited time I’ve had, I tried to do a bit of both. But given that this is a Ubisoft title, I can only imagine that I just scratched the surface level of what’s in offer.

Without sharing many details, the questline first started with investigating questionable packages that are being shipped. It was here that I first experienced how vastly different a quest can go depending on what you chose to do. I remember accidentally approaching the people of interest and accidentally pressing the “assassinate” button out of reflex just because it popped up. Him and his entire gang then started to come at me (a reasonable response). I tried reloading the checkpoint to see how else it can play out and true enough, there is an opportunity to initiative a conversation. Depending on your choices, you can either trigger yet another combat scenario or have them let you go while you set out to investigate yourself. It’s a simple but interesting early example of Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ dynamic approach.

This concept of choice and alternate scenarios also bleeds into how you interact with the world itself. Yasuke and Naoe plays extremely different from one another. One is more built for direct combat while the other is ideal for traversal and stealth. They can still do a bit of both but there is a clear gameplay bias based on each character’s strengths and weaknesses. Certain parts in quests will give you the option which character you want to play as, and this can change the dialogue and ways you go about the whole thing.

What’s more impressive to me is in how the level design has to cater to both playstyles on both a functional and aesthetic sense. Playing as Naoe does make the game a bit more interesting as you think about which paths to take to sneak around and pick targets silently. Playing as Yasuke is just a great way to shut your brain off and just charge in breaking doors and bones along the way. At some point, I even tried breaking the game, trying to stealth around as Yasuke and brute forcing everything as Naoe. It significantly makes everything more difficult but definitely doable.

You see and feel the gameplay difference between the 2 characters. Yasuke is more slow and infinitely louder than the quiet and nimble Naoe. Imagine seeing a big and bulky samurai effectively parkouring around and climbing a tower. You can’t because Yasuke literally is not able to. If you want to be swift and agile, you use Naoe. If you want to just play as the Kool Aid Man bursting through walls, you play as Yasuke. Both are very different, but equally fun in their own rights.

One of the things that strike me the most was how great the combat felt. It’s impactful, tight, and polished. The classic AC games never had combat as a main strength. They tried doing the Arkham style combat which made it all trivial and then the RPG-style AC titles came in and I’ve always felt that they were a bit floaty and too dependent on takedown animations for some sense of spectacle that can only last for so long. Combat in Assassin’s Creed Shadows feels deliberate. Yasuke can take and dish out a whole lot more damage while Naoe runs circles around enemies, slashing at them until they drop. Again, very different, but very fun whichever you chose to engage with.

The stealth system is a bit more robust here than any other modern AC title in recent memory. There’s now a strong focus on extinguishing light sources to provide more dark cover. You can even use Naoe’s grapple rope for easier traversal or to open more angles for takedowns. It’s not as intuitive as the web from PlayStation’s Spider-Man games but the idea is there.

Needs to hit the target

There’s a lot riding on the success of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. It’s a win that Ubisoft is in need of to not only revitalize the sentiment around the studios but also to reignite excitement for the AC franchise altogether.

From what I played so far of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it can confidently say that it’s showing a lot of promise. The multiple delays might be annoying for those who were excited to get their hands on it, but I can’t deny the quality and polish of the build that I was able to play. No game breaking bugs, barely any noticeable frame drops, and the world, character models, and overall presentation is incredibly stunning throughout.

There’s no reason why people shouldn’t be excited for this game. It has a great gameplay foundation, a beautiful long-awaited setting, and you can tell that the developers really care about polishing this up before it reaches the finish line.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows might just be exactly what the franchise needs to turn heads and bring back the ones that left.