For years, we have been asking for an Assassin’s Creed set in feudal Japan. With Assassin’s Creed Shadows, that wish is finally coming true—and not a moment too soon.

A Stunning Game World

The world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows is breathtaking. Ubisoft has gone all out to capture the beauty of Japan—something that likely wouldn’t have been possible on older hardware. The game's beauty lies in a combination of technologies: reflections in rain puddles, dense foliage swaying dynamically in the wind, and realistic weather and seasonal effects.

Seeing is Believing

Screenshots hardly do this game justice—you have to see it in motion. Watching clouds drift, leaves rustle, and sunlight cast striking shadows creates a rich and vibrant color palette. Cinematically, Shadows also impresses. While facial animations still leave something to be desired, the cutscenes consist of stunning wide shots and intimate close-ups. Akira Kurosawa would be proud.

But Japan’s beauty in Shadows isn’t just about the graphics—it’s also about scale. When you first climb a tree and spot Osaka in the distance between rolling hills, you know you can go there. You also know you can’t just take a straight path through forests and mountains. Such vistas spark a sense of adventure, and every few steps, the game treats you to breathtaking views—majestic pagodas, serene hot springs, and idyllic waterfalls. Shadows captures it all.

The audio experience completes the immersion. In winter, the world feels quieter under the snow, while in spring, crickets create a deafening symphony. And when you suddenly hear the air pressure change, see the wind shift, and hear distant thunder, you know your speakers are about to deliver something special.

Stronger Together

This praise for the audiovisual experience could go on for paragraphs, but Assassin’s Creed Shadows excels in more than just its visuals. The setting brings a refreshing change to the series. The game takes place in late 16th-century Japan, a period torn apart by war. You play as both Naoe, a rural daughter, and Yasuke, the African samurai. What do they have in common? A shared hatred for a secretive organization manipulating the war from behind the scenes.

At first glance, Shadows follows the familiar Assassin’s Creed formula—an open world where you hunt down a list of targets one by one. But what sets it apart are its two protagonists. Naoe, as a shinobi, is the most agile character in the franchise, effortlessly running across rooftops, using a grappling hook to scale pagodas in seconds, and striking mercilessly from the shadows. Yasuke, on the other hand, is a walking tank—barely able to climb but smashing through walls and enemies alike.

At a certain point in the story, you can switch between Naoe and Yasuke at almost any time while exploring. Some missions are specific to one character, but many activities can be tackled with either. Naoe is often the better choice due to her stealth and agility, but switching between them is seamless. While Naoe can throw shuriken, only Yasuke can wield a teppo (firearm). Despite these differences, the controls remain tight and responsive—if you take a hit, it's almost always your own fault.

Beyond gameplay, the dynamic between Naoe and Yasuke adds depth. Naoe, though a native, is an unrefined rural girl unfamiliar with etiquette. Yasuke, a foreigner, can never fully blend in but has been accepted into the upper classes as the right-hand man of warlord Oda Nobunaga. They complement each other perfectly—when Naoe gets too aggressive in conversation, Yasuke acts as her conscience. Special credit goes to Yasuke’s voice actor, Tongayi Chirisa, whose deep, warm voice gives Yasuke a sense of calm and restraint. The rare moments when Yasuke does lose his composure feel all the more impactful.

A Coherent Experience

The interplay between Naoe and Yasuke makes Assassin’s Creed Shadows a refreshing entry in the series. While it features two perspectives, it tells a single, focused story—without unnecessary complexity from mythology or multiple branching narratives. There’s a minimal Animus subplot, but it’s barely noticeable, which works in the game’s favor. Ubisoft has also included subtle nods to earlier games, enough for longtime fans to appreciate without overcomplicating the story.

Side missions and other activities also have more depth this time. As expected, the game includes a home base, but this time, you can fully customize and decorate it. One side activity involves creating oil paintings, which you can then hang in your home. You can even adopt animals you encounter, meaning your hideout can be filled with kittens and baby foxes if you want. It’s fun to collect souvenirs for your base, though the gameplay benefits are minimal—so if you choose to ignore this feature, it won’t hinder your experience.

XP? Get Rid of It!

That said, Shadows isn’t without flaws. It still follows the level-based progression system from previous games, which remains more of a hindrance than a feature. Each area and mission has a designated level requirement. If your level is too low, enemies can kill you with a single hit. While targets are often presented in groups, if you don’t engage with side content, you might not be strong enough to take on most of them—sometimes not even a single one. This forces you to grind side missions and activities just to level up enough to proceed.

This creates absurd moments where everyone in the game talks about how strong and fearsome Yasuke is—yet in the wrong area, a drunken samurai can kill him effortlessly. However, after a few hours of grinding, the same enemy, with the same gear, suddenly becomes easy to defeat. A humorous side effect of the seasonal system is that this hypothetical drunk samurai might stand in the same field from spring to winter, waiting for you to level up before you can finally fight him.

"Freedom" is also a questionable aspect of Shadows. The game frequently presents dialogue options that give the illusion of choice, but in most cases—even when deciding the fate of a target—the outcome is the same. Assassin’s Creed has never been Mass Effect or Baldur’s Gate, where choices genuinely shape the story, so it might have been better not to suggest otherwise.

Almost Flawless

Fortunately, Assassin’s Creed Shadows gets far more right than it does wrong. Technically, the game is solid, offering a Performance Mode (60fps) and a Quality Mode (30fps). Players with a 120Hz TV can even opt for a balanced 40fps mode. The good news? The game runs smoothly in all modes, so you can choose what suits you best.

In terms of polish, Shadows is one of the most refined Assassin’s Creed games in years. After 17 hours, I encountered my first oddity—Naoe riding Yasuke’s horse. After 30 hours, I noticed a small stream flowing uphill. The first real bug appeared over 45 hours in, when a late-game battle crashed multiple times. Annoying in the moment, but considering the franchise’s history, the fact that such issues are this rare is a big improvement.

According to Japanese philosophy, we should embrace imperfections. That’s easy to do when the rest of the game world is this breathtaking.