Assassin's Creed Shadows Review - It's Big Advantage vs Ghost of Tsushima

Thanks to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, we finally have an Assassin’s Creed set in Japan.

It’s a historical setting that fans have wanted for years – because, you know… Ninjas. It’s been a hot topic since Ubisoft revealed Assassin’s Creed: Shadows and decided that the theme of their marketing campaign should be “PR Nightmare” and it also doesn’t help that someone sorta… already made this game?

Watch the Video Review Instead (It has moving pictures and sounds!)

Now, I don’t purposefully want to shock you with what I’m about to say next, but after spending many, many hours galavanting around 16th century Japan, I’m not only blown away by just how beautiful and fun Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is, but I think I might actually like it more than Ghost of Tsushima.

Trust me when I say that this is as much of a surprise to me as it might be to you, especially when I tell you that one of the strangest compliments that I can give this as an Assassin’s Creed game – and this is completely true – is that on more than one occasion, I completely forgot I was actually playing an Assassin’s Creed.

At one point I was admiring one of the hoods I had unlocked, and caught myself thinking it looked a little like the hood designs from Assassin’s Creed, just before I had my “Oh, right” moment a few seconds later.

There’s also one specific feature / capability of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows that, for a lot of gamers, gives it the edge over Ghost of Tsushima, but I’ll get back to that later.

Culture Clash

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been shrouded in controversy since it was announced. Around its choice of protagonists, its historical accuracy and its respect for Japanese culture, I’m mostly putting aside all the online controversy and opinions for a moment and giving you my straight opinion on if Assassin’s Creed Shadows is worth playing.

Assassin’s Creed changed into these big open world RPGs a while back, and it was kind of cool with Origins. Odyssey was cool but too big, and by the time I played Valhalla I was pretty much burned out.

I was so amped for the arrival of Ghost of Tsushima back in 2020, that I actually went on a “Samurai Film Adventure”, and I loved it all. So much so that I made a video about some great Samurai films to watch.

It’s Naoe or Never

Despite that, I still jumped into Assassin’s Creed Shadows not really knowing if there was anything to be excited about and whether or not this was going to just waste my time – something that the recent Assassin’s Creed games have become very good at.

Unlike Origins, Odyssey or Valhalla; AC: Shadows lets you play as and swap between two different protagonists. Naoe, a young, stealthy Japanese woman, and Yasuke, a tall, beefy black African man who comes to Japan with the white folk and impresses a Japanese lord with his size and strength, ultimately being taken in by him and becoming one of his Samurai.

After a short introduction to the game’s two protagonists, things actually kick off with you only playing Naoe for pretty much the entire first act of the game, and sets the stage for the story, as well as getting things like your hub world headquarters up and running and teaching you how most of the game mechanics work.

Speaking of those mechanics, I’ve appreciated quite a lot of Assassin’s Creed Shadows new features and how they’ve been implemented, including customising my HUD to be a lot less intrusive, and the ability to bring up a line on the floor that guides you to your destination – which may not be nearly as cool as Ghost of Tsushima using the wind to guide you, but it’s a whole lot better than auto-riding or big intrusive HUD elements.

Well, when your horse isn’t proving a little difficult to control, that is. I must also note that the Animus mostly stays out of things, and I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.

(REVIEW CONTINUES BELOW)

Solid Sneak

I’m not going to beat around the bush, playing with Naoe has been some of the best, most fun stealth gameplay that I’ve enjoyed in years.

The ability to now go prone and crawl around on rooftops and in the grass gave me some serious Metal Gear Solid 3 vibes, and when combined with other features like the grappling hook and auto cover systems, I just found myself completely immersed and enjoying the experience.

The balance in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is also just so that once things eventually go to hell, it’s just as much fun. Providing you with a host of different weapons, cool moves and abilities, as well as many different ways to either get away, regroup, or just continue to be a damn nuisance.

It’s honestly been great fun.

Season’s Beatings

Naoe’s story also starts expanding more, as you experience her loss, her pain and her need for vengeance.

Something I really appreciate and enjoyed, is that both characters really feel like their skills and abilities are earned within the context of the story, there’s no one here kicking ass just because they believe in themselves.

What’s even more important to me, is that the writing and dialogue always in Assassin’s Creed Shadows feels natural to the characters and the environment, and seems to serve the story at all times, never feeling strangely modern or out of place.

There aren’t a lot of major decisions to make in the game, but when given the choice, I leaned into the “dish best served cold” direction for Naoe, who I really started to get into as a character.

As things progressed, a problem and some questions started to form in my mind: Where is Yasuke, why am I not playing him yet, and very honestly, do I even feel like I need him in this game at all.

The honest answer was, no. 12 hours in, I was enjoying Naoe’s gear and level progression, her Shinobi Assassin gameplay, and her story so much that I actually started getting annoyed by the idea that someone new was going to get involved like an uninvited guest at a dinner party.

Two for the Price of One

Once Yasuke enters the picture, things are already rolling, so you really only have to feel out his differences and go from there and unlike Naoe and her stealthy antics, Yasuke is a human wrecking ball, literally smashing his way through obstacles and delivering super gory executions, big damage and bone crunching hits.

Truth be told, fighting as Yasuke is fun but traversal and exploration is a complete chore compared to Naoe, and it feels like it would have made a lot of sense to have him rather feature as a sort of secondary character that features in the story but you only play as in specific scenarios kind of like Ciri in The Witcher 3.

Not only that, but it would have opened the door for Ubisoft to sell Yasuke story DLC if they wanted, and simultaneously keep Japan front and center.

So Beautiful, It Hertz

Speaking of Japan, the world in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is absolutely gorgeous thanks to jaw-dropping graphics and technical wizardry. The delays paid off too, because even in a pre-release state, the performance felt rock solid and it felt like a really polished experience with only a few very minor bugs along the way. Oh how far we’ve come, Ubisoft.

This is a game that is already beautiful in 60fps performance mode, but staggeringly pretty in the 30fps quality mode and what I highly recommend is the 40fps balanced mode for those who have 120hz screens.

In these modes, the ray-traced lighting and higher levels of detail and image quality really make it look the part, and even if you don’t have the balanced option, I’d argue that it’s possibly worth the drop to 30fps.

I’ve never seen foliage quite like this in a game. The addition and nod to Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films (also seen even more prominently in Ghost of Tsushima) means that the world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows is brought to life by weather. There’s wind blowing through the trees, dust being kicked down the street and leaves whirling around you as you perform acrobatic assaults on your enemies.

Forza Horizon: Zero Dawn

Similar to a system like Forza Horizon 5, Assassin’s Creed Shadows cycles through seasons, and not only do they each bring a unique visual appearance, but they affect behaviour in the world as well.

NPCs are dressed warm in winter, and castles or compounds may have less security to deal with in the rain or snow as the fancy-pants high bloods go inside to stay warm while the grunts have to stay outside and freeze their butts off. Well, not for long, anyway.

I could go on for ages about things like the really impressive and unique character animations, or the system that accurately places your feet on the environment in a way that I don’t think I’ve either seen or noticed in any other game before, at least not to this degree.

We Don’t Do That Here

The sound design and music is also beautiful and worth writing home about, but please, make sure you use the immersive mode for audio, as playing the game in full Japanese with subtitles sounds and feels amazing (although I wish Yasuke spoke with a slightly more broken Japanse and sounded a little less like a man who has lived in Japan all his life).

I swapped over to English at times to test out the difference, and a lot of it sounds laughable and pulled me out of the experience so hard compared to the accurate languages and their voice acting.

I very particularly disliked the choice of Naoe’s English voice artist, especially when her Japanese voice sounds perfectly suited to her age, while the English voice just sounds… wrong.

Remember, Immersive mode on. You won’t regret it.

Shin-Ubi Warrior

So, when it comes to the whole world and experience provided in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, you’ve still got a lot of those Ubisoft things to do.

This includes finding scrolls at temples, to unlocking new ability levels, doing side missions, hub world building, upgrades, shrines you can pray at for boosts, relationships you can form to unlock abilities in combat, and a whole lot more.

What I can tell you is that for someone like me, who is more interested in fun gameplay, a beautiful world to explore, and a campaign story with characters I want to follow, it’s checked pretty much every box so far in the time I’ve spent playing.

I’m not one of those 200+ hour Assassin’s Creed people, and I definitely haven’t spent that amount of time in AC Shadows yet.

So, if you’re one of those fans, I can’t really tell you what you’re going to get out of it in the long run and if it feels better or worse than Valhalla, Odyssey and Origins in terms of grinding, equipment and general bloat.

The Right Direction

If you’re looking for a traditional Assassin’s Creed experience a la Altair or Ezio, you’re not going to find it here.

However, if you’re worried about yet another open-world Assassin’s Creed slog, I’m really happy with the experience I’ve had playing AC Shadows.

Despite times where missions might force you to have to run off and do some side things to progress, I could have the fun, story-based game I was looking for in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, knowing full well that there’s hours and hours of content available for me to unravel and work through if I wanted it.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows vs Ghost of Tsushima / Yotei

I started my review by saying that Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has one feature that I think gives it the edge over Ghost of Tsushima, and it’s the kind of feature which many GoT fans might not even realise, and that is a multi-platform release.

Sure, you can play Ghost of Tsushima on PC now that it’s finally out, but you couldn’t at launch and you still can’t and likely never will on Xbox, of course.

So the argument can’t be made to an Xbox gamer that Ghost of Tsushima is better than Assassin’s Creed Shadows, simply because they’ll only have access to one of them, and with the release of the Switch 2 coming, there’s maybe a chance they’ll get a version to work on there for Nintendo gamers too.

Is that fair on Ghost of Tsushima as a game, not really, but for actual gamers, it can make all the difference in the world.

Final Verdict

I’m still genuinely stunned that I went from barely caring about this game’s release, to realising that I’m absolutely in love with it. I also can’t believe that while I struggled a little to get into Ghost of Tsushima when it released on PS4, this hooked me early, and completely.

I’ve enjoyed my time with Assassin’s Creed Shadows immensely. The stealth gameplay is great, the combat is a lot of fun, the world is a marvel to behold, and the delays seemed to have paid off by delivering a very high quality, polished experience on console – and I very highly recommend it.