Assassin's Creed Shadows preview — can dual protagonists make double the RPG?

After spending a few hours with the new AC game at a Ubisoft preview event, we can now share our Assassin's Creed Shadows preview!

Heidi Nicholas

Published 23 Jan 2025

Here are my Assassin's Creed Shadows preview impressions after spending a few hours with the new Japan-set AC game at a Ubisoft preview event. Assassin's Creed Mirage changed the formula to emulate the feel of the older games, but this new AC title is following in the footsteps of other recent entries, so perhaps we'll see it aiming for a spot with the best RPGs on Xbox. Here are our first thoughts on the game after playing a work-in-progress build.

Can Ubisoft make AC Shadows a step forward for the series?

Those Assassin's Creed Shadows achievements are yet to arrive
Release date: March 20, 2025
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PC

My few hours in the game let me take a look at how its dual protagonists fare with two key Assassin’s Creed areas: stealth and combat. Right from the start, you can feel the difference between the two. Naoe is noticeably faster and more agile, incorporating a lot of light, rapid attacks, and acrobatic movements. Yasuke is much stronger with slower, weightier movements and a lot of power behind his attacks.

Naoe has a lot more climbing ability and can make a fast getaway, but is more likely to be overwhelmed by strong opponents or multiple enemies. Yasuke is much more proficient in full-on combat.

As handy as it is to fall back on super-powered abilities like Eivor or Kassandra had in earlier AC games, I normally favor the stealthy approach, and so I was curious to see how AC Shadows handled this: whether you were free to mostly stick with one character, or were encouraged to swap. As fun as Naoe's abilities are, it also turned out to be surprisingly useful, if she was having trouble in one area, to escape, switch to Yasuke as soon as I could, and then send him powering back through.

I also liked how earning the “Wanted” status in the game worked as an encouragement to switch characters. Like in earlier games, guards can spot you and set off an alarm to call for reinforcements. Guards will attack on sight, and just going from point A to point B means spending an inordinate amount of time dodging enemy patrols to avoid getting spotted and held up every five minutes.

This can be an irritation when it comes to exploration or when you’re just trying to quickly move through an area. You can lose that Wanted status by waiting until the next season, but you can also manage it by switching characters. In this way, if I didn’t want to bother with troublesome guards intent on catching Naoe, I could just switch to Yasuke. This seems like a good way of encouraging us to invest in both characters and improve their skills and equipment across the board.

While both characters have their advantages, however, their relative disadvantages can again be a frustration. Sometimes it’s funny — all those ropes slung helpfully between buildings to aid the aspiring assassin definitely can’t take Yasuke’s weight, and when I tried it out, they snapped and sent him plummeting back into the midst of things below.

Sometimes, it’s a bit more of a pain. Naoe is a much more able climber, for instance. That grappling hook is very nice, although it’s a lot smoother to climb up and down to a fixed point than it is to swing across gaps. Yasuke often has to go around looking for a much longer route to get to a point that Naoe could easily reach in moments.

He also moves more slowly — I sent him through a trapdoor and below a building to get a treasure, and it felt like there might have been time to get up, stretch, and put the kettle on while waiting for him to crawl through and find it.

To be fair, this makes sense in the game’s context. Yasuke has a full set of armor and heavy weapons and isn’t likely to favor sneaking below buildings rather than facing enemies head-on. These different capabilities also mean that the dual protagonists aren’t just identical and interchangeable and, because of that, we need to put some thought into how we play and who we want to play as.

But it does make for a dilemma if you’re just trying to nab the last bits of loot in a restricted area. You can’t always switch characters straightaway (if you’re in combat, for instance) so if you’re trying to clear a fort, do you keep nipping outside to swap characters every time you need one particular skillset? Or do you just stick as one person, but spend ages looking for a way for Yasuke to climb that dang roof?

It’s too soon to tell how much of a pain this switching around might prove to be, but I do appreciate the range in weapons for the two characters. It feels very odd, after wandering around in ancient settings for Mirage, Valhalla, and Odyssey, to have firearms again. Yasuke’s Teppo rifle is powerful and handy in a pinch, but it's also slow to reload and fire, so we’ll need to rely on a combination of weapons.

When it comes to Naoe, it’s worth remembering that assassination attempts don’t always work either. This is an interesting twist (even if it is a bit embarrassing when Naoe’s intended victim reverse-Unos her) and adds an extra element of challenge to combat encounters.

She has the usual throwable weapons and stealth options, as well the more powerful Kusarigama: a ball-and-chain weapon which, while slower to use, is great against multiple enemies. Both have katanas and other weapons, while Naoe also has the Tanto and Hidden Blade combo.

You’ve got the usual light and heavy attack options, as well as Posture Attacks (like charged attacks) for more damage. Along with the usual variations of breaking armor for stronger enemies or parrying to put them into a vulnerable state, you can also apparently call on the help of your allies in combat; Naoe, for instance, can direct an ally to perform a stealth attack.

Speaking of combat does bring me to one big point, however: the swap around of the crouch and dodge buttons. When this was first announced, I did think it might cause some initial trouble, and sure enough, I’ve been rolling around when I wanted to crouch, and bobbing into a standing position and back again when trying to dodge.

While these combat techniques might, at the very least, take my enemies by surprise, they don’t make for the most stealthy assassin experience. Hopefully, this will only be an issue at the start before we adapt to the change.

The abilities I saw for both characters were pretty handy and helped to break up the usual light-attack-heavy-attack-dodge-parry business (there was a powerful kick ability to send enemies flying; a nice call-back to a similar move in Odyssey — remember booting enemies off of cliffs?). The variety in fighting styles was also interesting: Yasuke is so strong, for instance, that he can lift enemies after they’ve been impaled on a katana.

When it comes to stealth, it does feel like there’s a bit of a challenge there with how quickly enemies can spot and react to you. On the other hand, the fact that you can crouch mere feet from them and not be seen because you’re in a little shadow does seem to be taking the game’s name a bit far (although being able to shoot lights to create more shadows for yourself is a nice touch).

Certain combat moves are accompanied by cinematic splashes of white, black, and red, and indeed, in many areas, the game does look gorgeous. I was playing a work-in-progress build, and so there were occasional glitches, flashes, and the like, but it was nice to see such vibrant, colorful settings — like how vivid Odyssey was — before we departed all that for dreary, rainy England in the next game.

There are plenty of atmospheric effects at play, with breezes, swirling leaves, and bright sunsets adding a more immersive element to exploration. The destructible environments also add a little chaos into the mix — trying to hide as enemies are chopping down bamboo clumps and foliage does tend to make things a bit more hectic.

I did notice a more pared-back exploration experience — a nice change for the series. Even though we’ve (sadly) got no eagle friend this time, you’ve still got those high vantage points where you identify points of interest to go and check out.

From my hours with Shadows, it feels more as though you’re encouraged to explore naturally rather than having information shoved in your face. You can also send out scouts to gather more information, giving you more detail to work with when exploring for a quest.

I’ve only scratched the surface of AC Shadows so far, but I did see the occasional side activity, like sneaking up to picturesque scenes and painting the animals there. I’m hoping this bodes well for exploration being more rewarding in Shadows than it ended up feeling in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which often seemed a little bloated when it came to its massive open world.

I didn’t see the hideout itself (we've already covered our high hopes for the Hideout) but I did come across what seemed to be one of several mini safe spaces. Like in AC Mirage, these seemed to be areas where you could do things like refill tools, pick up contracts, and check on Hideout business.

On that note, it does seem like money will be more useful in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, instead of something you collect endlessly and only use for occasional necessities. I had to pay to unlock this safe space, for instance, and it seems you might need to spend to unlock more scouts too. This, coupled with mechanics like marking resources for allies to collect while you’re out exploring, helps make the idea of a network of allies and hideout community feel more alive and active.

Assassin's Creed games usually save the coolest loot for exploration and clearing out forts, but I've already seen some great options for gear for both protagonists, and I'm desperately hoping this extends to mounts as well.

Let me just digress to a purely minor, personal gripe I had in the preview: why does everything in these games keep aiming to look better, except for those poor horses? Why can we spring for cool Assassin getups while horses are left as stringy-maned, arthritic after-thoughts? I know it's Assassin's Creed, not Horse's Creed, but still. OK, rant over!

Heidi's final thoughts —

I'm excited to see this new AC game step out of the shadows of previous entries

The general idea about Assassin’s Creed is that if you’ve played one, you have a good idea of what to expect in the next iteration. This isn't always the case — AC Mirage, for instance, aimed for a similar feeling to older AC games rather than continuing the massively open-world RPG elements of recent entries — but it can ring true.

I will say that this first glimpse I had of Assassin’s Creed Shadows felt smoother than the other RPG entries in several areas, as though Ubisoft Quebec has tidied up some of the messier threads of early games.

To a certain extent, that sense of déjà vu is there. While it’s too soon to tell if the usual problems will rear their heads; I can say I had a great time with the preview and walked away feeling excited to play more when it finally releases.

AC Shadows' setting of feudal Japan looks beautiful, and I'm keen to explore it to the fullest. I still think Naoe will be my preferred character to play as overall, but I enjoyed testing the strengths of both and the detailed differences in movement and combat styles for each was a great touch.

I'm hoping for more rewarding exploration and the acknowledgment that more doesn't always mean better (whether that's the size of the map or the enormous cast of NPCs we've seen in earlier games). At any rate, we've waited a long time for an AC game in feudal Japan (I'm not that fussed about the series' boring modern bits, and, if we're being honest, are you really?) so I’m hoping this will be a step forward for the series.

With a fair few games under its belt, this series is well on its way with the 14th mainline entry of the Assassin's Creed games in order. So, are you excited about exploring Japan? Let me know in the comments below!

More Assassin's Creed Shadows stories:

Xbox Series X|S

Written by Heidi Nicholas

Heidi tends to lean towards indie games, RPGs, and open-world games on Xbox, and when not playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, happily installs every new wholesome game that appears on Xbox Game Pass, before diving back into favorites like The Witcher 3. She's looking forward to Age of Mythology Retold, Everwild, Fable, and Avowed on the Xbox horizon. Heidi graduated with an MA in English Literature before joining the TrueAchievements team.