Assassins Creed: Shadows Xbox Series X Review 9/10 “Sharper combat and characters make this a top target” 🗡️ @assassinscreed

I’ve always been a big Assassins Creed fan from the start, which is amazing when you replay the first game in the franchise and spend most of it shouting at Altair for how badly he controls as he leaps and jumps in any direction he feels like. Now, I know what you’re thinking - the ‘i’ in Altair doesn't have a diaeresis over it in this article, and that's because even after looking how to do it on Google, I still couldn’t work out how to do it so maybe I shouldn't be as critical of old Altair, he won’t take direction, and I won’t spell his name correctly.

Anyway, I actually became a bigger fan with the change of direction that Origins brought to the series, although I loved all the previous games, I must say that the last few have delivered some of my favourite Assassins Creed experiences, so when this was announced - combined with the fact that I really like the Feudal Japan setting - meant I was buzzing with excitement.Assassins Creed Shadows focuses on the two main characters Naoe and Yasuke, Naoe gets embroiled in political machinations after a box belonging to her family ancestors is stolen and the her father is killed, so she vows to take revenge and retrieve the box. Yasuke on the other hand is taken in by Lord Nobunaga, a leader trying to unify and maintain order in Japan. The story is good but it is a little cliched and is exactly what you think when you hear of the setting alone of Feudal Japan... you might hear the word ‘honour’ come up quite a few times, The great thing is, even with Shadows relying on some over-used tropes and cliches, the one thing it really has going for it is the likeability of the characters, I thought both of the main characters were interesting and I cared what happened to them, even more shocking - the side characters were equally compelling. You meet a small child named Junjiro, and whereas in a lot of video games the presence of a kid can usually cause irritancy (there are only a handful that are tolerable) luckily, he is one of the good ones, he was a pleasant and engaging character that added to the story – and I found that a lot of the people you meet throughout the world fell into this mould, so though the plot is a bit predictable, it really is enhanced with the full cast of characters.

Gameplay is largely the same as previous titles, combat does feel a bit sharper but the parkour is largely the same, the one thing that genuinely surprised me was the difference in combat between the two protagonists, I thought they would have small variations but mostly play the same way, but no - they have two varying play-styles. Naoe is the more traditional of the two, she has all the stealth mechanics of a typical assassin and she is quick and nimble as well as having a hidden blade, for stealth - she is who you use. Yasuke is just a power brute, he has no hidden blade and his parkour skills are very basic, if you need to scale a building he is not your man but his power is impressive when you need someone to cut down enemy after enemy with brute force.

Naoe is what a lot of missions require as stealth is such a prominent focus in the series, but Yasuke is absolutely the right choice for some missions. Early on, three targets you need to assassinate are in a court yard surrounded by guards, I tried as Naoe at first but it was clear that it wasn't the job for her - it was Yasuke time! Barrel in with strength! I was quite amazed with the contrast between them, being able to do the Sparta kick did make the choice harder, as being able to use the hidden blade is rad - but booting people through walls or off heights is equally as cool.

Throughout your missions the bulk of the experience is your traditional ‘assassins affair’, you are given many people to assassinate, castles to work through to get new gear, many side quests to complete - nothing is really new here, if you didn’t like where the series had gone there will be nothing here to change your mind. But, if like me you love it, then you have about 60 hours of goodness to look forward to. One change has been brought in and that's using scouts to find your targets, you are given a description of where they could be and you have several scouts to find them, you open your map, pick a target, and scan the area. If you are successful they will now appear on the map, if not, the scout fails and you either have to pick an area again or refill your scouts- which costs money, It makes you more aware of the map and locations and does mean money in the game is worth having.

Visually, Assassins Creed Shadows is stunning, the colours of the trees are breathtaking, which is a weird sentence but when you see the greens and browns of the leaves mix with the sun and water around it, it really is a sight to see. I’m personally not a photo mode guy but some of the shots you could capture here really makes me see why some people are.

The biggest criticism has to be the camera, it does not mind wandering around and at the times when you are surrounded by many enemies or if you’re in a building it can be a hindrance. Weirdly, when you enter certain larger buildings they would have these narrow staircases you climb and my god, does the camera move into weird places when using them, it spins around like nobody's business. Scalability is another thing that’s starting to get lost here, you don’t really have much to climb, obviously you can climb most things but I’ve started to miss the big cities like Paris where things felt very grand, although I understand that when Shadows is set is a factor in this, I hope that the next game can be brought further forward in time to a more scalable setting. The voice acting can be a bit hit and miss throughout, it’s mostly good, but some performances especially from villagers and people that you pass is pretty rough.

(For clarity I had played this after the 2nd big update, so it had some quality of life improvements.)

SUMMARY
If - like me - you love the last few Assassins Creed titles then this will be right up your alley, great combat and some engaging characters really make this a game worth playing. If you have the opposite opinion, then Shadows does nothing really different from those titles that will change your mind.

9/10

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