Aside from stabbing folks, fighting the pope, and launching yourself into unrealistically clean bales of hay, it's likely the first thing that comes into your mind when you think about Assassin's Creed is some hardcore parkour. Skulking about on the rooftops before flying down to dispatch your target helped the original game stand out at the time, and even with the series changing its identity to become more of an RPG (getting rid of those stealthy one-hit-kill stabs), parkour has remained a huge part of the series.
Ahead of the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows later this month, PC Gamer chatted with experts from the parkour team Storror to judge how realistic traversal is in the series. And naturally, some of the ridiculous feats the assassins can pull off throughout the series – like jumping off a massive cathedral and landing in a nice bush, landing on a tightrope perfectly at high speed, or reverse-ziplining up a building – were dubbed unrealistic. But the two seemed downright offended by Yasuke's parkour skills.
At the start of the video, we see a heavily armored Yasuke jumping across some beams to reach the top of a nearby cliff. Considering he's got a massive club and naginata on his back and is decked out in armor, he's unsurprisingly a bit slow-going compared to the likes of Ezio, but that's not what picked up the experts' attention. When he finally arrives at the cliffside, Yasuke climbs up by throwing his leg up onto the cliff and pushing up with his knee, which catches the ire of the pair.
- Assassin's Creed Shadows has "unclimbable surfaces" that force you to find physical handholds because Ubisoft wants to be "more thoughtful" about parkour
- Assassin's Creed Shadows reverses roles to show off Naoe's combat and Yasuke's stealth, and I'm suddenly sold on playing Yasuke like a clumsy Snake in Metal Gear Solid 3
Benj and Toby both recoiled after seeing this, with Benj exclaiming, "You will be canceled out of any parkour community around the world," while Toby goes one step further, dubbing it "a hate crime to parkour." The duo explains that this move, the 'Alpine Knee' is a complete no-no when it comes to parkour, as the knees are "such a sensitive part of your body," with Benj saying that expert parkour athletes "avoid knees and elbows at all costs."
To come to Yasuke's defense, the man isn't a ninja like his colleague (is that an appropriate term for professional killers?), Naoe. He's a big buff samurai with heaps of armor and massive weapons on hand; it's obviously going to be tougher to follow proper parkour etiquette. It's not like Assassin's Creed Origins' Bayek, whose sliding technique when descending down a pyramid was also slaughtered by the duo; that's poor form for a nimble assassin.
Speaking of Assassin's Creed Shadows, from what we've seen, the game's expert difficulty looks like the ideal way to play it.
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Assassin's Creed Shadows' expert difficulty looks like the best way to play since it does way more than just dial up enemy HP bars
Just weeks later, Ubisoft walks back some disappointing Assassin's Creed Shadows news: it will be fully Steam Deck Verified "despite the fact the team thought it would not be the case"
