Assassin's Creed Shadows is Ubisoft at its most freewheeling. Its feudal Japan open world is vast, and you can spend many hours picking at its edges – visiting shrines, emptying castles of their loot, or simply pottering around in photo mode – without actually engaging with its story. But even the main course isn't immune to that looser approach. The vast majority of the game's narrative revolves around picking off members of the Shinbakufu, but each target's associated quests are fairly self-contained and can be tackled in a pretty loose order.
It's a departure from the style of past Assassin's Creed games, which have traditionally been more linear and offered clearer signposting through busy UI. Speaking to GamesRadar+, creative director Jonathan Dumont explains that Ubisoft Quebec saw its role in Assassin's Creed Shadows' open world structure as "guiding – and less telling".
"We've really felt that, from the exploration point of view, we wanted to change it up a little bit and [make players] feel that you're a little bit more part of the journey," says Dumont. "I think the result is fun."
Warning: this feature contains spoilers for the ending of Assassin's Creed Shadows
End of the road?
Check out our Assassin's Creed Shadows review if you're still on the fence about jumping in
Based on how much of my time in Assassin's Creed Shadows has been spent wandering, I'm inclined to agree. With branches of the main quest and a wealth of side activities spread all over the map, you can find meaningful adventure by hopping on your horse and exploring. You don't need to have an objective for setting out, but purpose is easy enough to find on the road.
The only downside – to me, at least – is that Assassin's Creed Shadows never quite brings all of those scattered stories back into one linear track in the same way the game's story opens with. I was expecting a little more of a cinematic conclusion, a joining of Yasuke and Naoe's personal quests, and was a little surprised when the credits rolled after wrapping up one of Naoe's personal quests. It's a rather open ending, feeling less conclusive and more like a setup for something larger: Naoe discovers her mother is still alive and pledges to find her, while Yasuke's own story ends after killing the Templar who murdered his mother.
"It was important to say that our characters' story continues – or their lives continue – and it's not just 'the end' and we close the curtain," says Dumont, discussing the forward-facing finale. "We do want to have more stories with them, through post-launch as well as our DLC, so there's a part of that story that continues there."
"But, you know," he laughs, "it's hard to end such a long story [with the intention of it being] open-ended, or at least give you an opportunity to keep playing after that, without wrapping it too hard. I think it hits the curiosity – that you want to know what happens to the characters – while still completing a good portion of what they set out to do in the early-game. Hopefully, people enjoy that, but I understand that it's difficult to pace with the open world, and having those open-ended quests, the more autonomy-driven narrative in the second half of the game."
From an outside perspective, hooking one cohesive story through a broad group of main quests sounds like a nightmare. Not only that, but for the vast majority of these quests, players can switch between two very distinct characters at will. "It's challenging," admits Dumont, laughing at the understatement.
"I think the toughest thing is pacing," he explains. "Honestly, it's not necessarily the non-linear [elements]. There are difficulties with that – there are things you need to complete in a certain order to have a good narrative [...] but I think pacing is the difficult part, because you're accustomed to following a certain beat, and then could go a fairly long stretch without having the two characters come back together, or you could be doing different things in the open world."
Dumont points to some of the smaller moments in the game, in which we get to see Naoe and Yasuke's relationship deepen, as efforts to combat that potential disconnect. The pair can discuss their past over a drinking session which ends with Naoe waking up on a roof, for example, or their hopes and dreams during a scenic spot of cloudgazing. These are linear, activating only after the player has passed certain milestones, and Dumont says they bring a "certain order" to match Assassin's Creed Shadows' less linear elements.
Given how uniquely this all sits in comparison to even the best Assassin's Creed games, the shots that Assassin's Creed Shadows takes feel bold – the sort of risks you would perhaps expect smaller studios (with vastly smaller production costs and expectations) to take. It's Ubisoft at its most ambitious, though Dumont says the company "often" takes some risks in the series. But it begs the question: now that Assassin's Creed's most in-demand setting has been realized – with a surprising amount of innovation we've seen from other RPGs – where does Ubisoft go from there?
"There's quite a [few] other settings that are interesting," says Dumont, picking his words carefully to avoid sparking speculation. "We can look at the base that we have with Shadows and take a look at where it could go from the RPG side, for sure. But I think the setting does shape a lot more than we think."
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