It's about time Assassin's Creed made its way to Japan.
Granted, to some it might be coming too little too late. Ghost Of Tsushima took on feudal Japan in 2020 to massive critical and commercial success, thanks in part to a terrific story and even better swordplay. However, this is Assassin's Creed, a franchise that has cut its teeth on turning history into a virtual playground for nearly two decades now, and after sitting through an extended hands-off preview at Summer Game Fest, it's clear that selling it short would be a mistake.
Our presentation started with the same gameplay demo shown at the Ubisoft Forward presentation. We saw the same seasons change, we pet the same shiba inu (of course, because he is the best boy), and we spoke to the same elderly woman in Fukuchiyama. Yasuke took down the corrupt samurai Jiro, and then we saw Naoe scale the walls of Fukuchiyama Castle in classic Assassin's Creed style to take out Lord Hayashi. Even with a second viewing, we were still impressed.
However, our demo then went back to where the player chooses who gets to take out Hayashi between Naoe and Yasuke, and this time it was the hulking samurai who was selected to carry out the mission. This offers a completely different way to approach the same goal, and it highlights the amount of agency having dual protagonists like this gives the player. Some people aren't as good at stealth as others, and Yasuke is made with them in mind.
The samurai walks through the front door, basically, and takes out every enemy he sees with brutal precision. At one point, he faces three different enemies at once, and with only three swings of his sword, the entire trio is left face down in the mud. However, this guns-blazing approach does have its extra obstacles; at one point, as Yasuke attempted to cross a bridge, a massive enemy wielding a giant hammer emerged from the doorway. This was a tougher battle, one that required a little more thought, but eventually Yasuke took the giant warrior down on his way to eliminating Hayashi as well.
The dichotomy between Naoe and Yasuke is, for us, what makes Assassin's Creed Shadows so interesting right now. In more recent Assassin's Creed games with two protagonists, we had to choose which one we wanted in the beginning, and we were beholden to that choice for the rest of the game. We locked in to being Kassandra in Odyssey (sorry Alexios), and while we did eventually meet the one we didn't choose, the main story beats remained the same.
In Valhalla, the choice solely came down to whether we wanted Eivor to be male or female. With Shadows, the series is returning to the Syndicate way of doing things, with two equally important protagonists that contribute to the story, but even then it improves on the idea by giving us the choice of who to use per mission, which is great.
Oh, and the player agency motif doesn't stop there, because after we watched Yasuke take down Hayashi, we returned again to the point where the player had to choose. This time, the person playing the demo chose Naoe again, but instead of stealthing up walls and across rooftops, Naoe now played the role of the aggressor as she eliminated enemies with the same ruthless efficiency as her samurai companion. She fought the big bad on the bridge, she took down the trio of swordsmen, and then she defeated Hayashi by getting right into his face rather than sneaking through the pond.
This means that not only will we be able to choose between the two Assassins, but we then can choose how we approach taking down a target. This starts to raise a lot of questions in our heads: How offensive-minded can Naoe get? Will we be able to take the giant Yasuke on a stealth mission? Will the nature of the story force the heroes into "impossible" situations, such as Yasuke being forced to stealth? The demo left us fascinated, and we're hoping these questions are answered quickly.
Assassin's Creed Shadows finally takes the long-running franchise to an era fans have wanted for years, but it still faces an uphill climb. Other games have taken on feudal Japan and done it well, which means Shadows must figure out to stand on its own two feet. Ubisoft's answer, it seems, is doubling down on how much control the player has over the story and its leads, and based on the demos we watched, we are inclined to agree with their ideas. We'll see for sure if this was successful when Assassin's Creed Shadows launches on November 15th.
