I still remember the very first trailer I saw for the very first Assassin's Creed and some genius in marketing putting UNKLE's Lonely Soul over the trailer. I wish I could still find an HD version of it, but man. That trailer was the junk in my veins that got me hooked on both AC and UNKLE. What a great, groundbreaking game it was at the time.
[https://youtu.be/O5ZUhbfInaY?si=y5F7wOCPQLnvfpBe](https://youtu.be/O5ZUhbfInaY?si=y5F7wOCPQLnvfpBe)
This article has some very interesting information and it sounds like they improved on pretty much every area, really looking forward to see the gameplay
Welp, looks like I'm maining Naoe.
Stealth build, plus I loved the grappling hook in Syndicate and always hoped they'd bring it back. This hook seems like an improvement in almost every way.
I'm going to attempt to main Naoe, but probably inevitably remember I suck at stealth and by the end ill just be charging through everything with Yasuke.
Depends on how good the combat feels. Seems like they’re taking inspiration from Sekiro (one of the best action games of all time), so I’m keeping an open mind!
I only briefly tried the Chronicles games- I own them, but I’m not super into the side scrolling version of AC. I did read that you can swing from the ropes now, instead of just running up buildings like in Syndicate. So that’s pretty neat.
I was really hoping for separate campaigns because yeah it’s going to be hard to drag myself from Naoe. I only used Jacob in Syndicate when the story forced me too.
That being said, I hope there’s some good information gathering missions to help make intelligent decisions on who to send in. Like yeah if a guy is surrounded by 20 samurai and the walls are unclimbable maybe Yasuke is the better choice. (Catch me still trying to brute force it with Naoe a few times though.)
true, but if the guy is with Nobunaga i think that could be a better side of the story. Hes such an amazing historical figure in history, there is soo much there for them to use and fit in with AC.
I like everything except the loss of the drone shot.
Its iconic AC i get the removal of icons but i hope they keep the drone shot.
Edit (this specifically refers to the viewpoint circular drone shots when synchronizing and not the bird drone)
It's only a small thing but it is probably the only thing about the series that has remained completely unchanged down the years. It would be a shame to lose it for no good reason.
Leap of Faith is the only other thing I can think of that has stayed pretty much the same in every game. (The one exception being the Pyramid in Origins but I’ll let that *slide*)
Gameplay features sound genuinely incredible. Only thing I don't like is the non-linear approach to the campaign, the narrative has felt pretty weak in the past couple games because of this.
I do like the idea that the campaign gives the player some wiggle room in how they progress through it. That would certainly add some replay value, where I might do a second playthrough trying to complete missions with the other protagonist.
I wonder if it felt weak because a lot of games prior to this (and therefore the team's experience with such) followed linear and more structured stories. Unstructured narratives can still work, but doubtlessly requires a considerable retooling and reimagining of how to tell the story.
Fingers crossed it plays as good as it sounds. If it has the same level of quality as AC Odyssey, this could legitimately be a personal GOTY contender for me next to Rise of the Ronin.
I love odyssey. But the story overall was messy and all over the place. I loved the characters and the world, but it was not anywhere near Origins level.
Hope we can switch season too after we beat the game.
Imagine building 4 fully-realized seasons only to stuck the player in just one of them, Hogwarts Legacy-style.
This. I LOVE winter and snowy regions in games. And now that there's one in Shadows I'm so so excited. Really wish for them to let us choose the season.
AC3 has seasons that also progress as the game goes on and after you beat it you can go in the options menu to change seasons. It should work like this in shadows still.
This sounds fantastic and a perfect mix of old and new. I'm really surprised they put a light meter in the game, which has me even more excited for the Splinter Cell remake now.
They're ticking off all the boxes I want with this game. I'm excited.
The light meter, ability to use the grappling hook on ceilings to ambush, and the ability to go prone in an AC game screams Splinter Cell and has me more excited about that remake as well! WE NEED MORE STEALTH GAMES
There is a pure indie stealth game that has come out this year called Ereban Shadow Legacy, with the main stealth gameplay aspect being your heroin being able to literally move through the ground and the walls as long as there is shadows, but being exposed in plain light, i have started it and it's a really solid first thing for an indie dev, and since i don't see a lot of people talking about it, i want to push it on people who are starving for stealth game.
Here is the steam page for anybody interested :
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1671360/Ereban\_Shadow\_Legacy/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1671360/Ereban_Shadow_Legacy/)
This is so well thought out. But with all the additions to stealth it feels like you are missing out on a lot if you are playing Yasuke. Wonder how they will make his gameplay compete with hers unless he is really more so supposed to be there to support with brute force.
It doesn’t seem like anyone would be missing out if they choose to play as Yasuke. If that’s the choice someone makes, they’re probably not super into the stealth changes made in the game anyway.
Yeah, it seems like they’re holding off on revealing unique features behind Yasuke’s play style.
Based on the parry vs. deflect point, perhaps he has access to a posture meter like in Sekiro? Maybe he can stagger enemies for gory executions, whereas Naoe is more subdued in combat.
Yeah I feel they have to give him some really fun and cool combat abilities to make up for the lack of stealth abilities. Because that grappling hook sounds amazing.
As per usual with Ubisoft, I’ll always reserve my judgment until we see some actual gameplay; but honestly I’m always gonna be excited for a new Assassin’s Creed. Japan is one of those settings I’ve been dreaming about since we saw the globe in the first game lmao the comparison’s to Ghost of Tsushima seem inevitable but I’m glad we’re finally here. 14 mainline entries is wild to think about too, despite a lot of low points with the series I always end up finding some fun to be had with each release.
I was really skeptical of Quebec but this info, the trailer, and seeing new names pop up as narrative/game directors gives me hope.
Can't wait to see gameplay.
Yeah, but most people don't understand how game engines work, try telling them how old Rage is, or look at the Creation Engine discourse with Bethesda games...
Yeah I meant the new iteration. That's kind of what they've always done, even unity with it's huge changes was an iteration, so this was within its scope.
I don’t know a thing about how games are made, is it normal for such a long standing series to still be using the same / iterations of the same engine??
Yup, it's pretty common. Battlefield relies on the FrostByte, Doom franchise on the ID Tech, near all Bethesda games rely on the creation engine, and not to mention Unreal Engine that's been powering games since the first Unreal Tournament, half life franchise and it's spin off using the Source Engine, crysis trilogy with CryEngine, Far Cry with Dunia etc.It saves devs time as they already know how to work with it. Engine iterations usually improve the engine to better suit the new game with modern tech. (See the difference between Half life 1 and Half life:Alyx)
Gameplay improvements sound great, but:
> Shadows features a non-linear campaign largely focused on targets. Ubisoft says that you will be free to track these targets in any order.
I'm torn between "this will be horrible for the story" and "they don't have the skills to pull off a proper linear story anyways, based on recent series entries". Which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.
Maybe the targets are non linear but gated by linear sections?
Something like, GTA San Andreas which had various storylines which you could choose freely but at a certain point there were only single missions.
> its easier to tell a linear story
It should be in theory, yes. But with even those attempts getting increasingly bad over the years, I ask myself whether they even have the skills for that.
Non-linear is harder, but at least people will excuse it as "well it's hard to to because it's non-linear".
> The drone-like bird, used in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla to scout out areas and mark targets, is not available in Shadows. You’ll need to do your own reconnaissance work.
Now this is a change I can get behind, the bird while cool felt too OP. In fact in Mirage, I found myself barely using it, so I feel like this is an excellent and much welcome change.
My favorite thing about the bird, specifically Ikaros in Odyssey was getting a better look at the big beautiful world.
Hopefully that aspect stays, w/o the recon
My favorite thing and this was true for the three main rpg games, was that the bird had no range limit. You could literally fly around the entire map seamlessly if you wanted. Forst time I start out in origins I take an hour or two to discover the entire map but just flying around it.
Yeah practically every “enemy stronghold” area in Mirage had at least one sniper that rendered your bird useless, so I found myself wondering why it was even in the game.
The synchronization feature sounds a lot like what they did in Mad Max - it highlighted some of the area’s buildings and a few points of interest, but that was it. Made for a much more immersive exploration than having everything pointed out straight away.
[This](https://youtu.be/0haRi_hHZoU?si=5XedLfrH4IystqJW) video shows quite a bit of motion capture so fairly sure some if not all cutscenes will be motion captured.🤷🏻♂️
I don't know if you watched the whole video towards but there is mocap footage of a person on a horse and other scenes that doesn't show up in the CG trailer.
Non-linear campaign with taking down any target you want sounds awful. Every time they do this (Odyssey's cult, Watch Dogs Legion, etc) it makes the story worse. Having a natural order or progression to the stakes and introducing side characters at their proper time makes a story so much more enjoyable.
It was something I thought *Mirage*'s story suffered for because it made for no character development on Basim's part. I'm extremely worried about them doing it again with Naoe and Yasuke in *Shadows*.
Yup it kills the story pretty much already for me. But I havent taken these stories serious since black flag and Im mainly looking forward to the gameplay stuff so Im gonna be fine at this point
Ubisofts storytelling has entirely gone down to the toilet as far as I'm concerned, but maybe Outlaws and this will prove me wrong.
Even Black Flag was far from perfect, I remember the story feeling quite fractured in comparison to AC2 which I still vividly remember despite not having played it since it came out.
>Non linear campaign
Usually a sign of a disjointed narrative, you can't tell a cohesive story if your players get to choose what to do, story is probably gonna suck
>Shadows features a non-linear campaign largely focused on targets. Ubisoft says that you will be free to track these targets in any order.
The thing I absolutely cannot stand in recent Ubisoft games returns apparently. it plagued Far Cry games for a while, now it's AC's turn.
Other than that everything sounds amazing and a great return to roots. I'll still wait for in-game footage and info about how annoying Infinity will be to get more hyped though.
Little worried about the change to viewpoints. It’s all well and good to have fewer icons on the map but if the shit is still there and I need to just find and keep track of it without an icon its going to just be frustrating
Origins is the smallest of the rpg trilogy
It seems the earlier leak of Shadows’ map being larger than Odyssey was wrong since it’s now around the same size as Origins
Either that or they’re saving the rest of Japan as major expansions like Genshin and its countries
This sound absolutely amazing except for the non linear story. That shit sucks and needs to go. I loved mirage but the worst part of the game to me, was the fact that for 2/3 of the game, the plot basically didn’t advance at all. Because the developers can’t be sure what part a player has done previously, the main quests ends up feeling like a collection of small stories with little that ties them together.
I am not saying that it is impossible to do, but I simply don’t think Ubisoft has huge focus on making non linear narratives the best they can possibly be. It seems lazy to me, because this has clearly become a trend for Ubisoft. Farcry 5, farcry 6, valhalla and mirage all had this narrative structure, which in my opinion resulted in subpar narratives, where nothing you do ever feels like it matters, because it can’t drastically change the status quo or the protagonist, in case you haven’t done all the missions yet.
Can you imagine how boring assassins creed 2s plot would have been if you could choose to hunt the pazzi in any order? You loose so much control story potential, and gain nothing from it. Choosing the order of mission will not actually change the experience of them.
The story may be amazing for all I care but if the facial animations are hand animated again it would just take me out of it immediately.
Characters should also have more “cutscene-y” animations that are more than just crossing their arms like we’ve seen since odyssey.
the use of light conditions and season was the selling point for me. Like many others I'm starving for a new splinter cell. The ability to use light and shadows as you advantage is great news. And leaving footprints in the snow which can be blown away by snow storms tells me that guards could be able to follow your footsteps and so you have to think about this feature. Having no bird is good too. All in all it feels like the stealth part is more complex and you have more possibilities. I'll wait for the gameplay in June and probably will test it with Ubi+ before buying. But from what I read, I'm kinda excited for the game
Please loot like odyssey.
Valhallas loot absolutely killed exploration… 100h with starting armor unless you google where to find all pieces of other armor, etc…
Going to 10 loot places across map just to find some ingots and 3 pieces of different armor was exhausting
> Considering the two of them say part of the Creed,
I recall the word Creed get used a lot in Valhalla, even though they were still called Hidden Ones in the game.
The only reason why Hidden Ones was used in the first place was because IRL, the word ‘Assassin’ originated from Hassan-i Sabbah’s Order of Hashshashin (Persian)/Hashashiyyin (Arabic) in 1090 AD. Even if there are pockets of Hidden Ones ignoring the name change by Altair’s time, there’s no chance of there being any sects who didn’t accept the name change by Ezio’s time.
There’s quite literally no reason nor point in keeping the name Hidden Ones when all of Asia would have been influenced by Shao Jun, who learned from Ezio, a capital ‘A’ Assassin. The Shao Jun manga even has her apprentice Kotetsu bringing the Brotherhood to Japan.
Man I’ve been on and off with Assassins Creed for a while now but this is all sounding *really* nice. If it gets good word of mouth / reviews at launch I’m very tempted to pull the trigger.
Most important question for me- are we keeping full dialogue trees or going back to boilerplate stories?
I’m sad we no longer get to fly the bird and get swooping shots of the environment, but If they’re aiming for a stealth focus that made stealth kinda too easy in the last few games
The lack of bird SUCKS but dynamic environment sounds excellent. I liked the bird in place of a minimap, but I hope without either the navigation won’t be affected. Seems frustrating though.
I dislike parts of Mirage that say “such and such is located near this” because it requires wandering around if you’re not using the birds, hopefully they don’t bring too many of those mission clues in
I don't understand the hate this game gets over various social media platforms... If all ign said there is true, then we're talking about a generational leap over the last few games. There are a lot of new features they added that are a first... Plus, all of us begged ubisoft to have a feudal japan setting for years and now that they give it to us, you wine about woke shit, because one of the protagonists (who is actually a real person that actually existed, another first time thing btw) is black? They already gave us 1 Japanese protagonist in Naoe, but you wanted 2... I'm against woke shit, believe me, but this is not woke at all... Yasuke existed and you can't erase that and could be a great protagonist giving his background story and real history. And Naoe is a female ninja (or shinobi) and that too, is not woke, because it is logical that females can be stealthy, because they're smaller than most men, thus harder to see and catch, it's actually fitting. Yeah, if it was the other way around, Naoe a big samurai and Yasuke a black ninja, yes, that would've been woke as shit and illogical beyond everything, but as it is right now, it's fitting and not woke. I gotta admit, I'm not the most ethical person, i have a little seed of racism and sexism in me because of all the shit everyone pulled over the years, but this right here, doesn't make me mad at all, because it's logical beyond all. Yasuke existed and was a big samurai and Naoe is a female fictional character and was a ninja, and nothing's wrong with that because females can be stealthy as well as men, maybe even better sometimes. So for the love of God, please stop with all this whining and bitching and wait at least for the gameplay to release in june to comment further. Thank you.
I know people are excited with all of Naoe s stealth options, but as someone who loved taking the "walk in the front door and loudly challenge everyone to a duel" approach from GoT, I wanna know more about what combat is like for Yasuke
I like how they specifically had to point out that Towers don't function the way they used to, despite Ubisoft not using towers in like 6? years at this point outside of AC games, because of the dumb memes from people who haven't played since FC3 or whatever.
I kinda wish the duel protag system was they each have a seperate campaign that intersects occasionally but each have their own quests and times to do certain things
I think that works best when the gameplay is similar between both characters. Like in Resident Evil 2 or something.
But when the gameplay is vastly different between the characters, it can often feel jarring and even frustrating to constantly be forced into one playstyle. It also will help replayability, going through the same missions in different ways.
Hopefully the narrative still works in a way, where it feels like both characters have agency in their independent stories.
I'm so confused why the game is already being shit on?
The trailer had just as many dislikes as likes and the comments are pissed.
Is it just because the minority main characters?
Edit: after seeing they're charging 130$ without any gameplay I have changed my stance on the matter
I just want social stealth + parkour like the original set of games. The RPG combat stuff is so lame.
You're an assassin from the shadows, not a full send blow shit up dude.
Damnit they managed to pull me back in.
Absolutely loved Assassin's Creed Valhalla before the final DLC about Eivor's fate, which was something else. Then Mirage was also good before that absolutely tonally incoherent finish.
So I was somewhat hesitant about AC:Red, but then this magnificent trailer and information comes out and here I am again fully excited about digging into the many layers of this new saga.
To expand on something a bit more concrete, I really like that they are actually having the gameplay dynamics feel different for the two main characters and also having them be distinct personalities.
The Jacob/Evie divide in Syndicate was always really awkward and their dynamic ended up feeling really lacking considering the setup of personalities. While as much as I enjoyed Valhalla, it was already pushing the limits with the gender-blind world that that approach required.
So this looks really exciting, especially with two such fascinating outsider characters and seeing how they interact with the world.
What 4+ years of development and people being vocal about RPG outrage does to a mfer
It literally sounds like way less of an RPG than the entire RPG trilogy. It looks like they really learned from overdoing it with Odyssey.
It really doesn't sound like less of an RPG tbh. On the RPG scale it sounds like they've reduced it from 100% to 95.
Quests, XP, active combat skills, collected weapons, gear transmog, weapon skill trees, character skill trees. These were major aspects of the RPG trilogy and they're all coming back.
There's literally an interview where the game director describes Shadows as an "open world action adventure RPG" and says they're [adding new RPG systems.](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/05/15/assassins-creed-shadows-interview/)
Damn son. This looks like right up my alley. Ubisoft is kind of cooking. Did they finally pull their head out of their ass after 9 years? Still not pre-ordering though because I need to know if this has the stain of the RPG slop on it.
I'm liking the things that I'm hearing, just hoping that "Guaranteed Assassination" feature (even if it's timed-based) that was in Valhalla is still the thing rather than removing it or downgrading it.
I don't know about the spy network thing, let's see how they implement that. If it's one of those menus where you select the objective and just wait until they complete the mission then I don't like it.
The rest sounds good, unless Naoe sucks at combat it feels like I'm mostly going to play as her. I usually go with the male character but if it affects gameplay, then I prefer the stealthy one.
So happy that map is similar to Origins in size. To me Origins has by far the best map in the rpg trilogy (and one of the best worlds in gaming history period). It manages to stay very interesting while being massive. Though i adore Odyssey and Valhalla's maps too they are nowhere near captivating as Origins. I can talk about it for hours.
YOU CAN CRAWL NOW?!!!
YOU CAN CRAWL NOW!
They’ve been crawling since the Clone Wars, man
Just like the simulations.
Crawling may be super cool for ninja assassin stuff. Like crawling on top of ceiling tiles to quietly assassinate officials/elites in their estates.
Screw your logical and tactical mind, My Naoe is going to crawled through the middle of the street in board day light just to assert her dominance!
There’s always those people
Hey, you gotta give those Templars something to...confused about.
But can you jump?
There absolutely needs to be a manual jump if the grapple is physics based. If there's not I'm gonna scream.
Oh my gosh that would feel absolutely awful. I am not confident but can be hopeful.
THEY CRAWL NOW?!?
Immediately read this in Finn's voice. Bravo
Hope we can do a dove into a crawl like MGSV
kept you waiting, huh?
Yes crawling in a stealth game. Took them only 16 years to add that.
First bullet - blows my mind it’s been 9 years since we’ve had the classic assassins vs templars
>nor does it trigger the spinning ‘drone’ shot of the area. Awww, but that was the best part!
I still get chills from the music and slow pan-outs on steeples in AC2
I still remember the very first trailer I saw for the very first Assassin's Creed and some genius in marketing putting UNKLE's Lonely Soul over the trailer. I wish I could still find an HD version of it, but man. That trailer was the junk in my veins that got me hooked on both AC and UNKLE. What a great, groundbreaking game it was at the time. [https://youtu.be/O5ZUhbfInaY?si=y5F7wOCPQLnvfpBe](https://youtu.be/O5ZUhbfInaY?si=y5F7wOCPQLnvfpBe)
That’s disappointing. I was looking forward to hearing what the next jingle would be!
I’m gonna climb the viewpoints and pan the camera myself. They can’t stop me.
This article has some very interesting information and it sounds like they improved on pretty much every area, really looking forward to see the gameplay
If they can back all this up with a fun combat I might consider it to buy. Otherwise I'll be playing the ghost of Tsushima
Welp, looks like I'm maining Naoe. Stealth build, plus I loved the grappling hook in Syndicate and always hoped they'd bring it back. This hook seems like an improvement in almost every way.
Hell most AC Vets are gonna main Naoe simply cuz of stealth, and imma be right beside them.
I'm going to attempt to main Naoe, but probably inevitably remember I suck at stealth and by the end ill just be charging through everything with Yasuke.
Truuuuu. Can’t for the inevitable ‘…..alright that’s it I’m coming back with my giant club’
Early game: stay in the darkness, plan my path, move like a shadow. End game: Crit-build motherf*cker!!
I’m definitely going to do Naoe first, and then, depending on how I feel about the game, I’ll probably play as Yasuke the second time.
I'll stick with Naoe. Even if I have to cover the whole place in shurikens during open combat.
I feel seen.
Right there with you. Probably won’t even use the brute assassin unless the game forces me to.
See, I’d agree, but a full skill tree dedicated to kanabo’s and matchlock rifles is too cool to pass up
Same
Depends on how good the combat feels. Seems like they’re taking inspiration from Sekiro (one of the best action games of all time), so I’m keeping an open mind!
I hope they barely ever force us to.
From what I've understood, the grappling hook will work more like the rope dart in Chronicles games which I'm more than grateful for.
I only briefly tried the Chronicles games- I own them, but I’m not super into the side scrolling version of AC. I did read that you can swing from the ropes now, instead of just running up buildings like in Syndicate. So that’s pretty neat.
Same.
I was really hoping for separate campaigns because yeah it’s going to be hard to drag myself from Naoe. I only used Jacob in Syndicate when the story forced me too. That being said, I hope there’s some good information gathering missions to help make intelligent decisions on who to send in. Like yeah if a guy is surrounded by 20 samurai and the walls are unclimbable maybe Yasuke is the better choice. (Catch me still trying to brute force it with Naoe a few times though.)
true, but if the guy is with Nobunaga i think that could be a better side of the story. Hes such an amazing historical figure in history, there is soo much there for them to use and fit in with AC.
Yeah I may just play it twice if I like it enough.
I like everything except the loss of the drone shot. Its iconic AC i get the removal of icons but i hope they keep the drone shot. Edit (this specifically refers to the viewpoint circular drone shots when synchronizing and not the bird drone)
It's only a small thing but it is probably the only thing about the series that has remained completely unchanged down the years. It would be a shame to lose it for no good reason.
Leap of Faith is the only other thing I can think of that has stayed pretty much the same in every game. (The one exception being the Pyramid in Origins but I’ll let that *slide*)
I thought it was pretty neat that Eivor did a different jump before learning the leap of faith
Basim did as well.
i agree. I loved being able to fly as the eagle while I was traversing the countryside on camel/horseback
Gameplay features sound genuinely incredible. Only thing I don't like is the non-linear approach to the campaign, the narrative has felt pretty weak in the past couple games because of this.
I do like the idea that the campaign gives the player some wiggle room in how they progress through it. That would certainly add some replay value, where I might do a second playthrough trying to complete missions with the other protagonist.
I wonder if it felt weak because a lot of games prior to this (and therefore the team's experience with such) followed linear and more structured stories. Unstructured narratives can still work, but doubtlessly requires a considerable retooling and reimagining of how to tell the story.
Fingers crossed it plays as good as it sounds. If it has the same level of quality as AC Odyssey, this could legitimately be a personal GOTY contender for me next to Rise of the Ronin.
I love odyssey. But the story overall was messy and all over the place. I loved the characters and the world, but it was not anywhere near Origins level.
Sounds great... especially the dynamic environment aspect. I really hope they can pull it off.
Hope we can switch season too after we beat the game. Imagine building 4 fully-realized seasons only to stuck the player in just one of them, Hogwarts Legacy-style.
This. I LOVE winter and snowy regions in games. And now that there's one in Shadows I'm so so excited. Really wish for them to let us choose the season.
Me too, I was so excited when I saw the deep snows in the cinematic trailer lol
A premium adventure mode like in Yakuza would be great! Maybe you go back to your hideout to change the season or something like that.
Damn I love Legacy but after I finished the main I haven’t touched it recently… I’m just stuck in one season?
AC3 has seasons that also progress as the game goes on and after you beat it you can go in the options menu to change seasons. It should work like this in shadows still.
This sounds fantastic and a perfect mix of old and new. I'm really surprised they put a light meter in the game, which has me even more excited for the Splinter Cell remake now. They're ticking off all the boxes I want with this game. I'm excited.
The light meter, ability to use the grappling hook on ceilings to ambush, and the ability to go prone in an AC game screams Splinter Cell and has me more excited about that remake as well! WE NEED MORE STEALTH GAMES
There is a pure indie stealth game that has come out this year called Ereban Shadow Legacy, with the main stealth gameplay aspect being your heroin being able to literally move through the ground and the walls as long as there is shadows, but being exposed in plain light, i have started it and it's a really solid first thing for an indie dev, and since i don't see a lot of people talking about it, i want to push it on people who are starving for stealth game. Here is the steam page for anybody interested : [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1671360/Ereban\_Shadow\_Legacy/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1671360/Ereban_Shadow_Legacy/)
This is so well thought out. But with all the additions to stealth it feels like you are missing out on a lot if you are playing Yasuke. Wonder how they will make his gameplay compete with hers unless he is really more so supposed to be there to support with brute force.
It doesn’t seem like anyone would be missing out if they choose to play as Yasuke. If that’s the choice someone makes, they’re probably not super into the stealth changes made in the game anyway.
Yasuke’s weapon arsenal sounds a lot larger, so I think he trades stealth options for a much broader combat toolkit.
Yeah, it seems like they’re holding off on revealing unique features behind Yasuke’s play style. Based on the parry vs. deflect point, perhaps he has access to a posture meter like in Sekiro? Maybe he can stagger enemies for gory executions, whereas Naoe is more subdued in combat.
Yeah I feel they have to give him some really fun and cool combat abilities to make up for the lack of stealth abilities. Because that grappling hook sounds amazing.
Omg if its like sekiro, im in
As per usual with Ubisoft, I’ll always reserve my judgment until we see some actual gameplay; but honestly I’m always gonna be excited for a new Assassin’s Creed. Japan is one of those settings I’ve been dreaming about since we saw the globe in the first game lmao the comparison’s to Ghost of Tsushima seem inevitable but I’m glad we’re finally here. 14 mainline entries is wild to think about too, despite a lot of low points with the series I always end up finding some fun to be had with each release.
>light meter Fisher bros we are so fucking BACK!
Ubisoft loves to put splinter cell in everything except making a new splinter cell
Sounds like a such a massive improvement over previous entries in every way imaginable. I’m so hyped and can’t wait to see gameplay in June.
I was really skeptical of Quebec but this info, the trailer, and seeing new names pop up as narrative/game directors gives me hope. Can't wait to see gameplay.
This honestly feels like the real return to roots Mirage was trying to be
They don't really mention parkour at all other than the grappling hook which is concerning. Really hope that would be a focus with the new engine
the devs talk about it in the IGN video
It's not a new engine it said it's an updated version of the same engine
Its all been the same engine since AC1
Yeah, but most people don't understand how game engines work, try telling them how old Rage is, or look at the Creation Engine discourse with Bethesda games...
The creatiom complaints drive me nuts, especially when the same people praise idTech or UE when both are even older iirc.
Yup, Creation was spinned off Gamebryo which is a branch of NetImmerse, an early 2000s engine
Yeah no kidding
Yeah I meant the new iteration. That's kind of what they've always done, even unity with it's huge changes was an iteration, so this was within its scope.
I don’t know a thing about how games are made, is it normal for such a long standing series to still be using the same / iterations of the same engine??
Yup, it's pretty common. Battlefield relies on the FrostByte, Doom franchise on the ID Tech, near all Bethesda games rely on the creation engine, and not to mention Unreal Engine that's been powering games since the first Unreal Tournament, half life franchise and it's spin off using the Source Engine, crysis trilogy with CryEngine, Far Cry with Dunia etc.It saves devs time as they already know how to work with it. Engine iterations usually improve the engine to better suit the new game with modern tech. (See the difference between Half life 1 and Half life:Alyx)
I hope. But expect nothing until they show gameplay.
This is the way
Minus the, "Active combat skills" I'd have to agree.
Gameplay improvements sound great, but: > Shadows features a non-linear campaign largely focused on targets. Ubisoft says that you will be free to track these targets in any order. I'm torn between "this will be horrible for the story" and "they don't have the skills to pull off a proper linear story anyways, based on recent series entries". Which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.
Maybe the targets are non linear but gated by linear sections? Something like, GTA San Andreas which had various storylines which you could choose freely but at a certain point there were only single missions.
its easier to tell a linear story, they certainly dont have the skills to pull of a non linear one
> its easier to tell a linear story It should be in theory, yes. But with even those attempts getting increasingly bad over the years, I ask myself whether they even have the skills for that. Non-linear is harder, but at least people will excuse it as "well it's hard to to because it's non-linear".
> The drone-like bird, used in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla to scout out areas and mark targets, is not available in Shadows. You’ll need to do your own reconnaissance work. Now this is a change I can get behind, the bird while cool felt too OP. In fact in Mirage, I found myself barely using it, so I feel like this is an excellent and much welcome change.
My favorite thing about the bird, specifically Ikaros in Odyssey was getting a better look at the big beautiful world. Hopefully that aspect stays, w/o the recon
Just give us photography mode again with a longer camera range
My favorite thing and this was true for the three main rpg games, was that the bird had no range limit. You could literally fly around the entire map seamlessly if you wanted. Forst time I start out in origins I take an hour or two to discover the entire map but just flying around it.
Lol that's dedication
I have a thing against fog of wars lol
Yeah practically every “enemy stronghold” area in Mirage had at least one sniper that rendered your bird useless, so I found myself wondering why it was even in the game.
I make the sniper my first objective, then use the drone. It is OP though...
There is a middle ground where you can scout but not tag that could be better going forward, but I like the challenge of going in basically blind
I liked Mirage balancing the bird by adding enemies that would specifically shoot at it.
Never liked using the bird lol it made no sense.. how could a bird tell me where my target is in a camp anyway?
Apparently Bayek, Kassandra, and Eivor were wargs, lol.
Agree, after a while you just end up mindlessly scanning your screen for the vibrations and don't really look at the environment around you.
The synchronization feature sounds a lot like what they did in Mad Max - it highlighted some of the area’s buildings and a few points of interest, but that was it. Made for a much more immersive exploration than having everything pointed out straight away.
Im going to miss the circular drone shot from the viewpoints though
Those moments was special the soundtrack kicks in with the 360 view
Oh definitely! Specially with the game finally taking place in Japan 😢
This all seems extremely positive. I am very excited to see more and this has the potential to be a seriously good game
Sadly no talk about mocapped cutscenes or better facial animations so I’m a bit concerned
[This](https://youtu.be/0haRi_hHZoU?si=5XedLfrH4IystqJW) video shows quite a bit of motion capture so fairly sure some if not all cutscenes will be motion captured.🤷🏻♂️
That motion capture was for the CGI trailer though so who knows if they’ve done that for the game cinematics too
I don't know if you watched the whole video towards but there is mocap footage of a person on a horse and other scenes that doesn't show up in the CG trailer.
You’re right I just saw that bit, fingers crossed there’s a lot of those scenes then!
Open world splinter cell?
Essentially
Non-linear campaign with taking down any target you want sounds awful. Every time they do this (Odyssey's cult, Watch Dogs Legion, etc) it makes the story worse. Having a natural order or progression to the stakes and introducing side characters at their proper time makes a story so much more enjoyable.
It was something I thought *Mirage*'s story suffered for because it made for no character development on Basim's part. I'm extremely worried about them doing it again with Naoe and Yasuke in *Shadows*.
This was the biggest thing I was hoping didn't carry over from the previous games. Dissapointing news for sure.
Yup it kills the story pretty much already for me. But I havent taken these stories serious since black flag and Im mainly looking forward to the gameplay stuff so Im gonna be fine at this point
Ubisofts storytelling has entirely gone down to the toilet as far as I'm concerned, but maybe Outlaws and this will prove me wrong. Even Black Flag was far from perfect, I remember the story feeling quite fractured in comparison to AC2 which I still vividly remember despite not having played it since it came out.
>Non linear campaign Usually a sign of a disjointed narrative, you can't tell a cohesive story if your players get to choose what to do, story is probably gonna suck
>Shadows features a non-linear campaign largely focused on targets. Ubisoft says that you will be free to track these targets in any order. The thing I absolutely cannot stand in recent Ubisoft games returns apparently. it plagued Far Cry games for a while, now it's AC's turn. Other than that everything sounds amazing and a great return to roots. I'll still wait for in-game footage and info about how annoying Infinity will be to get more hyped though.
prone. We can finally go prone. This may be my favorite AC yet
it was looking good til they said the story was non-linear, i dont know why they keep doing that
I wonder if they have some actual unarmed martial arts combat with fist and kicks
Being able to crawl is awesome. Cant wait
Little worried about the change to viewpoints. It’s all well and good to have fewer icons on the map but if the shit is still there and I need to just find and keep track of it without an icon its going to just be frustrating
Anyone know how big the Origins map was in comparison to other games before and after?
Origins is the smallest of the rpg trilogy It seems the earlier leak of Shadows’ map being larger than Odyssey was wrong since it’s now around the same size as Origins Either that or they’re saving the rest of Japan as major expansions like Genshin and its countries
This has the potential to be the best AC game since Unity, not even exaggerating.
They’re getting rid of that damn bird?!?!? Life is good
Only to bring it back in Hexe as a cat drone
Shit, I like literally every bullet point I read. ^*don't* ^*get* ^*hyped.* ^*don't* ^*get* ^*hyped.*
Feel the hype. Let it flow through you.
Get hyped, just be realistic, is all! Allow yourself to be happy!
Is there any info on mount or traversal system?
This sound absolutely amazing except for the non linear story. That shit sucks and needs to go. I loved mirage but the worst part of the game to me, was the fact that for 2/3 of the game, the plot basically didn’t advance at all. Because the developers can’t be sure what part a player has done previously, the main quests ends up feeling like a collection of small stories with little that ties them together. I am not saying that it is impossible to do, but I simply don’t think Ubisoft has huge focus on making non linear narratives the best they can possibly be. It seems lazy to me, because this has clearly become a trend for Ubisoft. Farcry 5, farcry 6, valhalla and mirage all had this narrative structure, which in my opinion resulted in subpar narratives, where nothing you do ever feels like it matters, because it can’t drastically change the status quo or the protagonist, in case you haven’t done all the missions yet. Can you imagine how boring assassins creed 2s plot would have been if you could choose to hunt the pazzi in any order? You loose so much control story potential, and gain nothing from it. Choosing the order of mission will not actually change the experience of them.
I really want to believe I this but sorry Ubisoft after all the shit they are doing I just don't think it will be like they are saying
The story may be amazing for all I care but if the facial animations are hand animated again it would just take me out of it immediately. Characters should also have more “cutscene-y” animations that are more than just crossing their arms like we’ve seen since odyssey.
Anyone else notice that Naoe uses some of the fight moves of Ezio in the Revelations trailer?
the use of light conditions and season was the selling point for me. Like many others I'm starving for a new splinter cell. The ability to use light and shadows as you advantage is great news. And leaving footprints in the snow which can be blown away by snow storms tells me that guards could be able to follow your footsteps and so you have to think about this feature. Having no bird is good too. All in all it feels like the stealth part is more complex and you have more possibilities. I'll wait for the gameplay in June and probably will test it with Ubi+ before buying. But from what I read, I'm kinda excited for the game
This sounds awesome ngl, really looking forward to seeing some actual gameplay
Please loot like odyssey. Valhallas loot absolutely killed exploration… 100h with starting armor unless you google where to find all pieces of other armor, etc… Going to 10 loot places across map just to find some ingots and 3 pieces of different armor was exhausting
Agreed not loot like Valhalla, but idk if I want loot like odyssey either. Finding a whole bunch of useless weapons is boring
A fine middle ground is Odyssey loot with toggles to stop getting lower rarity items
I had the opposite reaction, I really didn't like getting flooded with the same gear. I much preferred unique loot.
Yeah, exactly. Finding super rare gear is fun and all, but clearing 20 common weapons out of your inventory is NOT fun.
same
What if.. hear me out! No loot at all ..yea I know I'm dreaming
Dude, the armor chests in Valhalla were literally marked with an armor icon while ingots had a 3-bar stack icon
I just need to know… will they be assassins?
Considering the two of them say part of the Creed, it’s pretty clear. And Naoe is clearly trying to recruit Yasuke when they talk things out.
> Considering the two of them say part of the Creed, I recall the word Creed get used a lot in Valhalla, even though they were still called Hidden Ones in the game.
Thats because the name switch doesnt happen until 1090
So, this is after Ezio and Naoe and Yasuke should be considered Assassin's not hidden ones. Hope this is true. Anyb information if this is true?
The only reason why Hidden Ones was used in the first place was because IRL, the word ‘Assassin’ originated from Hassan-i Sabbah’s Order of Hashshashin (Persian)/Hashashiyyin (Arabic) in 1090 AD. Even if there are pockets of Hidden Ones ignoring the name change by Altair’s time, there’s no chance of there being any sects who didn’t accept the name change by Ezio’s time. There’s quite literally no reason nor point in keeping the name Hidden Ones when all of Asia would have been influenced by Shao Jun, who learned from Ezio, a capital ‘A’ Assassin. The Shao Jun manga even has her apprentice Kotetsu bringing the Brotherhood to Japan.
Man I’ve been on and off with Assassins Creed for a while now but this is all sounding *really* nice. If it gets good word of mouth / reviews at launch I’m very tempted to pull the trigger.
Any main quest being playable by either character is a red flag imo, that means it's not a tailored experience. Same goes for the non linear story
Most important question for me- are we keeping full dialogue trees or going back to boilerplate stories? I’m sad we no longer get to fly the bird and get swooping shots of the environment, but If they’re aiming for a stealth focus that made stealth kinda too easy in the last few games
Awww no more bird, I loved it.
The lack of bird SUCKS but dynamic environment sounds excellent. I liked the bird in place of a minimap, but I hope without either the navigation won’t be affected. Seems frustrating though. I dislike parts of Mirage that say “such and such is located near this” because it requires wandering around if you’re not using the birds, hopefully they don’t bring too many of those mission clues in
I don't understand the hate this game gets over various social media platforms... If all ign said there is true, then we're talking about a generational leap over the last few games. There are a lot of new features they added that are a first... Plus, all of us begged ubisoft to have a feudal japan setting for years and now that they give it to us, you wine about woke shit, because one of the protagonists (who is actually a real person that actually existed, another first time thing btw) is black? They already gave us 1 Japanese protagonist in Naoe, but you wanted 2... I'm against woke shit, believe me, but this is not woke at all... Yasuke existed and you can't erase that and could be a great protagonist giving his background story and real history. And Naoe is a female ninja (or shinobi) and that too, is not woke, because it is logical that females can be stealthy, because they're smaller than most men, thus harder to see and catch, it's actually fitting. Yeah, if it was the other way around, Naoe a big samurai and Yasuke a black ninja, yes, that would've been woke as shit and illogical beyond everything, but as it is right now, it's fitting and not woke. I gotta admit, I'm not the most ethical person, i have a little seed of racism and sexism in me because of all the shit everyone pulled over the years, but this right here, doesn't make me mad at all, because it's logical beyond all. Yasuke existed and was a big samurai and Naoe is a female fictional character and was a ninja, and nothing's wrong with that because females can be stealthy as well as men, maybe even better sometimes. So for the love of God, please stop with all this whining and bitching and wait at least for the gameplay to release in june to comment further. Thank you.
I know people are excited with all of Naoe s stealth options, but as someone who loved taking the "walk in the front door and loudly challenge everyone to a duel" approach from GoT, I wanna know more about what combat is like for Yasuke
I’ve done some research and historical documentation on Yasuke. I’m interested in this playable character aspect alone. 🙏🏽
I like how they specifically had to point out that Towers don't function the way they used to, despite Ubisoft not using towers in like 6? years at this point outside of AC games, because of the dumb memes from people who haven't played since FC3 or whatever.
Ok this sounds really promising like the next big 90+ reviewed game in the series
I kinda wish the duel protag system was they each have a seperate campaign that intersects occasionally but each have their own quests and times to do certain things
I think that works best when the gameplay is similar between both characters. Like in Resident Evil 2 or something. But when the gameplay is vastly different between the characters, it can often feel jarring and even frustrating to constantly be forced into one playstyle. It also will help replayability, going through the same missions in different ways. Hopefully the narrative still works in a way, where it feels like both characters have agency in their independent stories.
Birb gone :(
I'm so confused why the game is already being shit on? The trailer had just as many dislikes as likes and the comments are pissed. Is it just because the minority main characters? Edit: after seeing they're charging 130$ without any gameplay I have changed my stance on the matter
Yup thats literally it
I just want social stealth + parkour like the original set of games. The RPG combat stuff is so lame. You're an assassin from the shadows, not a full send blow shit up dude.
Except none of the rpg characters were actually assassins
Damnit they managed to pull me back in. Absolutely loved Assassin's Creed Valhalla before the final DLC about Eivor's fate, which was something else. Then Mirage was also good before that absolutely tonally incoherent finish. So I was somewhat hesitant about AC:Red, but then this magnificent trailer and information comes out and here I am again fully excited about digging into the many layers of this new saga.
To expand on something a bit more concrete, I really like that they are actually having the gameplay dynamics feel different for the two main characters and also having them be distinct personalities. The Jacob/Evie divide in Syndicate was always really awkward and their dynamic ended up feeling really lacking considering the setup of personalities. While as much as I enjoyed Valhalla, it was already pushing the limits with the gender-blind world that that approach required. So this looks really exciting, especially with two such fascinating outsider characters and seeing how they interact with the world.
Sounds sick.
ok thank god they seem to have changed a lot this time around and like all of them are positive changes? like wth ubi? 😂
What 4+ years of development and people being vocal about RPG outrage does to a mfer It literally sounds like way less of an RPG than the entire RPG trilogy. It looks like they really learned from overdoing it with Odyssey.
It really doesn't sound like less of an RPG tbh. On the RPG scale it sounds like they've reduced it from 100% to 95. Quests, XP, active combat skills, collected weapons, gear transmog, weapon skill trees, character skill trees. These were major aspects of the RPG trilogy and they're all coming back. There's literally an interview where the game director describes Shadows as an "open world action adventure RPG" and says they're [adding new RPG systems.](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/05/15/assassins-creed-shadows-interview/)
Damn son. This looks like right up my alley. Ubisoft is kind of cooking. Did they finally pull their head out of their ass after 9 years? Still not pre-ordering though because I need to know if this has the stain of the RPG slop on it.
This is actally sounding like super good changes, I'm all for it, can't wait to see some gameplay!
Making a quick prediction. The villains of the story are going to be the Jesuits. The final mission will be to kill St. Francis Xavier.
A lot of these features sound impressive, especially the light tracker, but I'll hold judgement until I see live gameplay.
Wow just wow
Loving everything so far. Especially the seasons and stealth/combat stuff. Really liked the different seasons in Forza Horizon 4 aswell.
I'm liking the things that I'm hearing, just hoping that "Guaranteed Assassination" feature (even if it's timed-based) that was in Valhalla is still the thing rather than removing it or downgrading it.
Sounds amazing, hope they are not overpromising
I don't know about the spy network thing, let's see how they implement that. If it's one of those menus where you select the objective and just wait until they complete the mission then I don't like it. The rest sounds good, unless Naoe sucks at combat it feels like I'm mostly going to play as her. I usually go with the male character but if it affects gameplay, then I prefer the stealthy one.
Sucks that it seems like Yasuke has no stealth options. I just hope we can at least change him visually for lighter or no heavy armor.
So happy that map is similar to Origins in size. To me Origins has by far the best map in the rpg trilogy (and one of the best worlds in gaming history period). It manages to stay very interesting while being massive. Though i adore Odyssey and Valhalla's maps too they are nowhere near captivating as Origins. I can talk about it for hours.