Assassin’s Creed Shadowsfinally takes the franchise to Japan, something many fans of the series have been waiting for years. Here, you may journey through the country with the Naoe for a more assassin-like experience or with Yasuke for a more combat-focused experience.
Either way, expect a large world to explore, multiple targets to kill in combat or through assassination, lots of animals to pet, and many skills to learn for each character. With that in mind, here are a few tips you should watch out for based on our experience with the game. Don’t worry, there won’t be any spoilers here.
10Improve Your Assassination Skills
Let Your Hidden Blade Shine
As the name of the series implies, assassinating people is a big thing here. Thus, we recommend you useyour mastery pointsto unlock assassination skills for Naoe as soon as you’re able to so you can eliminate most enemies with ease. Yasuke doesn’t rely on his assassination skills as much, but he also has them, and they’re handy.
You can toggle an option where assassinating someone is an instant kill, like in older games, but the upgrades are quick enough that this isn’t necessary. Unlike entries such as Odyssey, Shadows actually found a good middle ground between assassinations killing people right away while also having certain characters survive it.
9Be Careful Of Who You’re Trying To Assassinate
Some Enemies Are Built Differently
As mentioned, the game has a good balance in who you can and can’t assassinate, and that’s not only related to your assassination skills, gear stats, and their health bar. Some enemies are more attentive to their surroundings than others, so you need to keep up with that.
For instance, if a samurai has their guard up, you can’t assassinate them from the front, even if you’re hiding in the grass and they got close, while others require striking from above to assassinate properly.
When the ‘assassinate’ prompt appears, if the font is written in red, it means the enemy will block your attempt to kill them. If it’s yellow, it means your assassinate will hurt but not kill them.
8Use The Darkness
It’s Called Assassin’s Creed Shadows For A Reason
One interesting mechanic this game has compared to older games is how you can play around with light. By extinguishing flames or even bumping them, you can create large areas of darkness, which makes things a lot easier for stealth.
In fact, if you’re in the complete dark, you’re able to even approach an enemy from the front and assassinate them without them seeing you. And thanks to Eagle Vision, things can be clear as day for you while hunting them.
7Equip A Tanto For Naoe
For Double Kills
One more thing when it comes to assassinations: Your weapon matters. Each character can have two weapons equipped at a time, and while you should choose your weapons based on your preferences, we recommend giving one of Naoe’s weapon slots to a tanto.
With a tanto equipped, she can use it to perform double assassinations (as long as you also have the skill unlocked), taking two people at once. As an extra tip, we also recommend a Kusarigama for her because spinning that chain around you repeatedly can kill a lot of people while keeping you safe.
6Unlock All Kakurega You Find
For Fast Travel
As is common in the series, you can use viewpoints to fast travel across the map. That said, because of how these locations work, most of the high points in cities are also restricted areas, as they tend to be castles of important people who do not appreciate your presence there.
Thus, instead of giving yourself the headache of fast-traveling to a place where people will want to kill you (not to mention some of these places are literally annoying to leave due to size and layout), you can instead use the Kakurega, which are hideouts for you and your scouts. Unlocking one costs money, but farming money in the game is easy.
5Manage Your Scouts
They Can Do A Lot
The scouts you getin this game are very helpful, as they can help track down mission objectives on the map and smuggle items from enemy bases back to your base.
That said, you don’t start with many of them, so you have to manage them properly. They only reset when the season changes, but you can also go to a Kakurega and refill your scouts for a price - which is also not expensive. You can increase your number of scouts by upgrading your main hideout, and you can also force season changes to reset scouts for free.
4Pay Attention To Civilians
They Blab A Lot
While you’re exploring, you’ll notice a lot of chatter around you, especially in big cities. If you pay attention to what they’re saying (you’re able to activate subtitles to help out), you’ll notice that they actually give a lot of useful information.
They talk about things that are happening across the map, and you can even directly talk to some, who will give you rumors that contain additional information or side-quests.
3Explore The World With Naoe
She’s Better At Traversal
Our protagonists' skills are different. While Yasuke can do some traversal, he doesn’t excel at it. He can only climb a few things and mainly things he can reach - which, granted, he can reach a lot of places thanks to his height.
Still, he lacks the parkour skills Naoe has, as well as a grappling hook. This means she will climb faster and also get to places Yasuke is simply incapable of. It’s better to explore the map with her and swap to Yasuke when needed than the other way around, as you’ll need her more often.
Naoe also has access to Eagle Vision, allowing you to find objectives a lot faster. This even includes shrines and lost pages, as well as daimyos to kill in restricted areas.
2Focus On Temples And Shrines
Improve Your Knowledge
Despite the action premise, Shadows includes a lot of calmer areas, such as temples and shrines. You also have calmer mini-games, such as Naoe’s meditation and Yasuke’s training, which mainly work as quick-time events.
Still, these are all imperative for your characters, as they get you the knowledge points necessary to gain stronger skills in the game, and you need a lot of knowledge points to get them. Thus, ignoring said activities can make your character significantly weaker.
1Don’t Neglect Red-Diamond Marks
There’s Always Something
Some locations won’t provide any significant reward, and they’re simply marked with a diamond icon on the map. Still, they can offer resources to upgrade your gear andhideout.
Thus, no matter how small and simple the area is, they’re worth investigating so you get to improve your stuff. And hey, you can just get Yasuke, barge in, and kill everybody quickly.
