The game Assassin’s Creed Shadows, in my personal opinion, is very mid, and I do not recommend it.

This is my first Assassin’s Creed game. So I can’t compare it to any previous games in the franchise, nor am I familiar with the lore. So if I point out any things that they always do in AC games, well, here’s my disclaimer. I also have not played any Ubisoft games besides Just Dance, Catz 5, and Imagine: Babyz, so I don’t really have a grasp on Ubisoft itself.

The gameplay felt like it had no soul. I guess it could be potentially fun….if you just empty your brain and don’t think too hard. It seems as though the developers have made some sort of pattern, it was formulaic in a way. Everything I did in this game felt very much the same. Traveling felt the same, accidentally going into a high level area felt the same, getting mobbed by random NPCs felt the same, sneaking into castles, everything. It’s hard to describe, but it felt like I was living in a dystopian husk of a game where everything was already pre decided for me before the game even started development. There is also a TON of bloat in this game, probably in order to pad the gameplay time to longer than it actually is. Meaningless side quests that are not fun, and crazy level requirements for the main quest to force you to do side content. All of this is just put into the game to extend playtime, so more of your time is wasted! Yay!

It gets even worse, because they make you engage with this side content by locking progression in the skill tree under the “knowledge rank” system. YES! You level up, gain mastery points with the levels to use in your skill tree, but can’t even use those mastery points until you go level up your “knowledge rank” with the dumbest most tedious side quest activities ever. Go collect pieces of paper, play rhythm games, and obstacle courses throughout the map…because otherwise you literally can’t proceed past the first skill tree level. I hate that this game locks progress on your skill tree behind bloat content that is just tedious and not even fun. Just let me play your game normally without shoving Yasuke horseback riding and paper collecting down my throat, please……..

The story of this game is cliche, predictable, and really cheesy. A lot of the “epic” fight scenes use this Kill Bill esque music that is SO strange. It doesn’t fit the vibes at all, and is suddenly so modern, which makes it really jarring compared to the time setting. I chose English for the dialogue. This is the original language of the game for voice over and motion capture. I actually was under the impression that I chose immersive mode, which meant that they would suddenly speak one word of Japanese in their sentence and Ubisoft would pull the whole (translator note: keikaku means plan) thing. There were so many other instances of this, and some where they wouldn’t even explain the word. I really thought that this was supposed to be immersive mode, but oh. This is the actual English version. Overall the vibes were really cheesy, and in a comedic sense I was entertained with it, even if the story was cliche, up until the soulless Ubisoft formulaic paper collecting gameplay crept in.

None of the characters are really likeable, or unlikeable for that matter. Maybe there are two likeable characters. Some kid who is so good at drawing that he is probably going to invent the medium of manga itself, and probably Naoe’s dad she’s constantly screaming CHICHIUEEEE at. I can’t even remember their names, so in conclusion, the characters are bland. Even though Yasuke existed in real life, he really feels like Ubisoft’s cringe OC self insert character rather than a historical figure. Naoe also feels bland, devoid of soul, and together as a team, they make for a not so memorable duo. Which is a problem because they are the main characters of this game. Naoe and Yasuke have this drinking scene together which is as entertaining as untoasted white bread, and then it fades out to the morning, where Naoe ends up on the roof and Yasuke ends up in a cart. What is this writing??? They didn’t do anything of significance at all, yet they want me to think the protagonists had a wild night, gee wow hahaha so crazy!!!!!

This is the part that I look back on that really annoyed me the most, more than anything about this game. I have heard that microtransactions are a common Ubisoft practice, but I was shocked at how blatant and in your face it was in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. I understand that (unfortunately) microtransactions have become common practice in many single player AAA game titles (thanks Todd Howard, thanks horse armor). However, I really think that for a single player game, it should not be as in your face as a free to play mobile game. It should be separate, and it should not have as much content as Assassin’s Creed Shadows does. If you showed me the in-game store of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and told me it was a FTP mobile game, I would believe you. It is BAKED INTO THE GAME, advertised when you enter the menu, and it’s inescapable. The items in it aren’t even purely cosmetic. The weapons add actual stats to your character, making a single player game pay to win, or rather pay to beat faster. I literally can’t believe this.

Microtransactions were in my face before I even had one second of gameplay. I was even generously handed 300 microtransaction points by generous Mr. Assassin’s Creed to spend in the store, randomly via a very obnoxious on-screen popup while I was playing the game!!! Great, just enough to get the player a grand total of nothing, and entice them to actually spend more money than the $69.99 plus tax they already paid Mr. Ubisoft! Not only that, there was one point in the game where I finally got to play as Yasuke again, and I was stuck with only high level quests. The only way to fill my time was to do those silly little knowledge points quests, but other than collecting paper, I quite literally had nothing to do. It’s infuriating, because instead of doing side quests, I just want to proceed with the main story. Then, low and behold, I opened the menu, and advertised right in front of my face is THE MAP PACK ADD ON FOR $10!! Yes, you can no longer be bored!!! No longer do you have nothing to do if you just pay us a mere $10!!! We have Yasuke activity maps, hidden chest maps, Naoe activity maps, and world activity maps!! This really is an insult to any single player game ever made. You pay a price to play a single player game, and all of the content should be included in it already. I bet there are nice people in Mr. Ubisoft who are against these types of practices, but whoever green lit and encourages this, you do not care about gamers. You do not care about single player gaming. It is very disappointing, and at this point it made me lose any motivation to actually continue this game. At least I can purchase a beautiful uwu sakura flower crown Yasuke outfit to soothe my hurt and anguish I’ve experienced! Thank you Mr. Ubisoft! Too bad right after experiencing the pain of wanting to stop playing this game, I experienced a bug which made Yasuke lose his sword.


In conclusion, putting all of the out of game controversies aside and just looking at the game as a game, I can say that it is truly a mid experience. It definitely wasn’t as terrible as I thought it was going to be. I can see it as a turn off your mind and play for hours on end type of game for sure, if you have nothing better to do. However, the formulaic gameplay, bloated side content, overly complex skill tree system, and in-your-face microtransactions makes this game one that I cannot recommend, and one that I have dropped after 16 hours. I hope to go back to the golden days of Assassin’s Creed and see what that was like. For now, goodbye tedious paper collecting that I gave up on immediately, goodbye Naoe, and goodbye Yasuke.

But if this is the best they can do, well, that's sad. Apart from stunning visuals and probably the best winter in videogames, the game has nothing much to offer in terms of story, combat system, stealth or interesting mission structure. It's gotten better than the last 3 AC games, but overall it's still average at best.

The idea and effort was put into the game, but the realization of many gamepaly elements though better than before, overall still mediocre at best.

I finished Shadows more for the sake of checking out beautiful open world of Japan, rather than anything else game have to offer.

Boring repetitive content over and over in the game.