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Eye of the IgaAssassins Creed Shadows review: How Ubisoft learned to stop worrying and embrace imperfectionThe biggest shake-up in the Assassins Creed formula since Black Flag, Shadows manages to simultaneously honour legacy and break new ground.Image credit: VG247 Review by Dom Peppiatt Editor-in-chief Published on March 18, 2025 Youre probably familiar with the Japanese art of kintsugi, quite literally meaning golden repair. Kintsugi is part-philosophy, part-art form. It revolves around the act of repairing broken pottery or ceramics with lacquer, mending cracks and broken edges with dusted, powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Kintsugi aims to expose, emphasize and celebrate the damage that was once done, and find new meaning in the repaired product - an homage to an items unique history.Assassins Creed Shadows feels like Ubisofts attempt at performing kintsugi on its storied, 18-year-old franchise. The imperfections - cluttered UI, map screen icon vomit, clunky parkour, clutzy combat - are all present and accounted for, but it feels like Ubisoft isnt trying to hide them or tuck them away, or (pardon the phrase) polish the turd. For all the shonky, irritating elements of the game, theres something simply breathtaking just around the corner. For every follow this guy mission, theres a jaw-dropping set-piece on par with (or better) than anything else in the series. For every crack, theres a layer of gold.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. One of the best bits of the post-reboot Assassins Creed era (thats Origins onwards) is the way you get a nice big objective screen, cluttered with targets you need to take out. The labyrinthine lore of the series has always set you on the trail of one shadowy cabal or another, and Shadows Sengoku-era Japan is no different. Except, this time, there are reams and reams of these boards. Circles upon circles of nefarious organisations that you need to root out, assassinate, and plunder.Yes. Yes! This is the meat on the open worlds bones; this is the reason you dont mind the eight minute horseride from one prefecture to another. As well as the main narrative - kill 13 bastards in a wanton act of revenge, quelle surprise - the game just keeps ladling side objectives on you. Kill, kill, kill. But its compelling; every set of infamous ronin or disavowed shinobi is a bit different, holed up in varying locations, or require creative thinking to pin them down. Sure, it all boils down to find em, kill em, but Id rather do that than those miserable tail this priest for a bit quests we had in Assassins Creed games gone by.Ubisoft, in giving us both the fragile-but-fast Naoe and the chonky bruiser Yasuke to play with, knows that Shadows main draw is in its bloodshed. The combat doesnt feel too different, honestly, from what weve had since Origins - serviceable, but nothing to write home about. But, once again, its the connective tissue that makes that work; if you fancy being stealthy and popping headshots with a flick of the wrist and a well-spaced kunai, swap to Naoe. If you want to storm the gates, roar like a madman, and start bashing in heads with a kanabo, choose Yasuke.Who cares if the AI is a bit wet, or if the collision physics sometimes get a bit turned around, eh? Sweeping the leg of a ronin twice your size and plunging a tanto into his neck feels amazing. Watching someones entire life bar disappear because you put the right amount of distance between their defensive footsie-ing and the tip of your naginata is an absurd feeling. Seeing everyones hats flying off as visual language that youve removed their armour is both funny, and satisfying. All that seriousness glued together with goofyness. Its glorious. Summer lovin'. | Image credit: UbisoftThe story itself is decent, too - though I would recommend you play on Immersive Mode over English language, if you dont mind subtitles, because some of the English VO is a bit peculiar. The Japanese/Portugese mix is great, though, and actually puts me more in mind of Shogun than anything else. Ubisofts art direction and vision for the cinematics is stellar, and there are a few early cutscenes that are up there in the best Assassins Creed moments of all time. Seriously. Special shout-out to Japanese psych-rock band TEKE TEKE here, because the Tarantino-esque vibes they bring to some of the key scenes are remarkable.But, for every iota of praise, theres something else to consider. The story takes a while to get going. I think the game really opens up about 12+ hours in, thanks to a meaty prologue and a lot of exposition dumping. It does the job well, though. By the time youre let loose on the true (huge) open world, you feel competent enough as Naoe, and you just start to get to grips with Yasuke.From there, the way the game encourages you to swap from character to character is a masterclass in pacing. Whether youre blitzing the story, or chewing away at the fog of war on the world map, there are constant opportunities for you to swap out and play as someone else. I probably had a 70/30 split Naoe to Yasuke (I like stealth, OK) but every time I had to play as the big man, I found myself grinning, equipping some powerful gear Id picked up for him as Naoe, and stomping through the ranks of whatever poor militia had thought it could resist this unstoppable force. The game looks as good in motion as it does in cutscenes. | Image credit: UbisoftEven the most formulaic bits of the Assassins Creed formula are toyed with in Shadows. Its like Ubisoft broke the collectibles mission down into its constituent parts, deconstructed the whats and the whys of sniffing out 100 feathers or whatever, and then rebuilt it from there. Yes, you have to find and collect loads of origami cranes, but well, the way that mission unfolds (no pun intended) is a true surprise. Ill say no more here, but that alone grants major marks to Ubi in my book.Then theres the base-building. You can ignore this, really, if you want to, but the game likes to heap rewards on you for getting involved with prettying up your hideout. As well as revealing little narrative breadcrumbs and exposing some good character work, the hideout portion of the game also allows you to bring more allies into fights, upgrade your weapons, get more efficient healing items, earn discounts in shops, and more besides. You pilfer resources whilst youre out doing other stuff, so its not intrusive (and actually puts me in mind of some of Brotherhoods better mechanics, too).Then there are the moments Shadows forces you to slow down. Want to unlock more layers in the RPG-lite system where you dump all your accrued skill points? Well, in order to do that, you need to visit temples, collect forgotten scrolls, and watch 11-second animations of either Ysauke or Naoe praying at various shrines. Rinse, repeat. If thats not your taste, go and practice meditation as Naoe, or learn katas as Yasuke. These tasks are dull; repetitive quick-time events masquerading as mindfulness techniques.But you know what? They work! They work because, as a player, you dictate the pace of the game. After slaying a whole retinues worth of hired goons in a castle, sometimes it is nice to go listen to the cicadas sing in the woods, hear the water tricking into a pond, see the light from the sun break into one million pieces through the canopy of a pine forest. Its authentic - as so much of Shadows actually is - to what youd expect from Assassins Creeds Disney Land take on the Japanese isles. Naoe and Yasuke don't get along, at first. | Image credit: UbisoftShadows is beautiful, too. I played on a PS5 Pro, mostly on Quality mode, because I couldnt stop drinking in the visuals. At least once per play session, I would literally put my controller down and ogle the vistas; I think autumn is my favourite of the four cycling in-game seasons, simply for the colours and the contrast between all the cerise, ombre, bottle green, sky blue its stunning. A love letter to the natural wonder of Japan, and perhaps my favourite Assassins Creed setting to date (sorry, Odyssey).The mechanical use of the seasons is minute, I will say. In the marketing, Ubisoft promised that different seasons would allow you different opportunities in approaching major missions, let you practice new ways of sneaking about, expose you more in the cold light of day, and so on. Nah. Not really. I didnt find myself changing my playstyle at all, season-to-season - although I would sometimes slip down a steep mountain in the snow in winter, which was irritating. Your mileage may vary, but the seasons at least look very distinct and offer some variation when youre horsing from A to B to A again. Is Yasuke feeling a little horse? | Image credit: UbisoftKintsugi is often tied to the concept of wabi-sabi, which is the practice of accepting the nature of transience and imperfection. I really think Shadows embodies these two principles; it does not try to fix what it knows it cannot mend. There are parts of the Assassins Creed formula that are baked-in, inherently flawed, beyond restoration. But thats fine, because - when accepted for what they are - Ubisoft has made them shine.There are problems with Assassins Creed Shadows, for sure. But its so fun to play, its telling a gripping story, and there is so much sense of progress and reward for every little thing you do that it actually feels like an open world game thats taking its cues from a modern roguelike, or something. Every action has meaning, and the breadcrumbs that tempt you to clean up all the icons on the map are moreish. This may be one of the biggest Assassins Creed games ever made, but it also feels like the most well put-together.Im actually at the point where Im enjoying finding little problems with the game, because - most of the time - I know that means therell be something interesting on the other end of it. That is high praise for any work of art, but in a video game it really feels like something special.Assassins Creed Shadows comes to Xbox Series, PS5 and PC on March 20, 2025, after catching a last-minute delay earlier this year.
