I haven't been that into the Assassin's Creed franchise over the last few iterations. The setting changes between each one, but the underlying gameplay didn't seem too different, and it was difficult for me to maintain a whole lot of interest. My favorite entry in the series to date has been Black Flag, which I often say was an excellent pirate game wrapped in some Assassin's Creed dressing. To this end, Shadows feels like something fresh despite being the latest entry in a long-running series of games. It embraces its own interpretation of feudal Japan while also incorporating the familiar aspects of the franchise.

My opinion of the game didn't get off to a positive start. For the first few hours, the game focuses solely on Naoe, the daughter of a notable warrior who grew up training to follow in the footsteps of her father and other warrior relatives. When war comes to her home province, she is forced to use her skills to bring justice to her family and home. It is a good and well presented story, but for a game that has a pair of protagonists, it feels as though it is in absolutely no hurry to get to that point of being able to play as both.

It is all intentional and provides a nice buildup for the (re)introduction of the second protagonist, Yasuke. In the very beginning of the game, you play as Yasuke first, with him starting as a disparaged member of a Portuguese merchant's crew before being noticed by Odo Nobunaga. Due to Yasuke's physicality and warrior's instinct, Nobunaga makes him one of his samurai, and with him at his side, the two conquer many provinces — including the one Naoe called home. The two do not directly meet at the time, and it is after that prologue that the extended stint begins of playing solely as Naoe and learning her story.

Playing as Naoe feels very similar to the kind of stealthy gameplay that the franchise is known for. Right off the bat, she can assassinate people by dropping upon them from above and dragging them from ledges or into the series-signature piles of hay. The game features dynamic lighting, so not only are you harder to see at night, but you can also extinguish or destroy light sources to become even tougher to detect. Put a few points in her "Assassin" skill tree, and you'll be able to assassinate people through thin walls and doors using her katana, or bring new tools (e.g., bells) to distract enemies to more easily pick them off.

Unlike previous games in the series, Naoe feels awfully frail when the element of stealth is lost and direct combat is required. She's fully capable, but her attacks are weak, and she is relatively frail. Two or three hits from just about anyone without getting a heal in, and she's done for. I started to think that it was the game's way of emphasizing the importance of maintaining stealth, but at times, it also felt like an overcorrection.

Once you progress far enough into the game where Yasuke is playable again, from the moment you take control of him, a lot of those issues suddenly make sense. While Naoe is a silent killer who strikes from the shadows, Yasuke is a hulking man clad in armor who is about as stealthy as a landslide. While he can climb the same walls as Naoe can, he looks genuinely unaccustomed to doing so, and his idea of a stealth kill is literally approaching an enemy and then impaling them with his sword to hold them over his head. While he can stick to the shadows, his entire style is more a matter of being as subtle as a bull in a market and becoming the center of attention.

It makes the ability to play as either protagonist much more compelling, as they play very differently and cover each other's weaknesses. If the objective is to get into a castle to take out some targets, you might opt for the stealthy approach with Naoe. If it's broad daylight or filled with some beefy foes, you might opt to tackle it as Yasuke and burst through doors. While Naoe can enter a vision mode to detect and tag enemies through walls to know exactly where her foes are, Yasuke lacks anything similar and is better off entering a clearing and becoming everyone's problem. I switched between the two when I wanted to switch things up, and it keeps the gameplay feeling fresh.

One of the game's strengths is that it puts effort into the stories of the two protagonists and the world-building. Characters are well developed, and layers are revealed as the plot progresses. The plot keeps a lot of cards close to its chest, only revealing them to purposeful effect. The more Assassin's Creed parts of the game are used somewhat sparingly; the Animus is barely mentioned, and the gameplay isn't broken up by frequent trips to the "real world" in the game. It remains focused on its setting and gives it room and time to breathe, and that is a strength of the game that I did not expect.

Combat execution is similar between the two characters, but Yasuke obviously has an edge. When enemies attack, a blue glint means that their attack can be blocked or even deflected when blocked at the appropriate time. A red glint means that the attack must be dodged instead. Doing either at the perfect time results in the enemy becoming vulnerable, gaining a visible golden sheen for a brief time while also taking more damage from attacks. Naoe and Yasuke also have different abilities that they can use in combat by expending an "Adrenaline" segment. Naoe can set up enemies as vulnerable to then land a flurry of attacks against them. Meanwhile, as Yasuke, one of my favorite abilities is a massive kick that sends enemies flying — potentially through walls.

As you progress in the Shadows, you accumulate gear meant for either Naoe or Yasuke. They can equip two weapons at a time, each with a distinct set of options. Each have their own head and body armor options in addition to some form of "trinket" slot. Higher-level gear will not only increase your health pool or damage potential but also offer potential other perks, such as a headwrap for Naoe that removes additional health segments during assassinations. Lower-level gear can be improved at your hideout's forge, or the gear can be engraved with new perks to make them more useful.

The hideout functionality is rather understated, but it is a useful home base that offers a lot of benefits and means of customization. You expand your hideout by building additional rooms onto the main one, either by placing them as their own structures within the available area or by extending the existing structure. You can place decorative elements, choose the stations or interior decorations in each room, and upgrade them to increase their effectiveness. Expanding or upgrading your hideout takes resources, which you gain by finding them in the game world or as rewards for some quests.

Your hideout is also your source of scouts, of which you have a limited number available. Sometimes you will find a large cache of resources that you cannot collect yourself, and instead, you must earmark an available scout to collect it later. However, it is worth noting that any given objective doesn't provide a specific location, and you must find the location by following a short list of clues. For example, a particular objective may have clues that it is within a larger geographic area, west of a particular town, and south of a named temple. You can explore that area to find the objective or expend the efforts of a scout to reveal the actual area. You can't summon a used scout if you stumble upon a resource cache, so it's often worth exploring the area yourself.

There are seasons in the game, and progress toward the next season occurs as you complete objectives. Complete enough objectives, and you can manually cycle seasons on the menu screen, or the seasons will change automatically when you fast-travel. A change in season resets scout availability, resets areas in the game world you've previously cleared out, and other benefits. If you cause enough havoc as either character, they will become wanted, which means that town guards will engage them on sight in the entire game world. In the meantime, you can continue to play as the other character, and once the seasons change, any wanted status is cleared.

A lot of work has been put into the details of the game world and the characters. Light, shadow, and contrast are used to great effect in many areas in a way that raises the bar for the franchise. Skulking through an area filled with enemies at night during a powerful rainstorm is a sight to behold, as is fighting within an interior room with light sources breaking or swaying during the ensuing melee. I can't say how well it will run on my own hardware, as I reviewed the game entirely via GeForce NOW, but if you have the hardware, this is a game that will undoubtedly benefit from turning up settings as high as possible.

I didn't have high expectations of Assassins Creed: Shadows, as I've really struggled to become engaged with the most recent entries in the series. The setup in Shadows takes a little while, but the resulting payoff is worth it. The gameplay is engaging, but the plot and characters really drive things forward. It must be challenging to develop a game within such a long-running series and have it still feel like something fresh and new, and Shadows is the closest that a game has come to that in quite some time.

Score: 9.0/10

Reviewed on GeForce NOW