Everything you need to know about Assassin's Creed Shadows

Ubisoft has once again shown off more Assassins Creed: Shadows gameplay - this time focusing on exploration. Ubisoft has previously shown off gameplay for stealth, combat, parkour and now exploration - which will presumably be the last blog before the game releases on March 20.

In today's blog, the game director had this to say:

"We didn't want to hold the player's hand too much with icons and markers" says Charles. "We wanted to craft an open world where information was key and would become a form of reward. This made sense in the context of playing a shinobi and fighting for information. In Shadows, information is something you need to look for and earn, whether through your spies, NPC encounters, or through your own eyes. In short, we want players to discover all our cool secrets on their own terms through investigation, their spy network, or by observing the world."

This makes it sound like they've listened to at least a few of the complaints fans have aimed at the game over the last few installments. Personally, the hand holding with quest markers and icons was just too much - especially when games have come out that did a better job of it such as Ghost of Tsushima. Yes, Ghost of Tsushima still had a lot of quest markers, but it was less noticeable since the UI that you were staring at for most of the gameplay was empty of markers.

Their previous title, Assassins Creed: Valhalla, was one of the worst in the series when it comes to map markers and holding the players hand. I put roughly 130 hours into Valhalla and still have an enormous amount of map icons to clear out if I wanted to (I don't).

These are the key takeaways I got from today's exploration blog:

• Viewpoints are here to stay, which I suppose should be expected considering the franchise. I've never been a big fan of them and wouldn't mind if they were removed completely.
• There's no eagle this time around - a welcome change, since I've always felt the eagle having wall hacks trivialized the stealth gameplay.
• Enemies can be marked by observing and marked from a vantage point.
• You will get scouts that will help you uncover quest objectives and locations, gather resources for your hideout and cover your tracks by resetting provincial alerts.
• There are smuggling hideouts that have too many resources for you to carry and need to be marked for your scouts to carry back later.
• A revamped quest menu - now called the "Objective Board" - you zoom into an NPC or target and trackable quests will be revealed after you've gathered enough clues.

A few of these changes sound really good - in particular I love the fact that the eagle is gone so there's more of a reason to be careful while taking over forts. The smuggling hideouts just sound like another version of Valhalla's raids, which I didn't enjoy much at all. The rewards never made it worth doing, so in the end I ignored most of those markers. I'm not sure how I feel about the "Objective Board", but it sounds very similar to what they've done before with the Order of the Ancients menu, so it's hard to say if it'll really shake things up.

If you haven't read the previous blogs, I've put together a small recap:

Stealth

• Lack of a companion eagle allowing you to scout ahead and map out an entire location.
• Can roll while prone.
• Stealth tools are the smoke bomb, shinobi bells (distraction), Kunai, Shuriken.
• You will get scouts that will help you uncover quest objectives and locations, gather resources for your hideout and cover your tracks by resetting provincial alerts.
• More hiding spots.
• Drag enemies from behind while they're alive.
• Servants have their own patrol routes.
• Different districts exist as their own individual arenas. If you get caught in one, it's easier to recover if you leave the district.
• Enemies will search for you in pairs. If you whistle to lure an enemy, it'll be harder to not get caught.
• Samurai cannot be assassinated in smoke bombs and hey evade the smoky area.
• Stronger enemies can deny your assassination attempts.
_{Link to blog}



Combat

• Posture attacks allow you to hold the light or heavy attack button and charge it to significantly increase the damage.
• An enemy can be put into a vulnerable state - under conditions like a perfect dodge - and will create a window where they can be dealt devastating damage.
• Naoe and Yasuke both have their own dodge. Naoe's are directional rolls, and Yasukes are directional steps that keep his posture upright throughout. Yasukes dodge has a slight recovery period, whereas Naoe's doesn't.
• When Yasuke parrys, the enemy bounces back, opening themselves to counterattacks. When Naoe parrys, she pivots to the side of the enemy and deflects their attacks.
_{Link to blog}



Parkour

• Viewpoints are still here.
• Stronger enemies can deny your assassination attempts.
• Perform a recovery roll after jumping from a large height to land safely.
• Parkour Down quickly by dodging near a ledge.
• Naoe gets a grappling hook which she can use to swing and climb up unclimbable surfaces by sticking it to a ledge.
• Both characters can dodge while crouched but only Naoe has prone directional dodges.
• Naoe can perform a dodge while sprinting.
• Yasuke has the ability to automatically shoulder bash an enemy or destructible ojects, which will block Naoe.
• Both characters are able to change stances while sprinting - switching to crouch stance will allow them to knee slide or if they go prone while sprinting they'll dive to the ground.
• Naoe can wall run up high walls, and eject herself off the wall.

There's a very common theme among these - Naoe seems to get all of the best mechanics, while Yasuke appears to just be a heavy, bruiser type character. Looking at these blogs, I will be very surprised if I spend much time as Yasuke other than shoulder charging objects out of Naoe's way.

I've been wanting a Japanese Assassin's Creed forever, so I'm still very much looking forward to play as Naoe and seeing for myself just how much Ubisoft has learned over these last few years.