Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a wildly ambitious project with its dual protagonists, diverse gameplay styles, a narrative spanning multiple years across distinct regions, a full seasonal cycle, and plenty more nuance in between. It’s no small undertaking. To learn how Ubisoft even begins approaching a project of this magnitude, I sat down with the game’s director Charles Benoit to understand the herculean effort.
When Assassin’s Creed first rose to prominence, the games weren’t necessarily known for being enormous timesinks. Sure, you could get a few dozen hours out of each installment, but things changed with the pivot to more action-oriented gameplay. Now, more recent entries can easily ask you to pump 60 hours in to even reach the credits, let alone see and do everything else.
They’ve become gigantic in scope and Shadows looks to be another step further in that direction. Not only is the story an epic tale in its own right, following the rise and fall of daimyō Oda Nobunaga over a number of years, but in adding a second protagonist to the mix, Ubisoft has effectively doubled the experiences on offer. One serves as a more brutish style assassin, ensuring more recent fans of the series feel right at home with their action-packed gameplay, while the other is more elusive, remaining undetected and striking at the opportune moment, much like in the earlier iterations of Assassin’s Creed.
Blending both together in a Japan on the verge of upheaval, it’s safe to sa.