Is it Too Late for Assassin's Creed Shadows?

The idea of having a ninja as an assassin and a samurai as a Templar was just too perfect. But they wanted their cake and eat it too.

I think AC shadows could’ve been more interesting if they scrapped the samurai angle and just focus on a Shinobi assassin. Going back to roots like with Mirage.

I really wish ubi had committed to making the japan game an actual ninja game instead of half of a ninja game and then half a samurai game that probably wont play very well.

Remember, Ubisoft give us AC game Greek & Viking before Japan. 🤦‍♂️ It took the popularity of Ghost of Tsushima for them to make AC in Japan. If GOT didn't get made, I guarantee they won't make AC Shadows.

Funny thing is Ubisoft has perfected the "fast food" game formula, was their game groundbreaking? no but it still sells well just like McDonald's Burger.

It's funny that when Ghost of Tsushima was released, it was usually compared to AC. When Shadows drops, it will now be compared to Ghost of Tsushima. And a comparison will not be favorable for Ubisoft.

The time for this was over a decade ago, people have been begging for this since the end of the first game. You missed the boat Ubisoft Your terrible output of mindless bloated games for the better part of a decade certainly doesn't help

I mean, considering we got Victorian England, revolutionary Paris, Ancient Greece (despite having almost no connection to the brotherhood), and viking expansion era AC settings before Japan, I'd say they're pretty late to the party.

If Ubisoft were smart, which they aren’t, they’d look at lesser known historical figures, like the Order of Saint John, who defended Malta successfully from the Turks in the 1560’s. Imagine a Turkish assassin, trained by Ezio’s successors, sent to destabilize the Order of Saint John, secretly run by Templars, searching for an Apple near the Neolithic temple of Gigantija. And, while the assassins, perhaps do not prevail, they succeed in securing the Apple for the creed. You could have the sons, or grandsons of Ezio be either the main assassin, or leaders of the creed still in Constantinople. Or, and hear me out……. MAKE A NEW SPLINTER CELL GAME.

Ever since the announcement i though. If this was 2010, high of Ac and ubisofts popularity, the reaction wouldve been a lot more optimistic

Rurouni Kenshin, Sword of the stranger, Samurai champloo and now blue eye samurai, how many of these Ronin like anime do devs need to see to realize that a triple A game with these kinds of narratives and characters set in feudal Japan is really what people have been asking for. Heck, GOT paved the way in showing just how bad people want this kind of grounded game. Imagine if Rockstar did for a Ronin like game what they did for western fans with Red dead 2.

no social stealth is devastating. other games like Hitman might do it better, but that was one of the key ingredients to the weird but wonderful AC recipe. The ninja traversal looks good, but the hulking brute of the "samurai" just feels like a completely different game. I was hype to see muskets making a return to the franchise but the one snippet of gameplay we saw with one was underwhelming. If I ever pick it up, three years after release for 80% off, I imagine I'll be sticking to the ninja playstyle the whole way through, unless Ubi gives more than half the screentime to the male character like they did in Syndicate. Tsushima just seems like the better pick for samurai gameplay; more cinematic, faster... better than any AC combat I can recall. Shadows' open combat reveal needed to impress, but it just didn't. I know it's too late but I genuinely believe cutting the samurai half of the game entirely to double down on being a ninja would make the game more appealing. Like you said, there aren't many good actual-ninja games out there with a tight focus on stealth. Reintroducing social stealth would be an option too, since ninja historically weren't the black-clad figures dashing through the shadows we see in pop culture, they were spies, they infiltrated hostile territory by blending into crowds in plainclothes. Historical ninja are closer to the historical Order of Assassins that gave the franchise its name than the actual ingame Assassins, it was the perfect opportunity to re-reinvent the franchise, make it stand out again like it did once upon a time. Give a genuine, historical look at ninja that is accurate enough to show in classrooms (remember when that was a thing for Origins? that was neat...) that sets it apart. A shame Shadows seems doomed to blend into the genre AC inspired all those years ago. The final death knell in my mind is that no stated focus on historical accuracy will land with authenticity in the wake of their choice of protagonist(s). Firstly, it's odd that we're playing as real historical figures instead of a fictional character in the margins of history, where the writers had more freedom to reinterpret events for the sake of a fun game. That was what made AC3's story so interesting to me: seeing these events I was—only hours ago—reading about in class from someone who was there, but still with a degree of separation that kept it from feeling too Magic School Bus or fanfiction-y. Secondly, Yasuke wasn't a samurai. He wasn't. Numerous actual Japanese experts I've looked up have said as such, and the only people saying he was seem to be pop historians and diversity advocates, with one respectable outlier who tbh does a lot of extrapolating. He was dressed up like a samurai and treated much better than the slave he technically was, sure, but it's been like saying he was a knight when he was a squire at best. The ignoble end to his time in Japan really is the icing on the cake. (Also the critique of Ubi's special edition physical goodies that have incorrect kanji and iconography, woops). If they're perfectly happy to reinvent Yasuke, their poster boy, this way (to the outrage of so many Asian fans, man, it's been wild seeing the backlash across culture boundaries) then they can't be trusted to be honest about the rest of it. I need to just hunt down community patches for Unity. Despite the nightmarish technical state of it, it's still my favorite of the franchise. It managed to get me re-invested into the Ass/lar conflict despite not really sticking the landing, I loved how much more fluid the parkour and combat felt compared to Black Flag, the tight focus on stealth indoors and out, having a rifle as my primary weapon... Man I used to love this franchise.

I still think they should have done Imperial China instead, maybe around the three kingdoms era. It would have filled a completely different niche and could have made historical sense as a successor to origins with the order spreading east. Or much later, perhaps during mongol rule? That could make sense as well as it was the mongols who sacked Alamut, paint the mongols as manipulated by the templar order established there by Basim or something to connect with the current story. Möngke Khan was after all rumored to have been assassinated by them on the orders of Muhammad III of Alamut in 1253, just 3 years prior to the siege. Japan is low-hanging fruit as it has been done so many times recently, and done really well at that.

Ghost of Tsushima had Sucker Punched Assassin creed to the game we all wanted.

It really does make sense to compare Ghost and AC as when I was playing ghost I thought it felt like a more well done and polished version of a ubisoft game

Dropping social stealth entirely is their biggest mistake, it's what sets AC apart. The shinobi fantasy and samurai fantasy are desired but what people really want out of these games above all is the assassin fantasy and removing that core identity from the series is why they keep missing the mark with these newer games.

If they're aiming for us playing as a samurai or a ronin, then yes it's too late, because we already get better ones like GoT and RoR. Their best chance to make something interesting is to make a game similar to Tenchū, where we play as a full fledged ninja. Because people missed Tenchū, sadly they never made that type of game anymore. But they got greedy and fumbled, aside from the ninja (which supposed to be the only protagonist) now we got other main character which is an out of place "Samurai" who brings absolutely nothing new to the table. Is it so hard to focus on one character?, namely Naoe?, isn't it harder to split our attention between 2 main characters?, I'm pretty sure nobody expected to play a Samurai in an Assassin's Creed game. So why not just ditched the Samurai, and focus on the Ninja.

A great shinobi/ninja experience I recommend is the Aragami duology. Two little indie games heavily inspired by games like Tenchu series and I reallly like it. Definitely a must play.

One big problem is that Assassin's Creed was never intended for being a samurai game in the sense of playing as a samurai. It's history is more suited for being a ninja game with ninjas as playable characters only. Shadows could've been good as an improved take on the Tenchu series by Activision. This has been more of what fans have been wanting and Ubisoft dropped the ball on it big time far beyond repair. Fortunately they also left a the door wide open for a smaller company to come in, make a proper ninja game, and replace the AC franchise/Tenchu style games with something new if it's done right.

In terms of indie games I'm currently playing Infection Free Zone, Green Hell, Ancient Cities and Thrive. The latter is also interesting because what began as a project made out of sheer spite has in recent times founded a game dev studio.