Assassin’s Creed: Shadows Review – A Masterclass in Stealth and Samurai Combat!

by Jim Smale · Published April 18, 2025 · Updated April 17, 2025

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows Review dives deep into Ubisoft’s latest open-world RPG, bringing stealth, action, and intricate exploration to feudal Japan. With breathtaking visuals, fluid combat, and a dynamic dual-protagonist system, the game pushes the franchise forward while delivering a rich and immersive experience. Whether mastering assassination techniques, navigating its expansive world, or upgrading your hideout, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows offers endless possibilities—but does it overcome its flaws? Read on to uncover the highs, the lows, and whether this entry is worthy of the Assassin’s Creed legacy.

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows Review Pros:

Gorgeous graphics.
Download size.
Uplay achievements.
Full controller support.
Graphics settings – graphics quality preset, v-sync, anti aliasing, fullscreen, a field of view slider, fps cap, window mode, aspect ratio, resolution, v-sync, refresh rate, resolution scale, graphics quality preset, adaptive quality, world detail, clutter, shadows, volumetric clouds, water, screen-space reflections, character textures, depth of field and motion blur.
Benchmark tool for performance and graphics setup.
Uplay rewards system integration.
DLSS support, and you can set it to performance or quality.
Controller settings – Invert axis and sensitivity sliders, can remap your controls, auto movement, HUD toggle, left-handed layout, deadzone sliders, and trigger button thresholds.
Mouse and keyboard support, you can remap the controls, Invert axis and sensitivity sliders, along with set walking speed, Invert scroll, and lock cursor.
Photo mode support.
Subtitles can be turned off and on, size of text, text backgrounds, speaker icons, speaker direction, and seperate options for in-game and cutscenes.
Aim Assist can be tweaked to its strength or turned off.
The game opens up with memories where you can see the timeline of the Assassin’s Creed games and you can select any memory and enter it amd it acts like a launcher for every game, as clicking a memory will launch that game.
Four game difficulties – Story, forgiving, normal, and expert.
Three game setup options – guided exploration, canon mode (allows you to influence characters’ decisions in cutscenes), and immersive mode (locks language to Japanese and Portuguese).
Action stealth RPG gameplay.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play.
The opening prologue has you playing both characters in turn and sets up their story.
You play two characters –
A full 3D game world with 360-degree camera control.
You play the game in the third-person view.
Beautiful fmv cutscenes, in-game character interactions, and in-game cutscenes that really pop.
Excellent voice work.
Fast-paced combat, it’s a case of learning patterns, breaking stances, and dodging.
Save and load when you want from the pause menu.
Horses get you around quicker, and when on them, you can change stances to jump off them or attack from them.
The pathfinder system can be toggled on and off, and it will draw a line in front of you to your marked objective or destination.
Observe lets you scan an area and mark enemies and any possible loot or environmental interactions.
The grappling hook helps you scale buildings and rock faces.
Play how you want, it’s an open world, and you can take on quests, side missions, or just explore.
Darkness plays a huge part, you cannot be seen or detected in the dark. Use tools to blow out or turn off light sources to keep it dark.
Enemies will react to you and your actions, blow out a candle, and they will investigate.
The movement of your characters is the smoothest it’s ever been, with acrobatic animations thrown in; it really is the huge evolution the series needed.
Combat is less hack and slash and more countering and being stealthy.
If you have ever played games like Tenchu, then you appreciate and notice how much they took from those games and tweaked them, polished them, and made it what we remember Tenchu being back then.
Auto follow lets you click on a person and then follow without any input from you.
Absolutely gorgeous lands to explore.
Multiple choice encounters.
Earn exp from fighting, discoveries, missions, etc, and level up to increase base stats and get points to unlock new abilities.
Observing plays a big role in the game as it allows you to ping enemies but also see interactions and objectives.
Ninja vision, as I call it, lets you see enemies and objectives, hiding spaces, etc, through walls.
Find and earn armour that comes in different rarities and gives buffs.
The map is split into areas and has a level requirement attached to each.
You have a horse mount you can call upon, and earn new mounts and saddles.
The hideout you own can be upgraded and customised with resources and materials you earn and find in the world. It’s very in-depth; you can place your drawings on the wall, rearrange furniture, add trinkets, and unlock new color schemes and colors.
Upgrading the hideout is its own thing, where you can see the whole hideout land in 3D and move and build structures that can give buffs, abilities, or add new features to your arsenal.
Adopt and place pets around your hideout.
Hire scouts to check an area out beforehand, which can add in markers or points of interest in a small area you select and is used to help locate objectives.
The map fills in as you explore and fills in points of interest, markers as you discover them.
Fast travel points can be unlocked and used.
Missions don’t just say go here and do that; instead, you get brief ideas of where someone is, and you need to either explore or use scouts.
Place your own markers on the map.
The compass at the top of the screen shows objectives, markers, points of interest,t etc.
Recruit more scouts to aid you.
Lootable bodies have a clear signal letting you know.
After knocking out or killing an enemy, you can pick up the body and hide it in boxes, closets, tall grass, etc.
Clear, easy-to-read stealth indicator on screen when crouched or in the dark.
Enemies have an awareness meter that fills as they become more suspicious, and the meter’s shape points to me. Their direction.
I really like how assainating someone from behind cover lets you grab them quite far away, but still go back to where you were.
Three save types – autosave, manual save, and cloud save.
Find smuggled items, and due to their size, you tag them, and then scouts come and get them.
Collect resources from in and around the world.
Has the same base building vibe and addiction as Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain did.
Find meditation spots and do the mini game to get background quests or self-contained scenarios.
You can go prone and crawl around, which is useful in tall grass.
Two weapons can be equipped at one time, and you press a button to swap.
Hidden little cave systems sometimes with a puzzle element for rare loot.
Loot will have green and red text to indicate if they are higher or lower than what you have equipped.
A living, breathing world.
Excellent loading times, making fast travel just that.
Synchronisation spots are automatic now when close enough. You can sit there and observe markers and then place what points to help.
Collectibles range from praying at altars and collecting pages from books, each area shows progress.
Sneak up on animals in the world and paint them, and you can then put your painting up in your home.
Find altars to donate offerings, get exp rewards.
Markers will appear when you get near them.
Find people in the world to help, and they act like side quests; again, it’s all optional.
Day and night cycle with different weather types. You can meditate to change the time of day.
Other players’ photos will show up on the map, and you can like, hide, or zoom in on them.
Contracts can be taken for huge rewards for your hideout, The contracts are unique to the area and the season.
You have a central storage chest that is around the world and your hideout.
Earn mastery points to unlock new skills you can then unlock with skill points. There are 6 total skill trees for weapons, tools, stealth, etc.
Vendors will let you buy and sell items and gear. You do have a handy Sell All Valuables button.
You can earn Helix credit, which is the premium real money currency for the store.
You can stick to the ceiling and use it for takedown, just like you can swing with your grapple hook and do air assassinations.

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows Review Cons:

The game did not like my Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, I could not get the game to recognize it at all.
Jumps between gameplay and cutscenes can sometimes be jarring as they are of different qualities.
The game is a huge system hog.
Invisible walls are quite popular in many parts of the map.
Timing blocks and dodges is still difficult for me, I found the noises to not be in line with the actions.
It is a slow starter as you do a lot of tutorials for fighting and climbing, the story has to be set up, and it all takes time.
For the life of me, I couldn’t get the auto-follow command to work when on horseback.
I feel like my choices in conversations didn’t really affect the story that much.
It does have that feeling of being overwhelmed as you spend a while being guided through, then it’s just here’s the world, go for it.
So many quests and optional objectives that it feels overwhelming, and it has too many.
Getting scouts to do things is not as simple and streamlined as I would like. I found the Eagles in previous games to be better.
When searching within areas, it’s hard as the icons and tells don’t show themselves, making it frustrating.
All the Ubisoft connect UI is different and not user-friendly in the slightest.

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows:

Official website.

Developer: Ubisoft

Publisher: Ubisoft

Store Links –

Ubisoft