Assassin's Creed Shadows Review – A Beautiful, Flawed Return to the Creed

For the last week, I have been immersed in the world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. I have been quietly enjoying the game, focusing on the tall grass, takip patrol routes, and rudimentary stalking. I have stopped to admire the ephemeral beauty of the evening light on the leaves of feudal Japan.  I would rate Shadows a 7/10. When the game delivers, it shines and becomes a game to remember. Sneaking within the striking landscapes of Shadows is a game-kernel experience, but it is additionally challenged by the unmodernized systems that have yet to rekindle the elusive stealth of the original titles in the series, leaving the game unpolished.

The Good

The biggest win for Assassin's Creed Shadows is its commitment to stealth. Playing as Naoe feels like a return to form, at least partially. I enjoyed lying prone in tall grass, using a torch to manipulate lighting, and slipping past guards under the cover of night. These activities felt like evolutions of the classic AC formula as opposed to the RPG sprawl of Origins and Odyssey. The guaranteed assassinations option, which I immediately turned on, brings back that old sense of certainty and satisfaction. There are no level checks, no health bars, just the silent efficiency that defined the series I fell in love with.

There is visual poetry in the gentle rice paddies and the castle rooftops. Paper lanterns glow in the dusk, and cherry blossoms float in the warm air. There is a feeling of beauty in the calm and quiet tension of the stealth missions. I liked the dynamic changing of the seasons in each region. The world is alive, just the right amount.

Acts 1 and 3 are where the story gets really solid. The introduction emotionally grounds Naoe and Yasuke. There is a brilliant and thoughtful symmetry in Naoe’s quiet determination and Yasuke’s sense of honor, and their dynamic really carries the story. The quiet character moments really shine because of the weight their dynamic brings. The visual and emotional payoff in the finale is breathtaking. Unfortunately, the middle act is boring, but at least the story is strong in the beginning and in the end.

In case you buy PC games, the game performs fairly well, but it’s not well optimized. The world looks best when it’s evening or early morning. During those hours, the lighting engine does phenomenal work. I also appreciate the PC support; my Proton experience was surprisingly smooth, which I appreciate.

Lastly, in the spirit of fairness, I want to state that the game experience has certainly improved with the updates. The developers seem to attend to feedback around the responsiveness of stealth, clarity of missions, and transitions in the menus. It’s not flawless, but it’s improved significantly from the state of the game on day one, which is promising to see for the game’s continued support.

The Meh

The story has its beauty, but it is predictable. The emotional beats are compelling, the performances powerful, but the plot is an overused repetition of betrayal, revenge, and redemption. It is engaging enough to move forward, yet I found the lesser character interactions more interesting than the larger narrative. The storytelling has a certain polish, yet it often comes at the cost of pacing. Cutscenes overstay their welcome, and I wish there were more moments where the story could breathe through gameplay instead of relying on dialogue.

It can be a wonderful and exhausting experience at the same time. It’s not just about how many things there are and how much you can do in the world. However, some things feel a little excessive. There are shrines with more than five required collections, there are escort missions that take forever, and there are a few fetch quests that feel like a complete throwback to the time wasting in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. This time, it’s not nearly as bad, but enough to remind me that this is a Ubisoft open world. The best features are the hand-crafted fortresses and towns that are designed to be infiltrated with stealth. The worst are the mindless tasks in the countryside.

Combat feels like a tired return to the same genre of older systems. The fact that Shadows is a copy of the RPG system is more evident than ever. While the style of combat that Yasuke uses in the game is heavy and flashy, it just didn’t capture my attention. There is a lot of pride in the game’s combat system, and it battles you to avoid it by cleverly disguising places to fight. It is the same magic that you feel in your strategies, with everyone being bored over the years with dodging, sneaking, and stamina. With Yasuke, the battle is in the planning, not the fighting.

On the bright side, the parkour can improve in Assassin's Creed Shadows. The former games excelled in depth and fluidity. Traversal is now less expressive, feeling almost automated. There are breathtaking walls and rooftops that are eager to be climbed, but the inconsistencies in climbing logic are quite frustrating. There are perfectly scaled walls that can’t be climbed and illogical walls that can be climbed and scaled. It is no wonder that immersion is lost, along with the satisfaction that comes with a clean escape route. Movement is a core component in design, and sadly, parkour design lacks in this area.

Quest design, while not exceeding impact, is not frustrating to experience. It is not frustrating because I appreciate that there are search areas instead of exact markers. It creates and simulates realism, and I can appreciate that. It is almost always the same: investigate the area, find the clue, and locate the target. There is no surprise, but there are other tasks that are less so. It can be too rigid, but I can appreciate that at least it is there.

The Bad

I want to discuss something that genuinely put a damper on my enjoyment: the unreliable assassin prompt. As a stealth player, this was infuriating. There were so many times I’d position myself behind the target and wait for the prompt, only to have it disappear at the slightest movement. I’d have to reload the checkpoint after my cover was blown because there was no smooth assassination, I’d light attack by mistake, and trigger combat. This might not be an issue for players who like open combat, but for stealth purists, it’s something that I really hope gets fixed soon. It really defeats the purpose of how I want to play.

Unfortunately, the menus are still slow. The delays that occur when you open the inventory or objectives board are frustrating and annoying, mainly when you are checking on multiple items or quer progress. For a game this big, there is a surprising amount of time that you spend in the menus, so slow transitions are hard to overlook. It’s not game-breaking, but the menus are frustrating to deal with, and it worsens the experience.

Performance is yet another weak point of Assassin's Creed Shadows. The GPU is demanding, yet there's not much going on visually. Even on a decent machine, there were stutters in larger towns and heavily populated, particle-dense settings. Pretty visuals don’t excuse poor optimization, and plenty of attainability has to be dropped just to keep settings low enough to be stable. Though the experience hasn't been ruined, the sense of magic has been lost to the lower settings.

Having a game that aims to deliver that more classic style, it's just strange. Being able to merge with the crowd, bench sit, and use disguises were small, yet influential mechanics that brought stealth to life. Because of the absence of those features in Naoe's trick box, the feeling of stealth is much more hollow. The prone and shadow mechanisms are excellent, but should have accompanied social stealth, not replaced it.

Conclusion

It remembers what made the classics great—the focus on stealth, the beauty of a tightly designed world—but it still can’t quite let go of the RPG framework that slows everything down. It is hard to eliminate the joy of the old classics. The stealth mechanics are flawless, and this is the main reason people who buy PS5 games get Shadows. The world is rich, and the feeling of being an assassin, silent and unseen, is alive and well. But then the story stretches thin, the menus lag, and the inconsistencies of climbability remind me that this isn’t quite the masterpiece it could have been. I had a good time playing.