There’s a lot to like about Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In stealth, parkour, world design, and more, it feels like the strongest, most smartly designed, and most engaging Assassin’s Creed entry in years. But where all of those area areas where the series has been known to stick the landing at different points over the years, there is one particular way that Shadows impresses that feels like a new frontier for the series. Specifically, I’m referring to the way it implements its dual protagonist framework.
Of course, this isn’t the first Assassin’s Creed game to feature multiple protagonists by any means. In fact, Ubisoft Quebec – the team behind Shadows – has only ever released Assassin’s Creed entries featuring two protagonists, though the implementation has varied each time. Jacob and Evie Frye took the stage in Syndicate, but between the two of them, Jacob had the lion’s share of the main story to himself, with Evie very much playing second fiddle. In Odyssey, meanwhile, players could only play as one of ether Kassandra or Alexios, with whoever wasn’t picked being a non-player character in the story.
For the first time in the series’ history, then, Shadows features two protagonists who feel more or less on equal footing (though there is a certainly strong case to be made that Naoe is the primary driver of the central storyline), with both characters feeling meaningfully unique from each other and offering remarkably different gameplay experiences in more ways than one. And best of all, they are both an absolute blast to play as, almost to an astounding degree. From a narrative perspective, Naoe and Yasuke are both charismatic and instantly likeable leads, and they might even be the lone bright spots in the game’s otherwise clumsy and disappointing story- but it’s with their gameplay that both protagonists really shine, especially because of how effectively they are able to highlight the game’s own core strengths.
Going into Assassin’s Creed Shadows, being a longtime fan of the franchise who had been desperately hoping for it to go back to focusing on classic stealth and parkour after having spent the last several years actively moving away from those elements, I had had little doubt in my mind that Naoe would be the character I’d be spending the bulk of my time with. And while I have played as Naoe more than I have as Yasuke (thanks in large part to my proclivity for stealth), I have also ended up spending more time playing as Yasuke than I’d thought I would, and that time has been a ton of fun.
Between the two protagonists, Yasuke is the more combat focused one. He’s a trained samurai and a veteran of the battlefield, and it certainly shows in his gameplay. Not only can he take a healthy amount of punishment, he’s also quite deadly with his own strikes. Yes, he moves a little slower, but his attacks hit hard, he’s more effective with his blocking and parrying skills, he has more health items to use, and he he has more adrenaline chunks with which to unleash special abilities. The arsenal of weapons that he has access to is also endlessly fun to use, with naginata spears, kanabo hammers, and teppo rifles each serving as deadly weapons, each more enjoyable to use than the last.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows boasts probably the best combat system in any Assassin’s Creed game, maybe with the exception of Odyssey, and that combat is at its very best when you’re playing as Yasuke. The rush that I get from barging into heavily defended strongholds and laying waste to enemies with formidable strings of attacks is amazing. And though combat is certainly not Naoe’s specialty, she can also hold her own in a fight, and combat still remains fun with her. She can’t take as much damage and her attacks don’t hit quite so hard, but she’s much nimbler, much faster, and her own set of usable weapons – kasurigama, tanto, and of course, the Hidden Blade – all feel excellent to use as well.
Naoe is, of course, the stealthier of the two characters, and just as Shadows’ combat shines with Yasuke at the wheel, the game’s stealth gameplay flourishes when Naoe is in the driving seat. Both characters have a base moveset that make stealth fun no matter what and facilitates strong level design in areas that demand the need to be sneaky. But Naoe, as a trained shinobi, has access to plenty more tools and abilities that elevate her gameplay. She can use Eagle Vision, allowing her to highlight and spot enemies through walls. She can hang off of ceilings when indoors to hide from soldiers directly beneath her. She can use smoke bombs to conceal herself, or bells to distract enemies.
Naoe feels absolutely lethal, and makes sneaking around an absolute blast in a way that has felt downright alien to Assassin’s Creed for the better part of a decade at this point. Thankfully, Yasuke isn’t completely incapable of being sneaky either. Just like the dichotomy between the two protagonists in combat, though one is certainly the expert when it comes to stealth, the other can is not exactly a complete novice either. Yasuke’s stealth abilities are much more limited than Naoe’s, but he is capable of being stealthy when he needs to, in his own way.
Another key gameplay department where the two protagonists feel instantly different to play as is the moment-to-moment traversal. With Naoe being more nimble than Yasuke by quite a margin, movement on the most fundamental level also feels different as each character. Simply put, Naoe is probably the fastest and best-moving Assassin’s Creed protagonist to date, while she’s also equipped with a grappling hook to help her navigate her surrounding- all of which is to say that parkour with her in charge feels more enjoyable than it has in an Assassin’s Creed game in a really, really long time. Yasuke, meanwhile, feels significantly less agile, with his parkour gameplay feeling quite throttled in comparison. He is still an Assassin’s Creed protagonist though, which means moving around the world as Yasuke is still fun, if in different ways, and admittedly not quite to the same degree.
Whether in combat, stealth, or parkour though, it is remarkable that Yasuke and Naoe feel as different as they do. Each character feels fully fleshed out, and each offers enough strengths and advantages of their own that even if you do have a favourite, you’re likely still going to want to spend a fair amount of time playing as the other. Ultimately, Naoe has been my main protagonist in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, as I had expected, which is thanks to the fact that she drives the game’s renewed focus on stealth and parkour (and thanks to the story naturally making her feel more central). But the fact that Yasuke stands more or less on equal footing in spite of his gameplay being focused on an area of the game that I had not expected to engage with much, given the option, is testament to just how good Shadows’ combat is. In the end, Naoe and Yasuke both convincingly justify their presence on Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ center stage.
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