Assassin’s Creed Shadows Review: A Stunning but Exhausting Samurai Fantasy

by Luis March 18, 2025

Ubisoft’s long-running Assassin’s Creed franchise has taken players across centuries of history, from the Crusades to Victorian London, and now, in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, to the long-awaited setting of Feudal Japan. This latest entry blends the series’ signature stealth-action gameplay with a fresh dual-protagonist approach, allowing players to embody two distinct figures: Yasuke, the African samurai, and Naoe, a skilled shinobi assassin. Now that the game has finally launched, does it live up to the expectations set by its ambitious premise? Or does it fall short of delivering the immersive stealth experience that fans have long hoped for?

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Review: A Stunning but Exhausting Samurai Fantasy

Feudal Japan is beautifully realized in Shadows, with intricate towns, lush forests, and towering castles. Ubisoft has clearly put a lot of effort into making the world feel alive, and the dynamic weather system adds an impressive level of immersion. The changing seasons influence gameplay, with summer providing ample cover in tall grass and winter making stealth trickier due to snow crunching underfoot.

However, the story itself is somewhat inconsistent. While Yasuke’s narrative is intriguing, offering a fresh perspective as an outsider navigating Japan’s rigid social structure, Naoe’s arc feels like a retread of past Assassin’s Creed protagonists. Her motivations are predictable, and her character development lacks the depth needed to make her truly stand out. The interaction between the two protagonists is engaging, but the game struggles to balance their individual arcs, leading to pacing issues where one character’s story overshadows the other.

One of Shadows’ most touted features is its refined stealth mechanics, and in many ways, it delivers. The ability to manipulate light sources—extinguishing torches to remain in the shadows—adds a layer of strategic depth missing from recent entries. Enemy AI has also improved, reacting more intelligently to suspicious activity, making stealth gameplay both challenging and rewarding.

However, the dual-character system introduces an issue: Yasuke’s brute-force combat style is significantly easier than Naoe’s stealth-focused approach. While Naoe’s gameplay requires patience and precision, Yasuke can often bulldoze through enemies without much consequence. This imbalance makes stealth feel optional rather than necessary, which undercuts the game’s attempt to return to the series’ roots. Fans who hoped for a revival of classic Assassin’s Creed stealth may find the combat too forgiving.

Ubisoft once again delivers a massive, explorable world, but the familiar issue of open-world bloat rears its head. While the main missions are well-crafted, the side content quickly becomes repetitive. Too many activities boil down to checklist-style objectives that feel more like busywork than meaningful additions to the story. The game also leans heavily on collectibles, which, while offering small world-building tidbits, feel more like filler than necessary content.

The overwhelming amount of activities, from hunting down meaningless trinkets to clearing out yet another enemy outpost, makes Shadows feel exhausting rather than engaging. At this point, Ubisoft’s open-world formula has become predictable to the point of fatigue, and despite the fresh setting, the experience remains eerily familiar. The sheer scale of the game is impressive, but when the world feels more like a to-do list than a dynamic, evolving space, it starts to wear thin.

On a technical level, Shadows is mostly stable, but it does have some performance issues. Frame rate dips occur during intense combat sequences, and occasional AI glitches disrupt immersion. Some stealth takedowns fail to register properly, and enemy pathing can be inconsistent, sometimes making sneaking through an area frustrating for the wrong reasons. These problems aren’t game-breaking, but they do detract from the overall experience, particularly for those who expect a refined stealth game.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a visually stunning, ambitious entry that successfully brings Feudal Japan to life. Its stealth mechanics mark a welcome return to form, and the world-building is among Ubisoft’s best. However, the uneven storytelling, imbalanced combat, and relentless open-world bloat prevent it from reaching the heights of the series’ best entries. If you’ve been longing for a classic Assassin’s Creed experience, you’ll find moments of brilliance here—but they come with frustrations as well. And if you’ve grown tired of Ubisoft’s copy-paste open-world formula, Shadows won’t change your mind.