Summary
I’ve thoroughly rinsedAssassin’s Creed Shadows. I’ve assassinated every target, synchronised every viewpoint, and cleared every castle. Naoe is a well-honed killing machine, ready to strike from the shadows, and Yasuke is there too, doing his best. Having come to the end of my time in feudal Japan, my eternal need for yet more Assassin’s Creed remained unabated,so I revisited 2017’s Origins for a brief spell.
After only a couple of hours running around Ptolemaic Egypt, I’m now questioning why I spent so much time on Shadows. Origins is nearly a decade old at this point, and yet it’s still showing up all the ways Shadows falls flat.
Shadows isn’t a bad game. Especially when playing as Naoe, the minute-to-minute action of being an Assassin is the best it’s ever been. The stealth was overhauled to take lighting into account, going prone opens up going underneath the enemy instead of always defaulting to the rooftops, and ropes help climbing feel efficient yet still more involved and intentional than the mechanic did in Syndicate.
The writing is also a lot stronger. Naoe and Yasuke are a likeable pair of leads that play off each other well, and their journey is full of memorable scenes, like Naoe’s encounter with Hanzo, or Yasuke beginning his samurai training. AfterMirage’s disaster of a story, it’s nice to have leads given this much personality again.
I’ve Seen This Castle Before
But going back to Origins has really hammered home just how much my issues with Shadows hampered my enjoyment. Bayek may be clumsier and less stealthy than Naoe, and less of an efficient warrior than Yasuke, but his journey in Egypt clears Shadows for one key reason: the world.
Shadows’ Japan is pants. Each settlement looks and feels the same, with emptying out cookie-cutter castles taking up most of your time. The steep, insurmountable cliffs also make it a nightmare to navigate Kansai if you’d rather not stick to the paths between towns. It has pretty vistas, but there’s no substance. Aside from maybe an identical bandit camp or a shinobi ambush, Japan feels lifeless.
Ironically for a gamefull of deserts and crypts, Origins is teeming with life. The major cities have their own distinct flavour that makes them feel more unique than just about anywhere in Shadows. Krocodilopolis’ rivers and streams running through the streets, Letopolis still sitting half-buried under the sands, and the sprawling metropolis of Alexandria all make the towns and forts of Shadows feel underwhelming.
Japan Feels Dead
And that’s just the settlements. Even out in the wilds, there’s tons more to discover compared to Japan. A camp hidden in a chasm in the middle of a sun-scorched desert, or workers toiling away at building an aqueduct across a valley. In Shadows, you’re able to run miles without anything happening, while in Origins, you’re practically tripping over new encounters or places to explore.
Part of the reason why Shadows feels so devoid of life is because it very much is, in fact, devoid of life. Save for a few monkeys and cows, the world is entirely lacking in wildlife, and the only threats to Naoe and Yasuke are humans (and the odd yokai).
Bayek had to fight off lions, snakes, and even hippos, making the wilds just as dangerous as any guard outpost. It makes Shadows feel unfinished – you’ll often hear wolves howling in the distance, but you’ll never once fight them. Japan has bears, boars, and badgers, but you’d never know it with how carefree you can waltz through the forests.
Origins was Ubisoft’s big gambit to revitalise Assassin’s Creed after Syndicate underperformed. It even broke with tradition and took a year off its annual releases to make sure it was as good as it could be, and the results were one of the densest, most alive-feeling worlds Assassin’s Creed has ever had.
Despite its numerous delays, Shadows didn’t learn much from Origins’ example. It forgot the most important thing of any Assassin’s Creed game: having a great setting. Kansai could have been one of the all-time great locations for the series, but after just a few months, I’m less exhausted by the Egypt I’ve spent the last seven years exploring than the Japan I spent mere weeks in.
