Assassin’s Creed Shadows features stunning visuals on PC, PS5, & Xbox Series X, but Ubisoft Quebec could’ve taken an art direction lesson from Ghost of Tsushima.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes place in Japan circa 1579, near the end of what is known as the Sengoku period — 300 years before the advent of the incandescent light bulb. So it stands to reason that once the sun sets, the world that co-protagonists Naoe and Yasuke inhabit is going to get dark.
Now, I wouldn’t ordinarily be on the side of anybody suggesting that the makers of Assassin’s Creed pull back from their devotion to the concept of historical accuracy. It’s one of my favorite elements of the franchise — and it’s why I would strongly recommend playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows in immersive mode.
But sometimes, historical accuracy should take a back seat to playability.
Aside from the very first cutscene, the opening of Assassin’s Creed Shadows — the introductions of both Yasuke and Naoe — takes place entirely at night. In the former character’s case, the setting makes for a striking scene as the warlord Oda Nobunaga burns Iga Province to the ground. Yasuke’s face is lit by a massive conflagration as he acknowledges to Nobunaga that the scale of the casualties in this war gives him some pause.
The point of view soon shifts to Naoe, who must undertake an important mission because her father is indisposed: retrieving an artifact from a kofun, or tomb. It was at this point that I started wondering if I needed to change the picture settings in the game or on my computer monitor, because as Naoe, I could hardly see who I was fighting or where I was going.
