Assassin’s Creed Shadows continues the series’ streak of great objective menus, building on ideas from the previous three games and making them even cleaner.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the latest Assassin’s Creed game to take place in a vast, beautiful world — so large that it can be overwhelming. For grand open-world RPGs like this, making sure the map screen is legible and pleasant to look at is a must. But just as important in a game this sprawling is the objectives screen, where you keep track of the main story tasks and the dozens of side quests that become available as you talk to NPCs and explore playable areas. Shadows’ objectives menus is one of my favorites so far: It continues on the franchise’s recent iterations on quest maps, creating one that’s easy to navigate and that helps me feel more connected to the game’s world and story.
Shadows’ objectives screen is an improvement on an idea the franchise toyed with and expanded on in Odyssey, Valhalla, and Mirage: It’s laid out a bit like a family tree, with different areas of the screen representing different quest groupings, areas of the world, and people you’re helping.
