Assassin’s Creed has been walking a tightrope strung between its past identity and future ambitions since it abandoned its stealthy sandbox and embraced the expansive role-playing formula seen in successful open world games like The Witcher 3. Ubisoft has favoured a ‘more is more’ approach with newer Assassin’s Creed games and found runaway success, but older titles, that came with a sharper focus on the series’ central tension between good and evil and everything grey in the middle, continue to appeal to long-term fans.
And thus, each new entry in the history-hopping action-adventure series becomes a dispute on what Assassin’s Creed is. Ubisoft has cast a wide net to please all parties with recent games in the series. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla were action-heavy spectacles that mixed history, mythology, and conspiracy to deliver open world blockbusters. Assassin’s Creed Mirage, on the other hand, narrowed the scope down to a throwback stealth formula that stoked nostalgia for the series’ origins.
With Assassin’s Creed Shadows, however, Ubisoft has tried to have it both ways by doubling down on brutal action while also bringing back stealth as a core mechanic. Through its two distinct protagonists, Shadows attempts to address the incongruency between the old-school Assassin’s Creed experience and the series’ new identity with mixed results. There’s no denying that stealth in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is more meaningful and robust than it has been in recent games like Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. However, its stealth systems are also made to fit in an open world designed very much like those games.
