Just a couple of days before the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft lifted the embargo on publishing final reviews, after which the Internet was flooded with game reviews in various formats. The Blix team will tell you what to expect from Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
Contents
Highlights
- Detailed review of the new Assassin’s Creed Shadows game
Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches on March 20, but you don’t have to wait! Join us now for fresh gameplay footage, dev insights, cast interviews, and an in-depth hands-on walkthrough.
🎮 Watch now on Twitch: https://t.co/lw5RubAAnm pic.twitter.com/JfTpVAm1Au— Assassin's Creed (@assassinscreed) March 18, 2025
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Review
Critics have already dubbed Assassin’s Creed Shadows the best game in the series for the last decade. On Metacritic, the average novelty score was 81 out of 100 based on 70 reviews. The game also scored 81 on OpenCritic, with 85% of journalists recommending it.
The discussion of the game on Reddit is already in full swing. You can also see reviews there as well:
Features in the Game
Journalists called Assassin’s Creed Shadows a great game, although it still does not claim to be the best role-playing action game of recent years. The reviewers wrote that Shadows “returns to its roots“—it eschews overloaded role-playing elements and focuses more on characters and stealth.
A key feature of the game was two protagonists with different play styles. Naoe, a master of stealth, fits perfectly into Assassin’s Creed’s usual stealth gameplay. Yasuke, on the contrary, relies on open confrontation and brute force.
Despite this, many journalists admitted that playing as Naoe was much more fun—her gameplay feels like an actual quintessential Assassin’s Creed experience. Yasuke’s gameplay, on the other hand, caused mixed emotions—not everyone liked his combat mechanics.
The Plot of Assassin’s Creed Shadows
The plot progresses much like in Valhalla, where the main reason for being in each map region is to complete a largely self-contained chapter.
However, Shadows’ plot is better balanced, and characters and plot elements don’t completely disappear when you leave one region. Not every new lord or business person you meet becomes redundant after you’ve solved their problems.
According to IGN’s notes, the plot:
It’s still a bit too full of “go here, do that” as bridges between major moments than I’d prefer, but it’s organized in a way that can be enjoyed in pieces and at your leisure without getting too lost between plot points, almost like how one might read a good book.
What’s Praised in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
The first thing that caught the critics’ eye was the incredible level of graphics. Journalists noted that Assassin’s Creed: Shadows amazes with details, weather effects, and the elaboration of the surrounding world. Gamers can see something similar in Ghost of Tsushima. Developers tried to convey the picturesque and bright landscapes of feudal Japan.
Critics also noted good combat, which does not get boring thanks to the ability to switch between two characters: Yasuke and Naoe. The combat styles of shinobi and Afrosamurai are radically different.
Critics noted that Ubisoft tried to make the game’s plot less stretched. For former franchise fans, the adventure brings something new and gives a lot of positive emotions for 60 hours of passing.
Assassin’s Creed has been fighting to find its identity for over a decade, and thanks to Shadows it’s finally rediscovered it. Sure, its combat can be clunky and some story beats felt oddly placed (particularly Yasuke’s backstory), but Shadows is exactly what Assassin’s Creed needed to prove it still has a beating heart.
Dexerto
In terms of performance, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has no obvious problems. Journalists wrote that the game worked with a stable frame rate without noticeable sags. Only in some cases was it possible to notice smooth animations.
Minuses of Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Journalists criticized the new Ubisoft game for repetitive tasks, stretched to the point of madness cat-scenes, a monotonous and sometimes boring system of building your own Sanctuary, total dependence of the passage on the current level of heroes, the mandatory grind experience for exploration, and incredibly banal and typical plot about revenge and injustice.
One of the downsides of the game has to do with Knowledge ranks. This system is integrated into character development, making minor activities monotonous yet almost mandatory.
The plot we wrote about above was also not liked by all journalists. Judging by the reviews, the story was relatively unexciting and little memorable. In addition, because of the division into two protagonists, the plot seems disjointed, and its finale – is smudged.
A disjointed main story, bland cast, and barrage of quests that all end the same way has me missing the days when Assassin’s Creed was solely focused on the two things it still excels at: infiltrating a place and killing the right guy inside.
PC Gamer
The press noted that Shadows is not a new word in the genre or Ubisoft’s attempt to create something radically new. It is still the same Assassin’s Creed with world exploration, unsightly secondary quests, familiar mechanics, and silly AI.
Conclusion
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be released on March 20, 2025, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
