Thanks to a recent AMA by the developers of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, quite a few new details about the future of the franchise are being revealed. In a recent post, the developers have confirmed that, while the stories in Assassin’s Creed games did grow beyond the Templars vs. Assassins shadow war, that storyline will also be introduced in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
“The Assassins vs. Templars conflict has always been a core pillar of Assassin’s Creed,” acknowledged the developers when asked about whether or not the conflict will be returning to take center stage after being largely absent for quite some time. The developers also went as far as confirming that more details about the brewing conflict in the background will be revealed with a deep dive in the “near future”.
“With Shadows, we wanted to properly set our protagonist in the setting before expanding on the Assassins vs. Templars,” the post continued. “Now that it’s done on the main game, we scratched the surface with the Critical Role story drop, and you can expect more deep dive into this conflict in the near future.”
It is worth noting that Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a story that features Kakushiba Ikki organisation, which in-universe history books earmarked as Japan’s own Assassin’s Brotherhood. With this in mind, an appearance of the Assassins vs Templars conflict showing up in future DLC for Assassin’s Creed Shadows or even just sequels would only be a matter of time.
In the same interview, the developers had also confirmed that, while Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been getting plenty of post-launch support with free updates as well as planned DLC, the title will not be getting the popular Discovery Mode. Explaining this decision, the developers said that they instead decided to add educational material and historical context for various people, locations and buildings from the game directly into its Historical Codex, rather than keeping it in a separate game mode.
“On Shadows, we have decided to integrate the Historical Codex directly in the main game so it’s available to everyone,” said a developer. “So compared to games like Odyssey or Valhalla, all players can access that historical information directly in the main game.”
“But to get to the core of your question, we do not currently have a ‘Japan Discovery Tour’ like we had for ‘Viking Age’ in the works.”
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Since its release, the game has proven to be a success with 5 million players as of July. The title is also slated to get its first story expansion – Claws of Awaji – on September 16. The expansion was available for free as a pre-order bonus. Those that bought the game after the release, however, can still pick it up separately. And if you’re worried about spoilers, don’t worry, since Claws of Awaji content can only be accessed once the main story has been completed.
For more details about Assassin’s Creed Shadows, check out our review.
