Assassin’s Creed Shadows co-protagonist Yasuke will be one of the rare protagonists in the Assassin’s Creed franchise that will not be an assassin. Associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois revealed in an interview with GamesRadar that, since Yasuke isn’t an assassin, he also won’t have access to some of the tools of the trade, including Eagle Vision.
According to Lemay-Comtois, Yasuke will play an important role in the story of Assassin’s Creed Shadows despite not being an assassin. In fact, Lemay-Comtois points to the fact that he isn’t an assassin, and he isn’t Japanese as being one of the big reasons why his role is important. Lemay-Comtois said that “he works with Naoe, but he’s not an assassin, and he doesn’t have to be.”
The decision to not give Yasuke abilities like Eagle Vision came about because his perspective as an outsider to not only Japanese culture, but to the assassins as well, is a valuable one. This also forced the studio to further distinguish Yasuke and Naoe from each other not only in terms of story, but mechanically as well.
“No,” said Lemay-Comtois when asked if Yasuke having Eagle Vision would make it easier, “he needs to not have it so you play different with him than you play with Naoe.”
Leading up to the March 20 release date for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft has recently been quite open about the upcoming title. Among other things, the studio explained that the latest delay was due to developers wanting to further polish the interaction between the game’s parkour systems and the unique roofs of the title’s Feudal Japan setting.
“Probably the most complex thing that I ever worked with if we compared to Odyssey and Syndicate,” explained game director Charles Benoit earlier this month. “We needed specific codes and specific animations to support something super fluid, changing the transition of the parkour to make it even more fluid. So that’s one of the specific feedback that we heard that we wanted to address, and it really improved since the last few months.”
Ubisoft has also stated that Assassin’s Creed Shadows will not feature the bloated open worlds that the company has been criticised for in the past. Creative director Jonathan Dumont has stated that, while the title will feature quite a bit of visual fidelity at various scales, it is also being designed so that there isn’t just a new point of interest every 50 meters.
More recently, Ubisoft has also revealed some of the accessibility options and features that will be present in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Alongside features like colourblind options and screen narration, it will also include navigation and guidance, remappable controls, and distinct difficulty settings to allow as many players as possible to play and finish the game.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game will launch alongside the Animus Hub, which will act as a home for all Assassin’s Creed titles released after Origins. Games in the franchise from before Origins will not be supported in the Animus Hub.
