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Out of every open world we’ve seen in recent Assassin’s Creed, the one of Shadows has been carefully crafted. Beyond the gorgeous locations and enthralling colors, there are a few things that make this representation of Feudal Japan feel alive and reactive. After playing dozens of hours, we’ve made a list of some small yet mind-blowing details of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
1. Seasonal Changes
One of the slickest additions in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the inclusion of seasons. Many might think these only work to provide a different color palette or a prettier look at Feudal Japan. However, they have several gameplay changes. One of the most evident ones is how hiding spots work. In spring and summer, there’s a lot of high grass that Naoe can use to hide. However, this is all gone during winter. Instead, winter brings heavy snowstorms that can provide cover even during broad daylight.
2. Enemy Behavior
Besides the AI being sharper when looking for Naoe or Yasuke, enemies have some different behaviors depending on what’s happening around them. One of the clearer examples pertains to rainy days. Whenever it pours, patrolling enemies will find cover inside a building. We saw this happen a few times, and besides adding immersion to the world, it also changed our approach to that area as enemies moved to a different position.
3. Bloody Footprints
We’ve yet to confirm if this actually affects something regarding detection, but we’ve noticed that Naoe and Yasuke can leave bloody footprints behind. If you kill an enemy and step on their corpse, both protagonists will leave a trail of bloody footprints for a while. Again, we have yet to see if enemies react to the footprints, but we believe this is another of the cool details of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
4. Failed Assassinations
If you’re playing with the guaranteed assassinations option off, Naoe and Yasuke can usually fail some assassination attempts. If the prompt is yellow, the protagonists will remove some HP segments and engage the enemy. However, if the prompt is red, the enemies will perform different animations to stop the assassination attempt. We’ve seen some that grab Naoe’s arm and stop her and another where the enemy knees Naoe on the stomach and pushes her away.
5. NPC Outfit Change Depending on the Season
Enemies aren’t the only ones that react depending on the weather or the season. During winter, we’ve seen most NPCs wear slightly different outfits that provide more cover to them. This is great, as it adds yet another layer of immersion to the world. Yet, this change is more noticeable during winter. Still, it is good to see these details that add more life to the already gorgeous world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
6. Holster Animations
After killing an enemy and standing still, you can hold the sheathe button (usually the right D-Pad button on the controller), and Yasuke and Naoe will sheathe their weapons with a unique animation and some dialogues. Both will wipe off the blood from their blades and throw in a few “post-battle” dialogs. Frankly, it is just great to have the option to holster weapons on command instead of having the game do all of that automatically.
7. Cutting Down Hiding Spots
Contrary to other stealth-oriented games, the bushes and tall grass in Assassin’s Creed Shadows aren’t indestructible, which is always a nice detail. You or other enemies can hit these bushes and cut them off with a single hit, thus eliminating that hiding spot from that area until you reload it or some time passes. This makes a lot of sense, especially since, in a realistic setting, a katana would easily cut through grass, so it is great that Ubisoft added this.
8. Vertical Detection (Expert Stealth)
So far, this is only available in the Expert Stealth setting. While previous games have featured interesting sneaking mechanics, Assassin’s Creed Shadows adds a proper vertical detection system. While playing on the aforementioned difficulty setting, enemies will spot Naoe and Yasuke on roofs. This encourages players to stick to the roof only if it’s during nighttime and instead find a different way through a castle or fort during the day. However, you can still sneak on roofs thanks to their inclined design. If an enemy is looking at you, you can crawl and find cover if you follow the opposite incline. Yet, it is a bit risky.
9. Nightingale Floors
Certain castles have nightingale floors. At a glance, they are difficult to find. You’ll have to use Naoe’s eagle vision to locate them, and once you do, they’ll look like the above image. Basically, stepping on any of these floors will make a loud sound that will attract enemies. You can prevent this by walking slowly or crawling on these floors. While not all forts have them, it is nice to see that there are a few traps inside them that will force you to sneak around properly or at least more carefully.
10. Enemies Seem to Adapt to Your Tools
This is another detail that we’ve yet to confirm if it’s true, but it seems that it started happening to us when we reached higher levels. When we used a smoke bomb on enemies, they would stay in place, cough, and wait for their inevitable deaths. However, after using smoke bombs for a while, and around level 25 and above, we saw how enemies would run away from the cloud of smoke. When they did this, assassinating them became more difficult because we could only take down one target instead of the multiple inside the cloud.
