With Assassin's Creed Shadows finally out, I've begun reflecting on my time with the series. I used to love it, thoroughly enjoying Assassin's Creed 2 and 3 and being one of the few people who genuinely loved Assassin's Creed Unity. Black Flag once eluded me, but it's now another feather in my Assassin's Creed-shaped cap, and I've even dabbled in a handful of the spin-off titles. Suffice it to say, prior to Origin's releasing, I had nothing but iration and love for the Assassin's Creed franchise. That changed somewhat when Ubisoft altered its approach to the AC formula.

It wasn't so much that I was opposed to the shift to a more RPG-heavy open-world structure - as at the time, I was quite fond of that - but rather that I was unsure it was the right direction for Assassin's Creed. Of course, everyone will rank the best Assassin's Creed games differently, but I was assured in my belief that this direction was the wrong move for the series when Odyssey and especially Valhalla were released. Well, that was until Shadows came out, altering my perception of the franchise and making me love it all over again.

I Haven't Enjoyed Assassin's Creed In 7 Years

Odyssey, Valhalla, And Mirage Didn't Do It For Me

My main problem with Assassin's Creed Odyssey stems from its sheer amount of bloat. For all my talk about disliking the modern approach to Assassin's Creed, I rather enjoyed Origins. It is huge, much like all of Ubisoft's open-world titles of the time, but it doesn't feel quite as overwhelming as Odyssey does. The thousands of miles one has to trek across Odyssey's recreation of Ancient Greece, the auto-traveling while exploring the open world, endless level-gating of content, and dozens, if not hundreds, of side activities to complete all speak of a game far too big for its own good.

I had hoped Valhalla would scale back, and it almost did. Rather than one seamless open world, Valhalla is separated into distinct regions. That helps somewhat with managing exploration, but these regions are still ridiculously large, and there are too many of them. Its newfound approach to mission design and emergent gameplay felt novel initially but quickly became grating when I realized Ubisoft had little of substance to say with any of Valhalla's stories, main or otherwise. Eivor also controls horribly, as Valhalla features the worst parkour of the series. Suffice it to say, I think Valhalla is absolutely awful.

Once again, I assumed this would all be solved with Assassin's Creed Mirage, as it was taking the series back to its roots. However, bad parkour coupled with a meandering narrative and lackluster stealth mechanics made it impossible to get into. With each of these games, I struggled to invest more than a handful of hours, which has made the past seven years feel like a break. I barely my time with them, which is why I felt Shadows wouldn't be a good fit. However, I can't resist an Assassin's Creed game, and I bought Shadows immediately.

Assassin's Creed Shadows Changes The Worst Parts Of Ubisoft's Formula

It Feels Like A Fresh & Innovative Entry

As alluded to, I loved my time with Assassin's Creed Shadows. In fact, I love it so much that I frequently express to everyone I meet how I think Shadows is better than Ghost of Tsushima, its direct competitor and a game many believe to be the pinnacle of the Ubisoft formula. However, unlike Ghost, which ittedly perfected the original Ubisoft formula, Assassin's Creed Shadows innovates on it, adding something new that the franchise has never seen before, while also fundamentally understanding what made past AC games so great.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is the first open-world game in the series that doesn't feel ridiculously overwhelming out of the gate. Unlike Valhalla's surprisingly large tutorial area or even Odyssey's huge first island, Shadows takes players through linear prologues, introducing them to the new characters and mechanics before setting them loose in the open world. That world is also quite linear, with the region's mountains and hills forcing players onto the beaten path. It may seem counterintuitive, but it makes exploration more manageable and allows Ubisoft to direct your attention to interesting things.

Shadows also makes stealth fun again, for the first time since Unity. The parkour is a huge step-up from Mirage and especially Valhalla. Naoe is incredibly compelling to play as, and her impressive toolkit, coupled with a vastly improved AI, makes sneaking around feel incredibly tense. Combat has also been vastly improved, with Yasuke delivering a power fantasy like no other and Naoe serving as Ubisoft's approach to the Dark Souls combat model. Even the open-world activities are more interesting, with world events providing interesting and tangible rewards and side quests offering engaging narratives.

I Hope Future Assassin's Creed Games Learn From Shadows

It Should Serve As A Series Blueprint

Assassin's Creed Shadows is a clear indication of which bits Ubisoft likes about its current RPG format, and which it doesn't. AC Shadows learned from Odyssey and Valhalla in many respects, especially when it comes to narrative structure and valuing level-gating. The series' favored segmented narrative structure works for a game about hunting down targets, even if it doesn't lend itself to a focused narrative, and, as much as I dislike level-gating, there are benefits to it, which Ubisoft mostly manages to extract.

No season , no intrusive microtransactions, and no early access period for pre-ordering make Shadows a better experience.

However, where Shadows differs from other Assassin's Creed games is what I find most fascinating and, ultimately, enjoy the most. Its more cinematic narrative, bigger focus on stealth, dual protagonists, and more dynamic world design - including changing seasons and more nuanced NPCs - are all excellent additions to this formula that future Assassin's Creed games absolutely need to adopt. While combat still needs to be refined and the difficulty could do with a tweak, Shadows' best elements must be carried over into future installments in order to keep the series' rejuvenated momentum going.

Perhaps most importantly, however, Ubisoft's newfound approach to quality control and protecting its developers from toxic players is incredibly important and needs to be applied across all of its series, not just Assassin's Creed. Shadows is only as successful as it is because Ubisoft delayed it numerous times and removed all the cynical monetization practices it has become known for. No season , no intrusive microtransactions, and no early access period for pre-ordering make Shadows a better experience.

Ubisoft needs to learn from these vast improvements both to its game design and its approach to development as a whole. If it does, then not only will future Assassin's Creed games be great, but all Ubisoft titles will likely benefit. Considering that Ubisoft needs more games like Assassin's Creed Shadows now more than ever, it would do it a lot of good to use it as a blueprint going forward rather than ignoring its accomplishments and reverting to its old ways.