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Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a return to form for the series. It doesn’t make my personal top three, but it manages to be a colossal, time-stealing open-world game without feeling like a chore or a reskin of AC Valhalla. I know not everyone gets on with it, but there’s no denying it’s been a win for Ubisoft. A valid point of criticism though, which I share as someone who’s been playing since the first Assassin’s Creed in 2007, is that it doesn’t heavily lean into the series’ overarching Assassins versus Templars narrative. As Yasuke, you can dig into Templar activity and face some affiliated enemies, but it never feels like a major focus. However, that may soon change. Speaking in an AMA, Ubisoft developers say that the 17-year-old narrative thread linking the series together won’t be ignored much longer, with a “deep dive” into this story arc coming in “the near future.”
Some of the most exciting and memorable moments of past Assassin’s Creed games have involved the centuries-old battle between the Assassins and the Templars. Whether that’s seeing the conflict boil over in various historical settings, or the modern-day flashforwards we’ve seen with characters like Desmond Miles and Layla Hassan, it’s one of the main reasons I’ve stayed interested in the series for so many years. Sure, some of them are simply among the best open-world games around and are worth playing in isolation. But even the weaker ones usually deliver an interesting progression to this narrative.
However, to Ubisoft’s own admission, Assassin’s Creed Shadows prefers to focus on directly telling the stories of Naoe and Yasuke within the context of feudal Japan, rather than this age-old clash of Assassin and Templar ideologies.
“The Assassins vs. Templars conflict has always been a core pillar of Assassin’s Creed,” an Ubisoft developer says in response to a question during a Reddit AMA. “With Shadows, we wanted to properly set our protagonist in the setting before expanding on the Assassins vs. Templars.”
However, that approach appears to be changing. “Now [that’s] done on the main game, we scratched the surface with the Critical Role story drop, and you can expect more [of a] deep dive in this conflict in the near future.”
Now that’s what I like to hear. The “near future” also suggests that this return to the Assassin’s versus Templars arc isn’t all that far away – could we begin to see this in the Claws of Awaji DLC which drops this September? In terms of the expansion’s story, Ubisoft has already teased that it’ll see you attempt to “reclaim a lost treasure” while Naoe and Yasuke are “hunted relentlessly by deadly new foes.” Could the treasure be a Piece of Eden? Could those foes be legions of Templars? If it’s not in Claws of Awaji, then “near future” suggests another DLC could be coming not too long after it.
Exciting times ahead, then. But if you want to get lost in a gripping narrative right away, head to our best story games guide. To make sure those cutscenes are looking as stunning as possible, it may be time to upgrade your setup with one of the best gaming monitors.
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