Ubisoft “Didn’t Want To Hold The Player’s Hand Too Much,” Regarding Exploration In Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Ubisoft has just released its latest deep-dive into another aspect of Assassin’s Creed Shadows gameplay, after already diving into the stealth, combat and parkour, Ubisoft is now focusing on the exploration.

Which is perhaps the most interesting of the four deep-dives. Now that mainline Assassin’s Creed games are giant, open-world RPGs, most of what you end up doing in them is exploring the world Ubisoft has crafted. However much of it boils down to going from one pre-marked point on your map to another.

That loop won’t be entirely the same in Shadows though, Ubisoft has confirmed in its latest deep-dive. “We didn’t want to hold the player’s hand too much with icons and markers,” said Shadows game director, Charles Benoit.

“We wanted to craft an open world where information was key and would become a form of reward. This made sense in the context of playing a shinobi and fighting for information. In Shadows, information is something you need to look for and earn, whether through your spies, NPC encounters, or through your own eyes. In short, we want players to discover all our cool secrets on their own terms through investigation, their spy network, or by observing the world.”

That’s perhaps one of the biggest gameplay changes in Shadows, since it’ll directly impact how players have to interact with the game’s world and map. The blog post also dives into viewpoints, the world map, safehouses, and how players will need to closely observe their surroundings to create a plan of attack.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows was originally meant to arrive last November, before being delayed to February 2025. Recently, it was delayed again, this time into March 2025.

Source – [Ubisoft]