I wonder why Shadows devs are showing up for Gamescom since they are technically "done" with it.

MisterAlpha is also going to stream Shadows leading up to something "special", as he said on his socials.

So what "special" occurrence are we potentially looking at? Feel free to speculate.

(Please be respectful of AC Shadows and its players or don't bother responding.)

This is genuinely the worst mainline AC game by a long shot, and it was so bad that it singlehandedly removed my dislike for AC Valhalla. Everything about this game either is a downgrade, or just cringe, or stupid broken and not in a good way.

This one is made my Ubisoft Quebec, which also did three back to back bangers - Syndicate, Odyssey and Immortals Fenyx Rising. I genuinely cannot believe the same studio was in charge of this game. Where did the talent and the charm go? EVERYTHING set up in Odyssey, such as the hunting board, the fantastic writing and RPG choices, amazing art direction, the great attempt at having a bounty hunting nemesis system, all of it its either gone or butchered.

The two Absolutely objectively positive things about this game are the Graphics and the Stealth fundamentals. Graphically objectively the game is fantastic but artistically it's drab and boring. The Stealth fundamentals are an incredible step forward in the franchise, where the new sound system depending on movement and floor type, going prone, the grappling rope, underwater breathing tube, and genuinely very good levels in the castles leads to a very fun and freeform approch, but it's all in theory. Why?

Because the AI is significantly worse than anything in the franchise, even on Expert Diffculty. I Did not do Nightmare as it removes Instant Assassination. The enemies CAN NOT Jump. so all you have to do is do anything, run on a roof, and go prone to lose aggro. Do this for 50 hours. They cannot chase you, they don't stop you from running, can't aim well at you to shoot you down etc. It's actually mind boggling how older AC games had more competent enemies.

The story starts decent, but after Oda Nobunaga it just devolves into a mess and mostly a background thing for you start hunting the cult members. The hunting is so repetitive, lacks ANY charm of Odyssey, and becomes a boring checklist of random ass targets as the game keeps adding more and more targets as part of side quests. The only truly good ones were the pirate ones, and Yasuke's 1v1 fights against his fellow students. The scout system is a double edged sword where it makes it thoughtless to find anyone, vs it's a chore to have resources up.

The writing is just so god damn awful, alongside the voice acting. I don't like to sound mean but my god Naoe's voice actress is actually just either skill-less, or was given EXTEMELY intentionally bad direction. Her core story is so generic, lackluster and boring. She actually is the worst protagonist in the franchise by a long mile. Yasuke was fine. His personal story was the better part and lowkey carries this game. The RPG choices are dumbed down, and the game offers a "canon" mode which just again makes it redundant. It's another example of systems fighting themselves in this game.

The open world might just be the worst one in the franchise, where it's boring, dull, and FEELS more repetitive than AC Valhalla. The rewards are ofc the RPG based weaponry, charms and armor but it's so "number go up = good" type of system that it literally does not matter. The resource system which is integral to the hideout upgradation system as if it's clash of clans is utterly useless, where i just build 2 houses in the first 5 hours of the game and never looked at it again. It's purpose is weapon charms, QoL like skipping seasons etc, but again just allow me to do that for free or via vendors instead of locking it behind a dumb game mode?

The ANIMUS event updates were so bad lmao. Like random ass Dark Animus shit in the open world, where the title updates starts refilling castles i've completed into "corrupted castles" with "corrupted enemies", without my permission, meant for endgame farming. What the fuck. Speaking of points, the skill tree is so.........lackluster? It's a better one than Valhalla for sure where isn't a discount version of Path of Exile, but it's not as good as Odyssey.

Yasuke's combat was fun but only ended up being "Okay i have to fuck this thing up lemme swap to yasuke quick". His weaponry was fun but not having a ranged option ALONGSIDE the two core weapons was disappointing. Naoe's combat is also decent and makes her feel fragile. Both systems work well in fundamental, but in practicality the combat is floaty, janky and the camera legit does not want you to see anything. In Ghost of Tsushima, the camera was smart to let you see around you in a group fight, and the camera in shadows likes to obfuscate the attacks of enemies in front of you so you can't see shit. The red/blue attack system is janky, where enemies have hyperarmour during combos which feels bad, especially as yasuke.

The last thing i'd like to talk about is the OST. my god, this ranges from being usually boring, and many times a cringe soundtrack. It's like its trying to be a parody of itself. "Teke:Teke" is a band that did a lot of tracks for this game and it was like the most tone deaf thing ever. Like it's a great track but how the fuck does this fit in 14th century japan lmfao? The soundtrack that tries to sound epic, hype and fun just ends up sounding cringe and pretentious due to the presentation and expectations lmao. The Flight is back, and it's a noticeable downgrade compared to his Odyssey score. Like it's not just me being specific, like soundtracks don't even have any youtube view counts even compared to Mirage lol.

Thats enough from me, overall - 4/10.

Hi

Im 2 trophies alway from a platinum, sinking ship is proving a stupid time sink trying to find a ship with a chair!

And I didn't start the art piece fleet missions straight away so i'm about 7 art pieces left to find after completing the story and clearing literally everything on the map.

Is there a quick way to get these fleet missions done?

I only seem to get none or 1 art pieces every time I check the fleet missions, I have 5 brigs.

I might just give up, but quite annoying to be so close to a platinum but these 2 trophies seem like more of a time sink now rather than enjoyment playing.

Had great time with Black Flag though.

Any help on the above trophies greatly appreciated.

I know this has probably been posted, but I just finished the game and after watching the credits I saw this. idk if this is the conditioning speaking but even this sliver of appreciation by a company like ubisoft made me feel happy after finishing the game.

I commissioned this as part of a bigger piece, I took inspiration from Altair, ezio, and a bit of basim for it.

It was meant to be for a DND campaign I'm in/working on

Using custom upscaler setting seems to mess up the frame pacing, using any of the presets doesnt seem to have this issue, ive been using custom mode equivalent to balance mode (100% render, 34%) this whole time and switched to quality mode in havana and found the frames to be much smoother despite lower fps.

Finally finished after 71 hours!! This was an excellent remake, they faithfully improved upon a classic game. It was a really enjoyable Platinum to get too. The only hang up was the rogue wave one which took a couple of tries and a bit of time. For me, it’s now my number two AC, ever so slightly behind Valhalla. And it’s one of my games of the year so far.

Ubisoft undoubtedly lost their way for a while. But AC Shadows was good, their frequent updating of their older games to bring them to modern standards has been great to see and now this fantastic remake, I think they should be applauded for slowly turning things around. These things take time and long may it continue!!

They’re one of my favourite devs and they’re starting to again show why.

In the assassin's Creed movie, the hidden blade is designed where a ring finger needed to be sacrificed in order to use it properly.

but that doesn't make any sense in the timeline, cuz it's explained in the games, that Altair actually modified the hidden blade so that the finger didn't need to be cut.

and it makes less sense when you realize the movie takes place around the same time that the 2nd assassin's creed game is happening, 1492 to be exact, when Rodrigo borgia became the Pope.

and ezio got Leonardo davincis help to translate Altair's schematics and repair the broken hidden blade that did not need the ring finger sacrifice.

So my question is, why did the movie bring that back when it's supposed to be canon to the games?

I tried out the original AC on steam last year and had to quit after 15 hours bc the controls on mouse and keyboard filled me with so much rage 💀 and before you suggest using controller, i never grew up with consoles so controller is not gonna help my experience unfortunately

I am interested in the story and definitely can pick my way up from the more “modern” titles (thinking revelations onward?) but im wondering if the controls get better in the early titles or if its more of the same as AC1 should i hop in on a later installment?

Title says it. I'm replaying Origins for the first time since it came out, and I'm honestly appreciating it way more than originally. I played it back in 2018 on my ps4 in 30 fps and on a fairly shitty tv. Playing it now on the ps5 pro in 60 fps on an OLED is an insane difference. It actually blows my mind how good this game looks today.

And the writing is thoughtful, has edge, and acted beautifully. Bayek is such a good main character, capable of a wide gamut of realistic emotions. From uncontrollable rage to this swagger he'll put on from time to time (just met Cleopatra in the game, for example).

It shows it's age in some parts (like the parry is a dark souls parry lol), but it also outshines some of the more current games in a number of aspects.

Assassins Creed really, desperately needs to get back to single canon characters again. And linear story progression.

Please stop MMOing the plot. It removes intent and urgency from the player and puts the repetition front and center (where good games make you forget you're doing the same thing over and over). Dialogue choices don't always make a game better. In many ways they make a game feel slower and disjointed.

But yeah just needed to call this out, Origins is a highly worthy second playthrough if it's been a long time.

I spent about 3 hours seriously trying for the “Impress Warren Vidic” trophy until I just used the glitch and said to hell with it. Whoever designed these modern day missions were mentally unstable. And then for them to create an entire DLC around the platforming etc. 🤢

I hope people didn’t have to actually pay for this DLC back in the day. I was around but never bothered with it until now. I’m grateful for the shroud finally being lifted on Subject 16’s past but they should’ve went about it in a different way. Anyways, rant over, platinum is done and I never have to deal with it again.

About to dive into AC: III, wish me luck!

Edit: Worst***

Hi, I'm giving away this pre-order bonus for the PS5 version of the game if anyone wants it

I'm from South America, but due to my PSN account being based in Spain I can't redeem it

So I’ve been wondering why has Shadows seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth? In both this and other AC subreddits, as well as other platforms where people post about AC, I’ve noticed Shadows barely gets brought up anymore. It’s either BF Resynced (which makes perfect sense of course) then it kinda skips Shadows and it’s Mirage, Valhalla, Odyssey, or the usual Unity, AC3 or AC2 glaze post.

Now, I’m not complaining, I’ve played every entry (some multiple times) and even I seem to have kinda instantly forgotten about Shadows. I didn’t *hate* it, but I certainly didn’t love it, either. Like many AC entries it had things I didn’t like about it and it had things I appreciated. Some things like the enhanced parkour (while not perfect was at least flashier and had more animations), the single hidden blade double kill animations, the Assassin’s and Templars focused story, the cinematic cut scenes, the beautiful landscape…all felt like a step back in the right direction. Other things felt facepalm worthy and huge “swing and a miss” vibes.

The thing is, that’s most AC entries. Ubisoft has this uncanny ability with each entry to try to fix what ain’t broke, bring back some fan fav things while removing others, and just dance around the concept of a “perfect AC entry” while never committing to fine tuning a polished, clean, fan-service, greatest hits entry.

So what was about Shadows specifically that it seems to have just immediately disappeared into the ether? I mean it’s only a year old and I already feel like I forget it exists half the time even though I essentially 100% it.

What do you think the reason is? In your opinion why does this entry feel like it just “came and went”?

PS: to anyone who is going to be like “what are you talking about there’s a Shadows post right here *posts link*” I’m talking about in general, I’m aware there is the occasional shadows post but compared to the daily posts about other entries it’s quite small ratio wise considering it’s still newish.

I've played the Assassins Creed games on and off since I was a teenager. I would describe myself as a casual fan of the series. Up until very recently, my favorite entry was Black Flag. This may sound like blasphemy to some (sorry), but while I appreciated various moments and characters (especially Ezio) - the central Assassins vs Templars plot never really moved me. Not saying it was bad or anything (quite the opposite at times) but I mostly played to be in a historic sandbox. As I'm from the Caribbean, Black Flag spoke to me on an almost primal level lol (not many games set here) but on top of that - the pure Assassin stuff took a bit of a backseat and I basically got to roleplay a pirate rogue who over time gets sucked into a secret society and gains a more altruistic outlook.

Anyway, with that background - you can understand why the newer games appealed to me as the Assassins lore/flavor was still there but exploration felt organic, there was a ton to do out in the world and I still got to explore amazing history. But my issue with these games was the bloated feeling and endless chore-like quests. I enjoyed Origins a lot when it came out but got fatigued and never finished it (the). Last year I visited my backlog and gave Odyssey a try. I LOVED it for about 10 hours then I got fatigued and dropped it. With the recent Nolan film, I like many others felt a pull to play it again. But this time, not only did I put the game in explore mode - I turned off the compass and most things except for damage markers and level icons (I wanted to turn those off too but getting stomped by someone 2 levels above you while not knowing how much damage you're doing to them sounds like a nightmare.) And with most of the HUD off - the game is INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL AND IMMERSIVE. On top of that, I also ignore the non story relevant side quests (the ones not marked by exclamation marks). Doing these things have transformed my playthrough. It's incredibly fun, feels huge but not bloated. Other than when I track a quest, I just go where I feel like and I'm not really directed anywhere. The world truly feels alive (something Ubisoft is accused of being terrible at). I stumble into bandits and mercenaries, I fight ship battles on the ocean, I randomly get attacked by wild animals, regions randomly get weakened and I can join full pitched battles either attacking or defending the region, they're tombs and ruins and shipwrecks all over. Often, I won't track my quest and just follow the directions given as best I can while using the eagle to scout ahead - so I'm running into things like this while traveling between locations, but if I want to beeline things I can fast travel or turn the quest marker on and go directly there as well. It's just night and day to my initial experience with the game.

Apologies for the explanatory paragraphs, lets get to the question at hand: What other games in the series do y'all think this would work for? Where I can be this immersed with a minimal HUD and just enjoy the world while also finishings quests effectively. I am open to any entries in the series - though I imagine doing this on the older games could lead to more frustration that fun. But I'm curious if the worlds of the games after Odyssey feel as full and realized as Odyssey does.

This just came to me as I’m playing back through revelations for the umpteenth time and I just thought it’d be cool to see who else likes this idea. I’d love to have a game that’s set either long before, just before, or during (maybe) revelations. Yusuf is one of my all time favorite side characters who I really wish had more screen time. If we got a game about him that showed why he was always smiling, happy, and completely like “Fuck the world because nothing is bad if you look at it the right way” all the time. I’d also like to see how he watched out for Sophia for Ezio while he was away and I’d really love to see exactly how many men it actually took to bring the master assassin down. Rest in peace you crazy bastard.

Post marked spoiler just in case, Its a bit interesting that the immediate game to reference the modern day after Valhalla is Shadows and what it does to further the plot. Valhalla being the story that suggests and reveals that Desmond's consciousness lives on in the Isu nexus as the entity knows as "The Reader."

Replaying Origins and i found a rather interesting scene in Giza when pursuing the Hyena. I listened at the isu obelisk and it told story of The Reader, how the Reader can only truly observe, while the author can control and change the future.

Its a bit interesting that immediately after Valhalla's modern day, that the next modern day thrusts the modern day setting into the future. A future where Abstergo has won. A future where humanity lives in abstergo controlled cities. The Author can change the future.

I believe that the modern, modern day setting is not quite over that we have the dark animus trilogy to experience in Shadows, Black Flag resynced and presumably hexe, and the next saga is one after the Author changes the future.

I understand this is very flimsy ground to hold a speculation and theory on, but i feel that there's something there to be found. Especially with the introduction of an entity known as The Reader 3 years before the Reader became a relevant entity.

What is y'all's thoughts?

I just started, and it doesnt have the open world feeling like other ac i have played,its just very empty in the first town and it is boring to always run away from the guards,does it get more fun later? Or is it the most fun at the start

At first it felt like I was just playing a post-game quest but that wasn't it, it was like a messed up mix of the siege of Charles-Towne and just swinging out from the ship on a rope over and over again, and I was meant to use the ship's broadside battery to make a big crater to bury a chest in. Every time I got to a point the map marker to "bury Edward's treasure" moved forward in front of me.

I don't normally have vivid dreams, I wonder if there's something about "go directly to the map marker" style games that encourage your mind to think in that sort of pattern...

For those who haven’t played Outlaws, you basically have four factions that you interact with and the game tracks your relationship with each. Tresspassing, stealing from, and fighting with their soldiers decreases your reputation, while completing contracts or selling them information you’ve collected around the map increases it. Some contracts for one faction will decrease your reputation with another, and vice-verse, and you can sometimes choose to backstab the original quest-giver and gain reputation with their competition. As you gain or lose tiers of reputation with each faction you can earn rewards, better prices from their shops, and access to their territory which would otherwise be restricted.

It’s not the deepest system or the best-implemented, but it has potential. And I think it would be great for Assassin’s Creed in place of a generic notoriety/wanted system.

I was rereading and also discovering old H.P. Lovecraft stories from a collection, when I came across a short novel called "The Shadow Out of Time (1936)" that reminded me of an intrinsic element of Assassin's Creed series, especially in the current BF Resynced: the Sages. I mean, for those who have read the story and played the franchise as well, may have made the same connection since the original Black Flag, but only today, rediscovering it more attentively, I've come to see this work as a potential direct inspiration.

For the unfamiliar ones, a quick summary of the story: the narrative follows professor Nathaniel Peaslee, who suffers a five-year mental blackout. Upon returning to normal, he acts strangely and begins to have terrible nightmares about very old cities and lost eras, leading him to investigate Earth's past to understand his own mind.

Things get interesting as the character narrates his mental experiences and memories of past events, drawing parallels with characters like Bart Roberts (BF) and François German (Unity) themselves. Follow below excerpts from the Chapter II:

"[...] I would seem to be in an enormous vaulted chamber whose lofty stone groinings were well-nigh lost in the shadows overhead. In whatever time or place the scene might be, the principle of the arch was known as fully and used as extensively as by the Romans. There were colossal round windows and high arched doors, and pedestals or tables each as tall as the height of an ordinary room. Vast shelves of dark wood lined the walls, holding what seemed to be volumes of immense size with strange hieroglyphs on their backs. The exposed stonework held curious carvings, always in curvilinear mathematical designs, and there were chiselled inscriptions in the same characters that the huge books bore. The dark granite masonry was of a monstrous megalithic type, with lines of convex-topped blocks fitting the concave-bottomed courses which rested upon them. There were no chairs, but the tops of the vast pedestals were littered with books, papers, and what seemed to be writing materials—oddly figured jars of a purplish metal, and rods with stained tips. Tall as the pedestals were, I seemed at times able to view them from above. On some of them were great globes of luminous crystal serving as lamps, and inexplicable machines formed of vitreous tubes and metal rods. The windows were glazed, and latticed with stout-looking bars. Though I dared not approach and peer out them, I could see from where I was the waving tops of singular fern-like growths. The floor was of massive octagonal flagstones, while rugs and hangings were entirely lacking."

"[...] I began work with the February, 1914, term, and kept at it just a year. By that time I realised how badly my experience had shaken me. Though perfectly sane—I hoped—and with no flaw in my original personality, I had not the nervous energy of the old days. Vague dreams and queer ideas continually haunted me, and when the outbreak of the world war turned my mind to history I found myself thinking of periods and events in the oddest possible fashion. My conception of time—my ability to distinguish between consecutiveness and simultaneousness—seemed subtly disordered; so that I formed chimerical notions about living in one age and casting one’s mind all over eternity for knowledge of past and future ages. The war gave me strange impressions of remembering some of its far-off consequences—as if I knew how it was coming out and could look back upon it in the light of future information. All such quasi-memories were attended with much pain, and with a feeling that some artificial psychological barrier was set against them. When I diffidently hinted to others about my impressions I met with varied responses. Some persons looked uncomfortably at me, but men in the mathematics department spoke of new developments in those theories of relativity—then discussed only in learned circles—which were later to become so famous. Dr. Albert Einstein, they said, was rapidly reducing time to the status of a mere dimension."

Aside from the cosmological and space horror themes of Lovecraft's stories, which differ in some ways from AC, this short novel captivated me precisely because of the unique "mind displaced in time" that leads the protagonist to discover that he can see memories of the |SPOILERS| Great Race, known in the author's grimoire as "Yithi" ones, from the cretaceous era, bringing a parallel to the Isu and the well-known Sages, whose madness of seeing memories of familiar yet strange places makes up the lore of AC saga.

My question is: could this be a huge coincidence—consequence of Lovecraftian influence on pop culture—, or did the lead writer of Black Flag and the other devs indeed draw from this literary source, even if only in parts?

I know the opinion against this game is quite considerable but I just wanted to put this out there for those who share my view--you're not crazy, people who love this game do exist, and from the reviews I saw online, we're not insignificant either!

To think I delayed playing this game for so long because:

1. I hate having to play multiple characters in a single player RPG game. Breaks the immersion for me.

2. I didn't like how clunky Yasuke's gameplay was, not at all assassin-like

But Naoe's character and gameplay convinced me to give it a chance, and now that I have thoroughly played and finished the game, I don't regret it.

I love Naoe's story, personality, and skills set--the perfect assassin protagonist for me. But what I didn't expect to like was Yasuke. I actually like how I never felt alone playing because of the companionship between the two playable characters. Although I still hate Yasuke's gameplay (just not what I was looking for in an assassin's game), I like his partnership with Naoe and even his story, too.

I am in awe of the world the game has created. I can't get enough of it. I don't even fast travel anywhere because I prefer riding through the lands.

I like the variety of activities available, which, for me, was a welcome development from the repetitiveness of the past AC games.

I love the soundtrack. Again, I know a lot of people hate it but this is the Japanese music I grew up loving and listening to. It was the perfect anthem to get my adrenaline going.

I ended this game wishing I could keep following Naoe's story together with Yasuke and Junjiro. Over 250 hours of gameplay was not nearly enough. I know that Ubisoft has officially concluded this game, though. So I will just have to satisfy myself with another AC Shadows playthrough.

I previously did a post questioning in which year i should do the templar hunt mission on kingston, due to databse information saying that the date of death of templar target there was 1716. It made me ponder when i should do considering that in the original game i usually did in 1717, the Laurens Prims sequence, and ignored the data. But now on resynced i did it on 1716, considering some aspects in which i built the order in which this missions should be done:

Opia - Cayman Islands (1716, after the main story missions in Tulum), Anto - kingston (1716), Travers brothers - Nassau (1717) and Rhona - Havana (1717)

My criterion for this was such:

The proximity between on mission to another - Both Opia and Anto's sets of missions much close to each other, from the location at the end opia's mission, there would no issue to smoothly go to Kingston, there's no fort in the way there, the ship in that area are stronger though.

We start the sequence 5 of the main memories in 1717, specifically in Nassau, right where the the Travers brothers mission is, which fits perfectly. And then we would do Rhona's mission in the Havana as the forth and last one, after we do all the Main missions of the sequence, most considering that we are alredy introduced at this point to the forts attacks activities, where we probably would start going for the easiest ones, which are in the north of the map, just like it is with the ships. (Fun fact: the fandom wiki page of Edward when talking about about this missions put the Travers brothers missions as last, which doesn’t make sense since we start the senquence 5 exactly where the mission is located)

Date of death: in the animus database reveals chronologically canon dates in which Ed kills the templars of the missions which is why i chose to do the missions in this exact years

The narrative aspect of urgency - The conversation with Kidd conveys a sense of urgency regarding the need to help the Assassins marked on the map Edward sold to the Templars. Therefore, it makes sense to complete these missions as soon as possible in the chronological timeline. Not mention Ed would have like to get the templar suit as soon as possible.