Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Stunning visuals, compelling fights – where’s the gameplay?

WEB DESK: Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows first official trailer dropped on Wednesday night. It showcases stunning visuals, compelling fight scenes, and beautiful dialogue. But, where’s the gameplay?

First hinted at in 2022, Assassin’s Creed Shadows follows the footsteps of its predecessor, last year’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage. The latest iteration of the series was developed by Ubisoft Quebec. It also serves as the fourteenth major installment in the Assassin’s Creed video game series.

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The trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows was released on Ubisoft’s official YouTube channel and has already garnered more than 3 million views.

Under the video, the game is described by the company itself as — “In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, you will live the intertwined stories of Naoe, an adept shinobi Assassin from Iga Province, and Yasuke, the powerful African samurai of historical legend.”

The trailer opens to a serene Japanese countryside, with crops swaying gently in the air. However, the peace is short-lived.

A man dashes through the forest while a samurai pursues him like prey. This is Yasuke, the male protagonist and samurai. Based on a historical figure, Yasuke was a black man who journeyed to Japan and later became a samurai while serving the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga.

Given Yasuke’s famed and unique history, the game is set in the 16th century, during Japan’s Sengoku period. This also firmly places the game in time around the year 1582.

Meanwhile, the female protagonist, Naoe, is a ninja, and her storyline revolves around the classic Japanese tale of avenging her family’s death.

While having two protagonists isn’t common in AC games, it is far from a unique instance. Previously, AC Syndicate featured brother-sister twins as protagonists in Victorian-era England.

The trailer is mesmerising with amazing visuals, great fight scenes, and emotions beautifully rendered on the digital screen. The latest Assassin’s Creed trailer certainly delivers in action, history, and cinematics, often surpassing live-action shows or movies.

It even features some beautiful, poetic dialogue, such as “You are still a frog in a well, who knows nothing of the sea.”

However, fans are apprehensive about the actual gameplay, given the track record of less-than-stellar games with amazing cinematics in the world of Assassin’s Creed before this. Many fans are not optimistic or hopeful at all!

Fans were taken aback and even irked at pre-orders without gameplay. They berated Ubisoft for the latest stunt, with some openly expressing displeasure at the prospect of an expensive game with no gameplay.

The game also isn’t as historically accurate as some previous iterations, with many already nitpicking the historical inaccuracies, despite only a three-minute-long trailer.

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The game is set to release on November 15 and will be playable on more than the traditional platforms of PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 5. According to Ubisoft’s website, the game will also be accessible through Ubisoft+, Amazon Luna, and macOS.

“We are the shadows that serve the night.” Let’s hope the actual game lives up to the cinematic hype.