We talk to the Assassin’s Creed Shadows director about Yasuke, Ubisoft’s marker-driven design and more

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is just around the corner, and it has been a long road for both the team behind it, who have had to postpone the game several times, and Ubisoft as publisher, who remain on shaky ground and are considering some strategic moves to secure their future.

Amid all the turmoil, Shadows will hopefully demonstrate that the market appetite for these historical playgrounds that remain the modus operandi of the series is insatiable, and as fans around the world have been clamoring for feudal Japan ever since… Well, almost the first game in the series, there is more pressure than ever before.

We had a conversation with director Jonathan Dumont about the process, feedback and yes, even the slightly toxic reaction to the reveal of Yasuke as one of the two main characters in the game.

Gamereactor: Can you point out specific areas where feedback from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has been used to improve Assassin’s Creed Shadows?

Dumont: We’re always looking for ways to improve our games, and we’re looking at feedback from our players. When it comes to learning about Valhalla in particular, we’ve made the settlement more dynamic, giving players more customization options and the freedom to create their base of operations. We also put a lot of emphasis on stealth and parkour to bring it back to the forefront of the gameplay loop with Naoe and enhance the fantasy of the shinobi assassin.

Gamereactor: Why was the choice made to give the two protagonists different play styles and areas of focus? How did this decision shape the game’s story and mechanics?

Dumont: The decision to have both Naoe and Yasuke came from iterating the design during the conception phase. We knew we wanted to play a shinobi archetype with Naoe, but every time we added more samurai moves, which was an equally interesting player fantasy to explore, it diluted the stealth of the shinobi. It’s hard to keep players in a stealth mindset when they can take out five enemies in battles. So we decided to switch to having the two characters each have an emblematic gameplay feel of both the shinobi and the samurai, with strengths and weaknesses. It gave us a stealth archetype with drawbacks in combat and a strong combat archetype with stealth limitations. Both Naoe and Yasuke play very differently. The decision, although challenging to execute, really gave us a great opportunity to tell a story from different perspectives and form an interesting team that you can freely bounce from one to the other and give more gameplay and depth to the story.

Gamereactor: What was the hardest part about bringing a feudal Japanese setting to life in Assassin’s Creed Shadows ?

Dumont: With every setting we do in Assassin’s Creed, it’s like going back to school as we dive into research and try to learn as much as we can. It’s a humbling journey and there’s so much information and you hope it can make a game that feels believable and does justice to the setting.

One of the biggest challenges for feudal Japan was that we wanted to capture the natural world in all its power. We wanted to feel the wind, the rain, the snow, but also see the world through the cycle of the four dynamic seasons. It was a huge technological and artistic task for us.

Gamereactor: What lessons did you learn from that transition that affected Shadows since the RPG-inspired framework introduced in Assassin’s Creed Origins?

Dumont: The AC Shadows team is a continuation of the AC Odyssey team, so we’ve already developed the RPG-style Assassin’s Creed. I think the biggest lesson we learned and tried to apply to AC Shadows is that we have a broad spectrum of players who come to AC for different reasons. Some like the older games, some like the newer, more RPG style. With AC Shadows, we tried to provide gameplay that bridges both game styles with a return to stealth and parkour in a large open-world RPG structure or options like Canon Mode or guaranteed kills for players to shape their experience.

Gamereactor: Some people describe Ubisoft’s world designs as “map-marking”-driven. What do you think about this? Is exploration and world design a one-size-fits-all, or are there different layers to this approach?

Dumont: Actually, we made a few changes to exploration in AC Shadows. We wanted players to observe the world much more to find what they’re looking for, making the journey more fun. We don’t mark most missions on the map and let people discover their objectives using a combination of clues, deduction and our new observation mechanism. In addition, players build a league of scouts and allies who can help refine their quest.

Gamereactor: I’m sure you’re tired of some of the discourse, but I’d still like to hear what you think of Yasuke as a character, why you ended up choosing him, and whether some of the more… Let’s say some feedback was expected on behalf of the development teams involved?

Dumont: I think some of it was kind of expected, but we believed and still believe that Yasuke is a great character for the Assassin’s Creed universe. Gameplay aspects aside, where his gameplay is very different from Naoe’s, he is a very intriguing historical character that allowed us to create a rich story based on the little historical information we had. I don’t want to give away his story and how he is connected to our lore, but his unique perspective of a man between two worlds, given a new chance in Japan, complemented Naoe’s character very well.