Predicting Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ New Modern Day Storyline

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 9, 2024 29 Views 5 Min Read
Predicting Assassin's Creed Shadows' New Modern Day Storyline

The ubiquitous and prolific Assassin’s Creed franchise will be delving back into its modern-day story with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. This game will follow Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which had virtually no modern-day narrative beyond some very brief framing elements with William Miles. As such, it’s hard to know exactly what direction Shadows will take with this long-running tradition, but there’s enough information out there to make some strong guesses.




The modern-day aspects of the Assassin’s Creed story have had a number of ups and downs, but mostly downs. To put it simply, it often feels like modern-day AC is an afterthought, something that Ubisoft may have felt compelled to continue after the early entries led by Desmond Miles. When he ducked out of the franchise at the end of Assassin’s Creed 3, the series took a far less direct approach with its modern-day plot, ultimately having it take a back seat in entries like Black Flag and Unity. Layla Hassan replaced Miles as a central modern-day protagonist in Origins, but even she is out of the picture now, joining Desmond as a construct in the Isu supercomputer known as Yggdrasil. These elements, along with Basim’s reincarnation, tee up Assassin’s Creed Shadows‘ modern-day narrative.


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Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Modern-Day Story May Be Understated

Marc-Alexis Coté’s Comments On Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Assassin’s Creed director Marc-Alexis Coté commented on AC Shadows‘ story at a recent BAFTA event, shedding some light on what its modern-day narrative would look like. While he shied away from specifics, he did point out the biggest issues with the series’ present-day story, including its convoluted nature and meandering, bloated structure. He said that a goal of Shadows will be to “put history back at the center of the player’s experience,” suggesting that the game’s modern-day elements will take a bit of a back seat.

Coté also briefly touched on a desire to explore deeper themes through AC‘s modern-day story, though this doesn’t really illuminate Ubisoft’s plans with respect to plot developments. What Coté’s comments do indicate, though, is that the Ubisoft team working on Shadows understands the shortcomings of the modern-day story up until this point, and doesn’t want the upcoming entry to be mired in these issues. This may offer a solid route for some predictions.


Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Modern-Day Elements Will Very Likely Take a Back Seat

Ubisoft has previously gone on record stating that the Assassin’s Creed Infinity hub will be the home of the modern-day narrative for the series moving forward. This, coupled with Coté’s aforementioned statements about keeping history at the forefront of the franchise’s identity, strongly indicates that the modern plot of Shadows will be fairly understated in comparison to older titles like Assassin’s Creed 2. In all likelihood, Shadows‘ modern-day story will mirror that of Mirage, setting the stage for Infinity to present this aspect of the series.

There are still plenty of loose plot threads, especially from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla‘s present-day narrative, that could play a role in Shadows, but there’s a good chance that these will be played down. Layla and Desmond joining each other in Yggdrasil, for instance, is poised to be more of a background element, with both of them pulling strings behind the scenes rather than directly impacting the plot or central characters.


Then there’s Basim, who is presumably still working with the Assassins in the modern day at the end of Mirage, but he is unlikely to fulfill the same protagonist role as Desmond or Layla, as this would contradict Coté’s comments about the present-day story not overshadowing the historical one. Basim may serve as a window into the Isu, but his personal journey will probably not form the backbone of Shadows‘ narrative. Instead, the modern-day elements of the game will likely support the themes of the in-Animus plot, not build toward a real-world climax.

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