Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Canon Mode Could Help Alleviate a Growing Series Problem

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 27, 2024 13 Views 7 Min Read
Assassin's Creed Shadows' Canon Mode Could Help Alleviate a Growing Series Problem



Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be an important release for not just the AC franchise, but Ubisoft as a whole. Ubisoft’s reputation and identity as a studio has been fraught with controversy and wildly varying opinions over the last few years, as unpopular design choices have been viewed in an even worse light thanks to rampant microtransactions and unpolished final releases, not to mention the many reports of workplace misconduct, which have soured the company’s products in the eyes of many players.

It would only be a start, but Assassin’s Creed Shadows has the potential to win back some of Ubisoft’s lost good will with audiences. One of the ways that Ubisoft is trying to meet players halfway is through the recently announced Canon Mode, which will allow players to cede control over dialog choices to the game itself. According to Ubisoft, this decision has been made with the intention of appeasing those who haven’t been sold on Assassin’s Creed‘s hard shift into the action-RPG genre, giving them the choice to have an experience more akin to the classic, traditionally presented Assassin’s Creed narratives. How well this feature works in practice remains to be seen, but it could definitely be a step in the right direction when it comes to addressing one of the franchise’s biggest problems.

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Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Canon Mode Could Improve the Series’ Bloat Issue

Assassin’s Creed Has Become Increasingly Unwieldy

When it comes to accusations of filler content and quantity over quality, perhaps no developer has caught as much heat as Ubisoft. There’s good reason for these criticisms: Ubisoft’s open-world franchises, especially Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, have swelled to ludicrous sizes, with much of their in-game activities being built on either shaky or repetitive foundation.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is arguably the pinnacle of these issues. With a main campaign that can take well over 70 hours to complete, and with very little in the way of mechanical variety during the course of those 70 hours, the experience can quickly become more of a burden than anything else. Copy and paste side content, an arduous progression creep designed—at least in part—to encourage the purchase of “time savers,” and loads of inconsequential narrative tangents combine to make Valhalla the definition of an oversized game for many. Such dizzying size undermines its strengths, and the same criticism can be leveled against Odyssey and, to a lesser extent, Origins, and Ubisoft would be wise to take this into consideration for future entries.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Canon Mode Could Be a Good Compromise

Having said all that, there are absolutely players who enjoy the amount of content on offer in these newer Assassin’s Creed games. These players may argue that the content, while perhaps repetitive, is still fun, and therefore more of it can only be a good thing. Indeed, for a completionist, something like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla may prove particularly satisfying (or torturous) due to the sheer amount of “stuff” to get stuck into.

That’s why something like AC Shadows‘ Canon Mode feature could work well to satisfy both ends of the spectrum. Those seeking a more bespoke and straightforward experience ala the Ezio Assassin’s Creed games can get an approximation of that, while those who appreciate the series’ newfound scale could still have the option to dig into the quasi-RPG elements. Stretching the concept of Canon Mode beyond its currently planned implementation, Ubisoft could theoretically offer the same compromise for other elements of the game, such as side activities, shrinking the amount of content on offer while tweaking progression proportionally. This could perhaps result in games that are more concise without losing their richness of content, while still leaving the door open for those who want to invest upwards of 100 hours in the world of Assassin’s Creed.

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