How does the Hideout work in Assassin’s Creed Shadows? Every undercover faction needs a super slick base of operations, and Ubisoft’s providing the shinobi league with what looks to be a robust base-building experience in its upcoming epic.
Stashed deep within the Izumi Settsu province, the Assassin’s Creed Shadows Hideout is where you’ll spend plenty of time in the open-world RPG when you’re not out on missions. As the Assassin’s Creed Shadows release date approaches, we’ve pulled together everything we currently know about the system into one easy guide, which you can dig into below.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Hideout explained
The AC Shadows Hideout is a customizable complex that houses multiple buildings with unique uses. Moreover, you’ll be able to interact with the Hideout’s denizens, bringing some social flavor to the proceedings.
The 12 building types we know of so far can either be dotted around the Hideout separately or snapped onto each other, creating one larger structure. You can customize various aspects of each building, including the roof and wall materials. In addition to this, you can create pathways between buildings, place lanterns, and truly deck out the Hideout in almost any way you see fit.
Your Hideout isn’t just limited to humans either as you’re able to place pets, including cats, deer, fawns, bunnies, hares, red foxes, red fox cubs, macaque, tanuki, and tanuki cubs. And yes, you can pet them.
The Hideout also serves as a social hub, giving you a chance to converse with Naoe and Yasuke, and yap away to your league allies if they’re not out on a mission. Some allies in the hideout will only have something to say to one protagonist or the other.
Finally, there’s an unconfirmed amount of side content that can be undertaken while at the Hideout. So far, we’ve only seen the Kuji-Kiri (meaning ‘Nine Hand Seals’): a meditative rhythm minigame that yields one Knowledge Point for Naoe upon completion.
Many aspects of the Hideout are tied to seasons, so make sure you check in when each season ticks over to make sure you’re min-maxing your upgrades.
How to unlock the Hideout in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
The Hideout is unlocked after your first encounter with Tomiko during Shadows’ early game, who opens her home up to you and the league. You can fast travel to the Hideout’s Izumi Settsu location.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Hideout buildings
As previously noted, we have confirmation of 12 AC Shadows Hideout building types so far. Each building serves a different function, so we recommend building new structures whenever possible. Some like the Dojo, Study, and Forge look to be far more important to construct early than others.
Here are the AC Shadows building types and descriptions we know of:
- Hiroma (Main hall) – The main Hideout building from which you can improve your base.
- Dojo – Trains allies and improves their rank.
- Tea Room – Increases ration efficiency.
- Study – Upgrading adds another scout to the league.
- Forge – Upgrade and dismantle weapons and armor here.
- Gallery – Allows you to create and switch between equipment loadouts. Gear can be displayed here.
- Jinja (Shrine) – Praying here grants a temporary boon and increases the effects of shrine boons.
- Nando (Storage Room) – Reduces cost to replenish scouts.
- Tera (Altar) – Increases experience gained.
- Stables – Allows you to tag stockpiles in the open world, providing resources at season’s end at the cost of scouts.
- Kakurega (Safehouse) – Used to unlock and manage other safehouses across Japan and refill scouts. Also offers seasonal provincial rumors indicating locations of collectibles, treasure, etc. Unlockable safehouses can be fast-traveled to, and you can refill your supplies from them.
- Zashiki (Parlor)
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Hideout levels
As you grow and upgrade your Hideout, you’ll naturally accrue EXP towards your Hideout level. Each level brings a new passive boon, so make sure you’re checking in and investing in your base with each new season to level up quickly.
Here are the AC Shadows Hideout level bonuses:
- Level 2 – Available scouts can bring hideout resources at season’s end.
- Level 3 – Increase shrine boon duration by 15 minutes.
- Level 4 – Available scouts can bring crafting materials at season’s end.
- Level 5 – Reduced engraving costs at the Forge.
- Level 6 – Scouts smuggle 20% more resources in stockpiles.
- Level 7 – Refill Health & Adrenaline in Kakurega safehouses and the Hideout.
- Level 8 – Available scouts can bring gear at season’s end.
- Level 9 – Reduce gear upgrade costs at the Forge by 20%.
- Level 10 – Stockpiles also reward crafting materials.
And that’s everything we know about the Assassin’s Creed Shadows Hideout so far. For more must-read Shadows content in the lead-up to launch, check out how the AC Shadows Wanted system works. You should also peep our AC Shadows length guide, so you have a rough idea of how long you’ll need to fake that illness for.