How To Assassinate The Ox In Assassin’s Creed Shadows

In their quest to dismantle the Shinbakfu and exact revenge in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Naoe and Yasuke have taken on many different types of enemies, from those they know to corrupt daimyos that need to be taken down a peg.

You should know how these missions go this late into the game, and The Ox doesn’t really do much to shake things up. Even if he’s not the most involved target of the lot, he’s still a fearsome foe to be taken down. Here’s how you do it.

A Voice In Anger

Where To Help The Abbot

Before you can start the fight against The Ox, you’ll need to complete the questline’s starting mission called A Voice In Anger, which takes in Tanjosan Myoyoji Temple in Harima. Head over to this area as either Yasuke or Naoe and you’ll find the abbot as a prisoner within the temple. You can find him by Observing with LT on Xbox or L2 on PS5, but you might have to take out some enemies before he can be talked to.

Once you talk to the Abbot, you’ll have an incredibly lengthy cutscene to sit through that might be one of the game’s longest, which also introduces you to The Ox himself, Bessho Harumasa. After this cutscene is done, you’ll need to free Nakamura Tadashige, who is located not far away in a little camp. Naoe makes sense for this mission since there are a lot of guards but plenty of opportunities for stealth in the area.

Sneak around and slowly eliminate the enemies in the camp and free Nakamura to end up in yet another lengthy scene where he explains what’s going on and sets up some of the other quests in the mission line.

Astray

Where To Find The Ox’s Invasion Plan

The first part of the quest to take down The Ox involves finding his invasion plans, which are located in Hiraiyama Fort in Harima. Head to the location marked above, which you’ll want to do as Yasuke since this is another quest involving plenty of killing. It can be done stealthily as Naoe too since there’s a decent amount to climb, but Yasuke is generally the easier path for missions like this.

Head over to Hiraiyama Fort to find that there are several blue dots in the area that you need to go and check to see if they’re the plans. We’ve shown what the ones you want to find looks like above, but it’s surrounded by enemies, so you’ll need to do a fair bit of fighting to get to it. This is the point in the game where being at a close level to the enemies really starts to matter, so make sure you’re not lagging too far behind.

You’ll want to be especially careful of alarm bells in this area, since the addition of Guardians who will hunt you down is only going to make the mission take more time.

After you’ve found the invasion plans, you’ll need to go meet Nakamura Tadashige, who is at Kyokaiji Temple, not too far from the the fort. Head over there (and make sure to get some of fast-travel point, be it a Synchronization or hideout) and then talk to him to end the mission. That all might sound easy, but the fighting makes this a pretty lengthy quest.

Brothers In Arms

Where To Find The Mysterious Ronin

The next part of the questline is called Brothers in Arms, and it’ll involve you finding a ronin in Harima, just North of Miki Docks. Make your way over to the marker on the map above to find the ronin, who is being attacked by enemies. Help him take them out and then chat with him to reveal that his name is Koshiro and that he’s searching for someone called Seiji.

Head to the point marked on the map to a location called Kanki Castle. There are a lot of enemies around in this quest, but the castle location and ample climbing opportunities make this the perfect quest for Naoe. Once you’re in the castle, you’re going to want to stay hidden as much as possible and take things very slow when it comes to dispatching enemies, as you can easily be overwhelmed here.

At first, it probably won’t be clear where to go in this mission, since the description is vague and there are plenty of blue dots around the map. You’re actually looking to find the courtyard of Jorakuji Temple, where Commander Seiji is waiting to be killed. Koshiro will be on your side as backup in this fight, but he’s a fairly regular enemy with nothing but a long health bar to make him unique.

The only move to look out for here really is his heavy kick, which can dodged to give you an opening. At this point, though, you should have a bunch of special moves to make him an easy foe.

Once Seiji is defeated, you can choose to kill the commander or spare him, but there’s not really a major point to either decision as he’ll disappear from the story straight away no matter what. Go with whatever you want, but I ended up sparing him since he was once a friend to Koshiro and I figured that was the more noble move. After that, the mission will be complete.

Of My Enemy

Where To Find Hiromichi’s Man

Now that those two missions are done, you’ll have unlocked the penultimate part of The Ox’s questline, which involves finding someone who can sneak you into Miki Castle. You’ll need to find Hiromichi’s man to do that, and he’s located in Harima, northwest of the Horikawa Dock. Head over there and talk to the man, who will ask you to follow him and then meet Hiromichi himself.

Hiromichi will ask you to kill the Ox’s lieutenant, who is located out on a boat on the sea that’ll be marked on your map. You’ll need to make your way over there and be prepared for plenty of fighting, making this another Yasuke-centric mission. While on the boat, Observe to find the lieutenant (called Takasago Commander) and then take him out as you usually do. Like with Commander Seiji, he’s nothing you’ve not faced before and just has a longer health bar.

After defeating the lieutenant, take the shipping manifesto off of his body and then head back to Hiromichi, who will ask you to hand it over. This is another choice that’s up to you, but like many of the ones in the game, it doesn’t seem to have any consequences. I chose not to hand it over to see if anything unique happened, and Hiromichi just seemed a little bit more annoyed. With that done, you’re in the home stretch for this target.

Broken Horn

Getting Ready To Assassinate The Ox

Here we go, my creed, the final part of The Ox’s questline. To start out with, you’ll need to return to Nakamura Tadashige (who is marked on the map) and chat with him before choosing who you want to play as. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Yasuke is the better choice here since you can expect to do a lot of fighting.

If you choose Yasuke, you’ll have to clear out some of the Ox’s men, who aren’t too challenging as long as you’re not too underlevelled. Get rid of them in the way you prefer (the Naginata is always a good choice) and then continue the assault onward, making your way through the castle to where the objective is.

You’ll then be directed to talk to the dying soldier, but not before killing the enemies around him first. Doing so will trigger the next scene where The Ox will pit Yasuke against the Tsuno. You’ll be offered the choice of playing as Yasuke and taking part in this fight, or swapping to Naoe and getting to skip it.

The easier way to do this mission is to play as Naoe and skip the fight altogether. Choosing to play as Naoe results in you needing to “secure the area”, which just means killing a few random guards and enemies that are scattered around a part of the castle. Since you can do a decent amount of stealth in this area, it shouldn’t take long at all before you can talk to the deserter who’s marked on the map and trigger a cutscene that has you reuniting with Yasuke.

Assassinating The Ox

Before you get back to fighting The Ox, you’ll be offered a choice of who you want to play as yet again. Yasuke now has a personal stake in the mission since he was forced to kill the Tsuno, so he not only makes sense but is also the easier option for the fight ahead. Before even getting to kill The Ox, though, you’ll need to make your way through even more enemies in the Castle to clear the way.

As ever, these are just standard enemies without much to them so they shouldn’t give you any trouble beyond how many of them there are. Keep going and you’ll eventually reach The Ox, who will immediately start the fight with two enemies by his side that you’ll want to get rid of as soon as possible.

Take those two out to avoid being ganged up on and then turn your attention to The Ox, who wields a massive Kanabo and fights very similarly to other Kanabo wielders. This means he almost exclusively attacks with long strings of heavy moves that need to be dodged to open him up and can’t be blocked or parried.

The fight against The Ox is made a ton easier if you know that using a special move that knocks enemies down, such as the Naginata’s impale, opens him up to an incredibly damaging ground attack.

Once you’ve defeated The Ox, you’ll be given some dialogue choices, but the end result will be the same no matter what with Yasuke putting an end to his life. This crosses another Shinbakfu member off your dwindling list and rewards you with the Daybreak’s Fury Legendary Kanabo.