Over the past couple of years, Ubisoft has made it no secret that it has some grand ambitions for the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Not only are players being treated to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but Codename Hexe, Jade, and a new multiplayer experience also loom on the horizon. If that was not enough, Ubisoft also plans to bring them altogether through the Animus Hub. And with the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, players are getting a first look at what that will be like.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has launched with the first iteration of the Animus Hub, which brings together the three previous RPG titles, Mirage, and Shadows into one launcher. Along with that, there are missions, rewards, and narrative content for players to explore. While it is not necessarily a game-changer, this hub represents the future of the franchise, and so far, it seems to be pretty promising. However, there is still a lot of work that Ubisoft needs to do before the Animus Hub truly lives up to its potential.
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The Animus Hub Could Change the Way Assassin’s Creed is Played
The Animus Hub is Laying Some Strong Foundations
When players first launch Assassin’s Creed Shadows, they will be met with the Animus Hub. This feature is being penned as an in-universe product by Abstergo, serving as a collection of historical adventures for consumers to jump into. As of now, those adventures are Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla, Mirage, and Shadows. Each game can be launched directly from the hub, making this feel like a new type of franchise launcher. However, the rest of this massive franchise has seemingly been left out of the fun, for now.
Alongside those five titles come three more features that promise a wide assortment of content for players to engage with. Firstly, there are things known as Projects, which is where the Animus Hub’s live-service mechanics seem to be coming into play. Ubisoft has plans to release new missions known as Anomalies that will give players rewards, which seem to be connected to a battle pass. This pass can be found in another tab known as the Exchange, which seems to be locked to Assassin’s Creed Shadows. And finally, there is a collection of narrative content known as the Vault, which seems to be where all the mysterious Rift cutscenes in Shadows are kept.
There is So Much Work Left for Ubisoft to Do
While this hub seems to have a ton of potential, it very much needs some work. For starters, because it is launching with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, that game is the only one that actually launches through the feature. If players want to play one of the other titles in the Hub, they must have it installed, and then they still have to go through that game’s starting screen and menus before they can play it. And if they want to return to the Hub, there is seemingly no easy way to do that outside of simply relaunching Shadows. With Shadows, they can simply jump into the game the second they click play on the Animus Hub and return to the Hub at a moment’s notice.
Additionally, much of the content within the hub is only tied to Shadows, making it pretty meaningless for the other four titles included. Future Assassin’s Creed titles will likely have content within the Hub as well, but so should those previous games. Not just the four others included either, but the franchise’s entire massive catalog of titles should benefit. This is supposed to be the franchise’s launcher going forward, so it really needs to represent the entire franchise.
Of course, since this is the first iteration, there is still plenty that Ubisoft needs to do before its potential is fully realized. With time, the feature will likely see a whole host of new additions, including a multiplayer mode. And hopefully, that happens sooner rather than later, as right now it purely feels like Shadows‘ launcher when it is supposed to be so much more.
- Released
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March 20, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
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