I’m still getting used to seeing weekly quests and battle passes in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The Fortnitification of a single-player game is, frankly, bizarre, and having little map icons telling me to seal Animus rifts every few days, as if I’m back on the battle royale island, doesn’t sit right. Especially when they’re cheap, copy-pasted side quests of no value that are only worth playing to unlock mid-gear and forgettable lore in a menu conveniently placed right beside the store. Dear god, take me back to horse armour.
It all feels pointless. I get why it’s there; like with the checklist open world, Ubisoft wants you to spend as much time in Assassin’s Creed Shadows as humanly possible. Weekly quests, in theory, ensure that you keep coming back. But it’s a single-player game: what are you coming back for? Not the quests; they’re the same every week, and they mostly amount to killing a few grunts, which you do whenever you’re not doing the weekly quests anyway. As for the gear, by the time you beat the game, you’re not going to care anymore because you’ll have beaten the game.
At least make the Animus rifts a fun conspiracy to unfold, like Desmond and Subject 16.
Single-player games are fundamentally different from live-service multiplayer games, so awkwardly stuffing weekly quests and battle passes into their hastily ripped-open carcass doesn’t work. The reason multiplayer titles incentivise people to come back is so that they can maintain an active community, whereas here, Ubisoft is hoping you’ll stick around in an empty, exhausted world, all by yourself, in the small chance you might spend some money in its store.
But I could (reluctantly) excuse the blatant attempts at handwringing hard-earned cash out of the pockets of the community if only Shadows was multiplayer.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Has The Perfect Foundations For Co-Op
And no, I don’t mean flying in on a Feudal Japanese battle bus to fight 100 other Yasuke and Naoes just to unlock a katana that deals five more damage. I’m talking about traditional, good ol’ fashioned co-op.
It’s not even a far-fetched idea; Shadows already laid the groundwork with its dual protagonists, who, rather than being interchangeable gender options to curb Ubisoft’s fear of having a woman in the leading role (yes, that’s a real thing), are individual characters with their own strengths and weaknesses. Naoe is more agile, meaning she’s better at stealth and parkour, but she’s also frailer, taking fewer hits to die while being unable to lift heavy objects. Yasuke is the opposite, fumbling up buildings and crash-landing into haybales, but carving through entire legions of samurai and ronin like butter.
Certain puzzles, side quests, and treasure require Yasuke, whereas others demand you play as Naoe. In a single-player setting, it ensures that you switch between the two regularly to fully experience Shadows and its two leading characters, rather than rigidly sticking with your favourite.
But just a dozen hours in, and I’ve already run into several hamfisted scenarios where I need to awkwardly swap to the other character in completely inorganic ways. A few times now, I’ve reached a castle with Naoe, snuck around, and stabbed a few guards while they dozed off, only to run into a heavy barrier that I need Yasuke to move. So I shuffled out of the castle, swapped to Yasuke, burst back in, completed the puzzle, and then swapped to Naoe again. Or there are times when I reach a vantage point that Yasuke is unable to climb, forcing me to play as Naoe, only to swap back after reaching the top. All of this faffing around could be avoided if you had two players in each role, fulfilling different purposes.
Of course, I’m not suggesting mandatory co-op, but an option would be nice, eh?
Just imagine Yasuke keeping the enemies at the gate busy while Naoe slips past into the castle to find the target, working in tandem. We see this dynamic play out in the cutscenes already, or when we swap between the two in more linear missions, but when we have to pick a character to play as, the other vanishes into thin air. Huh, Yasuke can be stealthy, then. Co-op would feel far more natural and lend itself to the idea of these two unlikely partners collaborating and bonding throughout the game. Right now, whenever it cuts to gameplay, it feels completely disjointed from the narrative.
Sure, even with co-op, the battle pass and weekly quests would still feel out of place — just imagine them in Split Fiction — but I could at least look past it with a raised eyebrow if Shadows let me play with a friend. It’s already halfway to being a co-op game, anyway, so take the leap of faith next time, Ubisoft. It’ll make all the MTX you keep cramming in a little more palatable.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
- Released
-
March 20, 2025
- ESRB
-
Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
- Developer(s)
-
Ubisoft Quebec