When Ubisoft offered to fly me out to New York City to preview Assassin’s Creed Shadows, my first thought was, “Why me?” While I do love video games — it takes everything I have not to prioritize Marvel Rivals over deadlines, and I’ve grown up with nearly every generation of PlayStation — the Assassin’s Creed franchise is a bit of a blind spot for me. But after a six-hour playthrough of an early build of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, one of the biggest games of 2025, I get why this franchise has hooked plenty of gamers.
Set in the waning days of the Sengoku period, Shadows follows two different characters: Yasuke, the real-life legendary samurai who served under Oda Nobunga, and Naoe, the daughter of a shinobi. My playthrough consisted of three different experiences: a prologue focused on Yasuke, a prologue from Naoe’s point of view, and finally an open world experience.
During both prologues, I got to learn the differences between Yasuke and Naoe’s playstyle. Being a shinobi means that Naoe is skilled at sneaking around; I was able to utilize her to get into heavily armed areas and, in true Assassin’s Creed fashion, sneak up behind enemies and slit their throats. She also wields shuriken and kunai that allow her to take out enemies from a distance, and a grappling hook that lets her climb buildings or wait hanging from a ceiling to — you guessed it — stealth kill enemies.
Conversely, Yasuke is a tank of a character. Not only is he able to charge through blockades, but he can dash and cut through his opponents. I genuinely enjoyed playing as Yasuke a little more than Naoe, mainly because her skill set requires a lot of practice while his is easy to adapt to. That being said, the open world area is where Shadows really shined.
Though I only played in a small section of the open world, it felt like the possibilities were truly endless. Thanks to a mapping option, I could see potential quests, and utilizing Naoe’s horse allowed me to get to those quests faster. No matter whether you play as Naoe or Yasuke, the interactions with citizens can either lead to a mission (one involved sneaking into a gambling den) or getting into a fight with enemies (as Yasuke, I wound up killing an enemy NPC and seconds later a swarm of archers and riflemen were on me).
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Shadows lets you recruit allies to your cause, and even summon them to help out in battle. This was more than welcome when facing off against a horde of enemies, and it makes exploring the open world all that more intriguing. You can even interact with the animals — I’m not ashamed to admit that I pet more than a few foxes and dogs, no matter what character I was utilizing.
The only quibble with my Assassin’s Creed Shadows playthrough is a minor one. Throughout the game, you can switch between Yasuke and Naoe, except when you’re in combat. This means players will have to be extra careful with who they pick if they get into a fight. If you’re Naoe and overwhelmed by heavy hitters, you’ll die, and if you’re Yasuke when a mission requires stealth, you’ll probably fail. Let’s just say there was a lot of trial and error on my end.
In any case, I’m happy I got to preview Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The level of variety, whether it’s in the characters or the gameplay experience, means that players won’t be hurting for a unique experience. As for myself, if Shadows‘ full experience is this fun I definitely can see myself picking up other Assassin’s Creed games in the future.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on March 20.
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