Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been fully revealed and is making its way to PlayStation, Xbox, and PC later this year on November 15. It’s a monumental title from Ubisoft that’s sure to revive the Assassin’s Creed franchise even more than Mirage did when it was released in October 2023. In the all-new cinematic trailer that was recently revealed, we received an epic showcase of the two brand-new characters that are fronting Assassin’s Creed Shadows: a Shinobi named Naeo and a Samurai called Yasuke.
This dual-protagonist system might seem familiar as it smacks of the core mechanic present in 2015’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, which was set in Victorian London and also featured a dual-protagonist system made up of a male-female split.
Syndicate But With Samurai and Shinobi
On the surface, Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate couldn’t be more different. They’re poles apart in terms of their setting, their respective places in the overall timeline, and the story that unravels throughout a lengthy playthrough.
But at the heart of both games sits an identical dynamic: a dual-protagonist system built on the foundation of one male and one female character.
Yasuke and Naoe have dramatically different backgrounds, while Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s Jacob and Evie Frye are biological brother and sister – twins, in fact. However, from the trailer that was released by Ubisoft recently, we get the stark impression that these two duos will function in a very similar – if not identical – way.
In Syndicate, Evie Frye was an agile, quiet, and stealthier character, relying more on subterfuge and weapons like throwing knives to get the job done. Jacob, on the other hand, was brash, heavy-set, and preferred an open brawl to a silent dagger in the back. From what we’ve seen, Naoe and Yasuke will function the same way, with the former utilising ‘ninja skills’ to fly around the map fluidly, while Yasuke makes use of heavy weapons, thick armour, and full-frontal attacks to achieve his goals.
At any point, players can switch between the two characters to take on missions how they see fit, but it’s widely assumed that they’ll have ‘character-locked’ missions that only one or the other can undertake – which is how things worked for Jacob and Evie Frye.
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So the way these two protagonists play is essentially the choice of how you play in Ghost of Tsushima