Assassin's Creed Shadows To Overhaul Series' Sedentary Stealth Mechanics

Ubisoft is changing the way Assassin's Creed Shadows' stealth mechanics work for both new protagonists, the samurai Yasuke and the shinobi Naoe. Ubisoft detailed how it all works in a blog post that appears to have since been nuked; Nevertheless, Eurogamer got the details.

It seems the developers are trying to find a middle ground between the game's traditional, instant-death assassinations and the serious damage done once inflated RPG health pools appeared on the scene, beginning with Assassin's Creed Origins. By default, stronger enemies will be able to deny assassination attempts, and some weaker enemies will be able to defend against specific types (only vulnerable from above, for example), communicated by a coloured icon. An option will allow all of this to be disabled, returning to the classic insta-kill style if it sounds like too much of a departure.

Associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois explained the rationale: "When it comes to assassinations, progress and context work in hand. Invest in perks that increase your assassination damage and test things around. A strong enemy may survive a frontal assassination but die from a sneaky air assassination."

Lemay-Comtois goes on to say that as there is no equivalent to Bayek's bird companion, Senu, players will need to employ the Observe mechanic to perform a similar function without the benefit of flight. Fittingly enough, shadows themselves will provide complete invisibility, and like a Sengoku Splinter Cell, lanterns can be destroyed to create additional areas of darkness. Both characters can lie prone, and Naoe is the smallest AC protagonist to date, allowing her to hide in some unexpected places.