The Assassin’s Creed franchise has changed a lot since its inception, but Ubisoft's devs occasionally introduce changes to keep things fresh for new players.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is still in development, and it’s been revealed that some changes have been made to exploration that would reward players for exploring rather than going through the motions of revealing every location by climbing specific towers in the game.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows New Exploration
A new blog by Ubisoft goes in-depth into the exploration methods added to the game. With the gathering of information integral to the story, the game is designed so that players feel like getting new information on missions or people would feel like a reward.
Game director Charles Benoit explains, "We didn't want to hold the player's hand too much with icons and markers… We wanted to craft an open world where information was key and would become a form of reward. This made sense when playing a shinobi and fighting for information. In Shadows, information is something you need to look for and earn, whether through your spies, NPC encounters, or your own eyes. In short, we want players to discover all our cool secrets on their terms through investigation, their spy network, or by observing the world."
From the different ways of traversing on land and water, the game is also sparing when revealing information to the player. For instance, climbing a tall structure won’t reveal most of the missions and icons on the map; instead, players will be shown ‘points of interest’ that they will have to manually go to and discover precisely what’s waiting for them there.
Instead of getting an Eagle companion to gather information for the player, the players are now the Eagle themselves. They can use vantage points to mark enemies and even spot valuable items.
Of course, some options would make the game easier for some players. A pathfinder option can be toggled, allowing players to mark a location on the map and have the game provide its own GPS tracker for the player to follow.
Here’s a compilation of all the new in-game footage:
Scouts and Safehouses
While the game also offers players their own customizable headquarters, safehouses are said to be littered around the map. These safehouses will allow players to access their full inventory and serve as ‘safe’ fast travel spots, as some fast travel locations are in the middle of enemy territory.
The safehouses will also allow players to replenish this new mechanic called ‘Scouts.’ Since so much of the map is hidden from the player, they will have to use scouts to reveal more information on the map. The tricky part is that the scouts only replenish after every season, and if players want more info, they will have to dish out some in-game currency for that extra legwork.
Besides gathering information, players can also use scouts to cool down an area that’s on high alert for the player.
You can visit the official blog here for a full breakdown of exploration features.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is set to release on March 20 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5.