Just a few days ago, Ubisoft released gameplay of Assassin’s Creed: Shadow during the 2024 Summer Game Festival, giving us an early look at the plot of the latest entry in the stealth-action series. But before that, we asked Deputy Game Director Simon Lemay-Comtois a few questions.
One of the most interesting aspects of Assassin’s Creed: Shadow is the ability to switch between two completely different characters: Yasuke and Naoe. The question of how this will be achieved, and what efforts have been made to encourage switching between the two, has yielded interesting answers, which you can find below.
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When asked why the decision was made to go with dual protagonists rather than the typical single-player action, Comtois said: “We were very interested in this idea of working towards any build. So at the beginning we were trying to say ‘we know we want stealth, we know we want combat, but we don’t want the player to be able to switch between those things at will’.”
Comtois continues. “The weapons you have, the armor you have, are your weapons for the situation you’re in. You have to get out of that situation before you can change those things. And very quickly we realized that the ninja and the samurai were two interesting characters, and that led to the two protagonists having different styles.”
But two characters obviously presents a dilemma: how to encourage players to switch between them, rather than just use one. Since Yasuke and Naoe have different play styles, players who like to play loudly or prefer the traditional sneak attack method are unlikely to gravitate towards one over the other.
Comtois further explains: “It’s a balanced approach. Most of the content can be played by either character, and there are no hard limits to indicate it’s exclusive to Naoe. The storyline is character-centric, but the rest of the game is open, and the progression incentivizes you to switch because after you’ve only played one character for a while, they’ll pick up stuff for the other character. So both characters progress together.”
So if you consider yourself more of a Yasuke player, you should probably stick with him most of the time. It’s just that, over time, you’ll accumulate a bunch of loot that he can’t really exploit, which should encourage you to jump to the other side. It’s a fun, hassle-free approach, but hopefully that applies mostly to gameplay rather than narrative. Giving players the choice to play the game the way they want is key, but hopefully you don’t miss out on a lot of character development by sticking to one side of the aisle.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on Assassin’s Creed: Shadow over the coming months, with the game set to release on November 12 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Mac.