Assassin’s Creed Shadows is going to feature a map similar in size to 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins. The previous game had a pretty sizable map, but is dwarfed by other entries like Valhalla.
Associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois explained this to VGC after the recent Ubisoft Forward. With its baseline set to roughly the same as Origins, this means it is taking a step back from the likes of Valhalla with the much more mountainous region of Japan. The main reason behind its scope is mostly because that’s main part of its story, it doesn’t often go beyond central Japan.
“So something important happens in Kyoto, something important happens in Osaka, Azuchi – we need these places, so how faithful to these castles can we be, because they’re very interesting, so we build out those castles, they have a very big footprint.
And then we think about how much of the world do we need between those castles so that it becomes credible and feels like an adventure as you move between them, and it doesn’t take a real four days of horseback riding to get from one to the other.
So it’s kind of a tricky thing to develop, but eventually we find our footing with the types of cities and castles that we want to represent and that’s what justifies the size of our world map.”
During the Ubisoft Forward, we did get a limited 13-minute look at the gameplay spliced with cutscenes and the two differing play styles between the samurai Yasuke and the shinobi Naoe. The general consensus appears to favor Naoe’s more stealthy approach as being more in-line with the series as a whole.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches to current-gen consoles and PC on November 15, with pre-orders live now. Bear in mind, though, regardless of anything, you’ll still need an internet connection to install the game.
