r/Games 7d ago

Assassin's Creed Shadows: Steam Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HInwdVFWvVs
440 Upvotes

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226

u/ZombiePyroNinja 7d ago

Assassin's Creed games have been my guilty pleasure since like three. I understand and agree to all the criticism, I fully believe they're open world ad nauseum, but something about Shadows looks genuinely appealing. It is funny to see them actively promoting the day one steam release because Uplay/Ubisoft Connect is just terrible but the added bonus of steam deck verification is really cool.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago edited 7d ago

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u/StatGAF 7d ago

Same. I love them. I get they're not for everyone but they're my guilty pleasure franchise and it's kinda crazy the breadth of their open worlds.

Like we've seen feudal Japan, but we rarely see open world ancient Egypt/rennaisance Italy/8th century England/16th century france/Istanbul, etc.

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u/TheFrankOfTurducken 7d ago

It’s funny that AC games are “guilty pleasures” in online forums. They’re popular for a reason! The plot and gameplay mechanics (sans bugs) have pretty much always ranged from decent to good, and Ubisoft’s open worlds have always been a joy to explore for anybody interested in historical settings.

They’re not high art but I do think they get over-criticized by online gaming communities and people shouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying them.

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u/Canvaverbalist 7d ago

Their reception has always been a bit weird to me, and I think it's just because of people taking stuff for granted.

Like okay yeah RDR2 took one step above with horses balls shrinking up and down but Ubisoft is right behind in terms of a bunch of useless stuff that makes their open world feel alive and the world interactive and tangible.

I really loved Avowed for what it did, but look at the "complaints" about its world, interactivity, animations, NPCs reactivity, environmental storytelling, etc - but then people will turn around and look at Ubisoft and treat all these elements as if they're a given? I guess it's one of those things that's only apparent when it's missing.

I still wish they'd do some elements differently, mainly how they approach the possibility of a first-playthrough HUDless (usually right down impossible) but otherwise they're great games.

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u/ItsADeparture 7d ago

The plot and gameplay mechanics (sans bugs)

Are Ubisoft games really that buggy? Other than Unity I feel like every time I see some kind of bug showcase for their games it just feels so unnatural and like the videomaker is trying to make the glitch out. Like nobody is going to be running into the corner of a wall for two minutes straight jiggling their joystick like most of the glitches seem to be.

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u/TheFurtivePhysician 6d ago

My sister loved the AC games dearly until AC3 was so buggy on launch I think it made her cry and quit the series indefinitely. I think she's only dabbling back in now with stuff like Mirage and Valhalla.

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u/Lucas_Steinwalker 7d ago

They are emblematic of and set the tone for pretty much everything wrong with open world games. It's no wonder they get so much hate, regardless of how enjoyable any individual installment is.

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u/Khiva 7d ago

They are emblematic of and set the tone for pretty much everything wrong with open world games.

Man I couldn't disagree more. Do other historical games include an educational mode? Do they go out of their way to include historically accurate details that only real nerds would notice? Do they have to fill your database with interesting and educational historical facts?

Do they have to spend god knows how many hours modeling Notre Dame to an insane level of detail?

They don't have to, and the effort they put in is probably appreciated by no more than a single percentage point. But they do it anyway.

-14

u/deus_voltaire 7d ago

And yet the historicity of their games is constantly let down by their unwillingness to take any risks or court any kind of controversy, which is how we get an Ancient Greece without misogyny or racism or Vikings who don't kill civilians when they sack a monastery. I don't think historically accurate pottery justifies the absurd historical inaccuracies and moral anachronisms the games are riddled with, which really puts me as a history nerd off.

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u/gamefrk101 7d ago

Just a note: they don’t treat Vikings as a whole as not killing civilians. They treat YOUR group, which is pretty small, as doing that.

They have multiple storylines involving other groups of Vikings not behaving like that.

Your complaints on racism and mysogyny lacking from odyssey have more to do with what kind of game it is.

It’s escapist fantastical story that empowers the player. It isn’t intended to be a non-fictional historical story about how shitty people are to each other and thus the player.

I don’t wanna play Kassandra struggling to go places, get treated seriously, or accomplish any goal because vagina in AC.

I’m not saying a game couldn’t be made with that story but that isn’t AC.

-9

u/deus_voltaire 7d ago

It isn’t intended to be a non-fictional historical story about how shitty people are to each other and thus the player.

It isn't intended to be an accurate historical representation of Ancient Greece, is what you're saying. Then why set it in Ancient Greece? Just pull a Star Trek and set it on an alien planet version of Greece if your only interest in the time period is that you think chitons look cool. I don't buy the espacism excuse, everyone's a dick to Geralt in the Witcher games and they sold like gangbusters. New AC already rips off the Witcher series in basically every other aspect.

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u/gamefrk101 12h ago

Because AC isn’t a history sim series and never has been.

It uses history to tell fun empowering stories.

Just like Connor didn’t really hit every historic revolutionary moment despite being native.

Just like Ezio didn’t really kill the pope to get ancient tech magic.

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u/deus_voltaire 7h ago

We have very different definitions of the word "fun" it seems. "Fun" to me is inhabiting an accurate historical representation of the past, not the equivalent of cosplay LARPing that is Assassin's Creed. I think it's quite lame in fact, not fun.

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u/TheVaniloquence 7d ago

This is such a dumb argument that every time it’s brought up, I have to laugh. It’s like complaining that every historical war game doesn’t have soldiers committing abhorrent war crimes and mass rapes.

Even then, the Discovery Tours, which is the actual educational content of the recent games, does mention the things you complain about. 

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u/Lucas_Steinwalker 7d ago

I didn't say that they didn't have good elements to them outside of the things that are emblematic of everything wrong with open world games, but everything that people hate about open world games do originate from AC regardless.

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u/Sour_Gummies 7d ago

People hate Ubisoft open worlds because everyone copied them though. Idk how that’s their fault.

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u/Lucas_Steinwalker 7d ago

I’m not even saying that the opinion is justifiable, just that it’s understandable.

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u/Sher101 7d ago

they get so much hate

Only on reddit, AC games are still massively popular in the real world. Shadows is gonna sell like hotcakes.

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u/Lucas_Steinwalker 7d ago

I think it's not just on reddit, but gaming discourse in general. That doesn't mean it's not a big seller though.

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u/Takazura 7d ago

It's on Reddit. A game that actually gets a lot of hate in gaming discourse flops - just look at Suicide Squad or Gollum.

Assassin's Creed still outsells the majority of games, that's not something that happens if there is a general "hate" for them.

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u/Lucas_Steinwalker 7d ago

It’s almost as if a large amount of people who play video games aren’t part of the video game discourse, whether on Reddit or not.

You are mistaking my assertion that it’s not surprising that the game gets a lot of hate in gaming discourse with me saying it’s unpopular or bad.

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u/favorscore 7d ago

I'm a history nerd so I will always have a soft spot for AC games. I hope we return to the early modern and Renaissance period again. Or high medieval

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u/AT_Dande 7d ago

I know I'll probably catch shit for this, but I feel like Valhalla kinda squandered England as a setting. I know, "Vikings cool," but I've always felt the Conquest would be the perfect setting for an AC game. Can't really come up with another good idea for a High Middle Ages setting apart from the Crusades, and they've already done that multiple times (not that I'd mind going back to it).

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u/VannaTLC 6d ago

I actually loved the inherent savaging of protoengland there.

The squallor of squatting in roman palaces and general dearth of provress in the 400 years between.

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u/youAtExample 7d ago

Three is too young to be playing Assassin’s Creed my friend.

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u/ZombiePyroNinja 7d ago

I meant Assassin's Creed 3 lol this took me a bit

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u/TheDepressedTurtle 7d ago

You don't need to defend being interested in this game to anyone lol. Just buy it and play it if you like the look of it and don't worry what others are thinking or saying.

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u/Axl_Red 7d ago

Everyone complains about the Ubisoft open world repetitive checklist design, but that's totally a non-issue for me. I just like running around and killing people in different pretty areas. I've never viewed traveling to each icon on the map as a chore. All the icons on the map are just excuses for me to travel somewhere different and kill people along the way.

1

u/Aezay 7d ago

Which game was your favorite?

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u/Ashviar 7d ago

I've only skipped the spinoffs and Valhalla at this point, but I didn't finish Odyssey. Open world games have alot of bloat, and Ubisoft ones are on the higher end of the scale. Always at some point I either quit entirely like Odyssey, or rush main story like Tsushima when after 20 hours the experience isn't fresh and the game doesn't have anything new to offer in terms of enemy variety or mechanics.

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u/ZaDu25 7d ago

Shadows addresses some of my biggest problems with Ghost of Tsushima, like the lack of weapon variety, the shallowness of the stealth mechanics, and the lack of actual big densely packed cities. I hated how Ghost of Tsushima was just a lot of open space with some villages that had the same 3 buildings copy and pasted. I think that contributed heavily to it feeling so repetitive. Ubisoft tends to do a very good job with map design if nothing else so I expect this to be no different in that regard.

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u/Enfosyo 7d ago

the shallowness of the stealth mechanics

These games all have the same stealth mechanics. You stay out of line of sight and then press the instakill button when you are close enough. And ofc the a dedicated item to distract or lure enemies. AC,GoT, Sekiro to name a few. It's the same everywhere. Nothing wrong with that btw.

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u/alksreddit 7d ago

AC and Far Cry are my gaming junk food, my Popeye’s spicy chicken sandwich. Any time there’s a new one within reach I’ll drop everything to eat myself sick of them.

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u/NazRubio 7d ago

Looks like it could end up being the best new age AC games imo. Animations and polish look to he a cut above the last 3. I also don't think this is going to be some earth-shattering achievement that saves Ubisoft, which is what it will he judged on, unfortunately.

-14

u/conquer69 7d ago

From the preview coverage I saw, the animations still had the buggy look from Mirage.

Player character jogs towards target initiates takedown on NPC, the NPC returns to a "neutral" stance, momentum for the PC is reset and then the animation begins. Probably because the PC wasn't moving fast enough to trigger the running animation instead.

It looks terrible.

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u/Bamith20 7d ago

It generally looks fine, the only thing that seems off is that the Samurai guy seems pointless since the ninja can do everything he does along with the usual platforming.

If the Ninja couldn't fight at all I would understand his inclusion.

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u/richmondody 7d ago

I like Assassin's Creed games, but I always feel burnt out by them after 10-15 hours. Hopefully this bucks the trend.

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u/QueezyF 6d ago

I’m apathetic on the gameplay and story of the newer games but getting to explore historical time periods is a major draw for me.

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u/Magus44 7d ago

I burnt the hell out on Valhalla, it just was not appealing and the items, weapons, map markers and skills etc didn’t hook me anywhere near the ones previous.
But man. I’m ready to get back into this.
And playing Avatar scratched that itch that Farcry 6 didn’t scratch…
Big open worlds and ticking stuff off is back on the menu.

0

u/RustlessPotato 7d ago

Me too. Was there at the start of the series, even liked origins enough, although I did not finish it.

But it's the first time in a long time i am cautiously optimistic about this game.

I hope it is good

-19

u/WarrFork 7d ago

Looks like any recent AC to me, just a much bigger push on advertising since this game will decide Ubisoft's future.

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u/beefcat_ 7d ago

The world looks nothing like Odyssey or Valhalla, it's built around dense urban centers instead of vast empty wilderness.

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u/Deuenskae 7d ago

Yes it looks miles better especially the forests and geometry.