PlayStation 5 (version played), Xbox, PC; Ubisoft
Ubisoft’s historical fiction series returns with its best adventure in years
Japan, 1581: Iga province is burning down around you. You watch on, injured and helpless as the Oda Nobunaga – the warlord responsible for numerous civil wars and the eventual unification of the country – smirks from a nearby hill. You draw your katana, the blade shining in the flickering light of the flames. This is Assassin’s Creed: Shadows – part exciting ninja game, part history lesson. It’s an odd combination but it comes together in a sprawling historical-fiction adventure full of discovery and deception.
The tumultuous period that saw the unification of Japan and the fall of Nobunaga in the late 1500s is an ideal setting in which to play around as a sneaky shinobi and a brave samurai. The series’ science-fictiony framing device is that you, the player, are diving into your ancestor’s memories to hunt down a mysterious artefact by taking down a group of menacing masked samurai, one at a time. But mostly the game leaves you alone to enjoy feudal Japan.
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