Assassin’s Creed Shadows progression loop detailed by Ubisoft in new system overview

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Following the disclosure of information regarding the PC version and additional details, Ubisoft is once again providing a system overview for the upcoming game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows. This particular outline concentrates on the progression cycle and discusses abilities, mastery, equipment, and much more, including a sneak peek at the endgame prior to the game’s release next month.

In this context, Julien, who holds the position of Associate Game Director for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, recently shared some insights on the game’s progression loop using videos from an ongoing development version of the game. This update comes after a series of updates focusing on stealth, combat, parkour, and other aspects that Ubisoft has been releasing in preparation for the game’s release. You can find the full rundown of his discussion below.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is set to debut on March 20th, available across multiple platforms including PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and personal computers through Steam, Epic Games Store, and Ubisoft.

Hello everyone!

On March 20th, Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be unveiled, and we can’t wait to share more about the game in the coming weeks before its release. If you haven’t already, preorders are now open and come with a host of benefits! You’ll get free access to the forthcoming Claws of Awaji expansion, along with other perks.

This week, let’s delve deeper into understanding the mechanics of game progression with Julien, our Associate Game Director from Shadows, joining us.

Let’s dive into the details.

The videos shown here are part of an ongoing project and might not yet be at their final quality. Some compression may have occurred, so we recommend viewing them in 4K for optimal results. The user interface (HUD) settings could differ from one video to another as they demonstrate various customizable options.

A New Progression Loop

In their feudal Japan setting, having two distinct characters with individual archetypes prompted them to revise their thoughts on player advancement, states Julien. Their intention was to adhere closely to the concept of mastery and martial arts philosophy.

This philosophy is evident in how acquiring new abilities relies on accumulating Mastery levels and gaining Knowledge ranks.

Mastery

In Shadows, Naoe and Yasuke possess distinct skill trees to develop – customized for each character. These skill trees are associated with the distinctive weapons they both wield, as well as their particular roles: samurai for Yasuke, shinobi or assassin for Naoe.

The weapon trees offer opportunities for you to enhance and broaden your abilities by learning complex combos, boosting your weapon’s effectiveness, or unleashing lethal skills. For the character Yasuke, investing in samurai training allows him to be more adaptable in battle, even changing weapons during a combo. Meanwhile, expanding the shinobi or assassin trees for Naoe opens up ways to enhance stealth and eliminate enemies silently.

According to Julien, the unique Mastery trees are designed to provide players with the flexibility to specialize in a particular weapon, playing style, or character type. This way, they can fully master their chosen area. The points you put into a Mastery tree will also grant extra benefits for that specific weapon or archetype, solidifying your advancement.

To accrue Mastery points, you’ll have two main options:

1. Progress naturally by leveling up your character through regular gameplay, such as completing quests and participating in various activities.
2. Take on unique enemies scattered throughout the world, such as the Samurai Daisho (only found within castles), or neutralizing specific targets. These adversaries will challenge your combat or stealth abilities.

Mastery points can also be reset at any time, if you wish to change your playstyle.

As a dedicated gamer, I make sure that Naoe and Yasuke both grow together in our virtual journey. This means that our levels, experience points, mastery points, and knowledge advance side by side, ensuring neither of us falls too far behind on our path to victory.

 Abilities

Skills are present across all skill progression paths. During battles, each weapon comes with two spaces for assigned active skills that you’ve unlocked. Once unlocked, a weapon skill can usually be improved several times, introducing fresh gameplay elements and causing more harm to your adversaries.

In game, active abilities show up in the bottom right wheel.

These samurai and shinobi tree skills provide exclusive capabilities, and though you can utilize just one at a moment, it’s always accessible regardless of the weapon you currently have equipped.

As you examine the Mastery tree, you’ll see certain capabilities and talents aren’t immediately accessible; instead, you must elevate your Knowledge Rank in order to activate them.

To gain access to the highest-level talents and techniques, you might need to perform specific unusual tasks; for instance, to grab the final Assassination enhancement, you’ll have to vanquish an enigmatic band of ninjas.

Let’s take a further look at the concept of Knowledge Ranks.

Knowledge Ranks

In the game “Shadows,” Knowledge serves as a representation of your character’s mental preparedness or understanding. Therefore, some character enhancements can only be acquired when your character achieves certain Knowledge Levels.

You can gather knowledge along your adventure by participating in various peaceful activities like seeking misplaced temple scrolls, pausing to offer prayers at shrines, practicing Kuji-kiri meditation for Naoe, or mastering new techniques for Yasuke. This method helps us intertwine the growth of your characters’ mental abilities with their physical prowess.

Although certain experiences are particular to Naoe and Yasuke, the wisdom they gain from these encounters can be mutually shared. This means that as they each develop individually, they both reap reciprocal advantages.

Make certain you expand your knowledge base, as this will help you advance ranks and unveil new talents, capabilities, and enhancements within the Mastery branches.

Endgame Tease 

Once you advance to the 6th Rank of Knowledge, all hidden abilities in your Mastery trees will be accessible. However, your journey won’t end there. Characters Naoe and Yasuke will unlock a fresh Knowledge tree for further progression. This new tree is loaded with various passive skills that can help you optimize specific stats to better fit your preferred gameplay style.

Equipment & Stats

Inventory

Beyond enhancing your proficiency and understanding, it’s essential that you also take care of your gear, ensuring it aligns with your skill level, enabling you to be at least as powerful, if not more so, than your opponents.

In your inventory, you’re allowed to carry a pair of distinct weapons simultaneously (including ranged options for Yasuke), one headgear item, a piece of armor, and an accessory or charm. Each of these items comes with a level, a quality score, and attributes that influence your overall character attributes.

Additionally, you have the option to personalize and accessorize both your horse and its tack, aligning with the style of your armor. However, please note that these modifications are strictly for aesthetics, offering no functional benefits.

Enemy Resistance 

In Shadows, the quality of your gear, coupled with your talents and capabilities, significantly affects your performance against opponents. An adversary’s vitality is symbolized by a health meter split into several portions; these sections directly impact the amount of harm you must cause to defeat an enemy in battle, and they decide the result of your assassination attempts.

In your journey, you’ll begin armed with a Hidden Blade that can diminish an enemy’s health by two segments. If an adversary has more vitality than that, they’ll evade your assassination attempt and retaliate instead. Identify these formidable foes using the Observe feature. As you aim for an assassination, the color of their health meter will transform to indicate whether the attack will be lethal, damaging, or unsuccessful – white signifies a guaranteed kill, yellow means only some damage will be dealt, and red indicates that your attempt at assassination will fail.

Remember: In the game settings, there’s a one-time kill option. This means you can eliminate any enemy, regardless of their current health level, in a single attack.

To make it easier to eliminate challenging targets, consider enhancing your assassination power by upgrading skills within the Mastery Trees, selecting equipment and weapons that provide extra benefits, or engraving bonus features onto your gear items using the forge. Some of these enhancements are situation-specific and offer an edge in particular scenarios, such as increasing air assassinations by one damage segment, or boosting nighttime assassination attempts by two damage segments.

In simpler terms, opponents who are more than five levels higher than yours will appear with a Skull symbol, indicating they are significantly stronger and likely too challenging for you to defeat. It’s advisable to make sure your character’s level corresponds with the area you’re in and the enemies you encounter.

Finding Gear & Weapons

In the game Shadows, you’ll find an array of stunning gear sets, each offering distinct visual styles for both Naoe and Yasuke. These items, including weapons, can be obtained from chests or dropped by defeated foes. The loot is mostly randomized to provide players with a thrilling sense of one-of-a-kind exploration during gameplay.

Additionally, there are certain locations in the world that contain special items, often imbued with legend. These treasures can be found by completing specific tasks or by opening castles’ chests. You may discover these potential rewards on the Objective Board or the World Map, and they typically present a tough test of stealth or combat skills.

Gear Quality

There are five different quality tiers that can determine the strength of an equipment item and its effect on your gameplay style.

  • Common equipment is the lowest quality and has basic stats
  • Uncommon equipment has improved stats and a perk (more on perks below)
  • Rare equipment is stronger, and offers the possibility to engrave a second perk of your choice at the Forge in the Hideout
  • Epic equipment ads a chance to have one of the core stats boosted. (If you’re lucky, an enemy can drop an Epic item that has stronger elements than a Legendary one.)
  • Legendary equipment has unique, handpicked stats, a gameplay-oriented perk, and an engraving slot

While playing, it’s strongly advised to consistently upgrade your tools at the Forge within the Hideout, so that your preferred items align with your present character level.

Based on the feedback we got following our sneak peek event for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, we’ve also incorporated Yasuke and Naoe symbols on the items found throughout the game world. This will help you identify more easily to whom these newly acquired items are intended.

Visual Customization (Transmog) and Loadouts

It’s just as crucial for players to appreciate the aesthetic appeal as the functional aspects of their gear. If the design of an item doesn’t appeal to you but its stats do, don’t worry! You can swap its appearance with that of another item you’ve discovered. This practice is commonly referred to as transmogrification or simply transmog for short.

As a gamer, all I’ve got to do is construct the Forge within my Hideout. Once that’s set up, I can access this nifty feature right from my inventory menu without dipping into my in-game cash!

In essence, Julien highlights that the Forge is crucial for controlling your items. It’s where you can enhance or break down weapons and equipment. However, we’ll delve deeper into its uses, including the Hideout, in a future article.

We significantly enhanced Shadows’ experience by incorporating customizable weapons within Transmog. Not only can you swap the appearance of one weapon for another, but also combine and alter the aesthetic of its distinct components. The end product could be a sword blade from one weapon, a guard from another, and a hilt from your most recent acquisition.

After designing your preferred combination of gear and weapons that you wish to keep, navigate to your Hideout’s Gallery (once built). Not only will you be able to exhibit your gear here, but you’ll also gain the ability to store various equipment setups by saving loadouts.

Customizing Your Playstyle

As a gaming enthusiast, I’m always thrilled to discover that each piece of equipment comes with unique stats that can significantly impact key game dynamics, such as my base weapon attacks, posture attacks, critical damage, among other aspects. The challenge lies in finding the perfect balance between gear, weapons, and skills to create a playstyle that truly resonates with me.

If you’re looking to deepen your gameplay experience and create a style all your own, here are some extra elements that could catch your interest.

Perks

Benefits offer a means to customize, upgrade, or tailor an item in the game. There are numerous benefits scattered throughout the game that can boost your attributes. You’ll come across new ones every time you defeat an enemy, but you can also buy them from vendors, find some hidden inside chests, or acquire some by setting up your Forge at the Hideout.

As a dedicated gamer, I’ve discovered that achieving certain milestones within the game grants access to exciting bonuses known as perks. For instance, once you’ve executed a specific quantity of Air Assassinations, you unlock the perk that allows you to eliminate an extra Health segment during an Air Assassination. Essentially, perks serve as a fantastic method to hone your preferred gameplay style while being handsomely rewarded for it.

Benefits can take several forms, such as direct stat upgrades, affecting Afflictions, or offering unique gameplay scenarios that prompt new strategies. For instance, a benefit might amplify your base damage proportionally to the number of adrenaline chunks you have filled, thereby motivating you to play without utilizing Abilities and instead focus on dealing increased damage to enemies.

Exceptional advantages, or perks, are those that truly stand out. Unlike ordinary perks that merely enhance a stat, these extraordinary ones alter the gameplay dynamics by influencing a specific game mechanism. However, these exceptional advantages can only be discovered on Legendary equipment.

You can utilize the benefits you’ve earned only after building the Forge at your Hideout. By engraving compatible perks, you can establish potent combinations on specific gear items, thus customizing your equipment uniquely to suit your style.

Here are some instances demonstrating various playstyles you can cultivate by combining suitable equipment, abilities, and traits.

Exotic Combat with Naoe

With this blend of equipment, firearms, and special abilities, Naoe can knock out adversaries as he slides into them, inflict greater damage on ground attacks, and leap over them when running at speed. This assortment of maneuvers offers a versatile approach that’s both aggressive and unpredictable, enabling you to catch enemies off guard by attacking and retreating as needed.

Stealth Range Build for Yasuke

In our covert article, we hinted at Yasuke’s skill in launching attacks from the shadows using his bow. In this video, you’ll observe the deployment of the renowned Archer equipment set, which amplifies range damage, combined with assorted traits that make it possible for a Samurai Daisho to be swiftly eliminated with a precise headshot.

Certainly, there are numerous methods to customize Naoe or Yasuke, allowing you to design a build that excels in various scenarios. For instance, you could create a stealth-focused build for nighttime assaults, or enhance combat effectiveness by mastering perfect parries with your katana for lethal efficiency.

Afflictions

Certain weapons may also inflict Conditions, trading one of the weapon’s stat enhancements for this ability. These Conditions need a build-up period to activate, which can differ based on your equipment and skills, making them particularly effective against enemies with larger health reserves. We have four distinct types of Conditions in our game:

Bleed

Bleed instantly deals massive additional damage once Affliction buildup is reached and then resets.

Poison

The poison takes effect during a specified period after accumulation, inflicting mild continuous harm. Moreover, it temporarily disrupts enemies and triggers them to retch violently.

Daze

When the Affliction level is attained, foes become momentarily disoriented. During this state, they have a low success rate in landing attacks and are unable to defend themselves effectively.

Knock Out

As a gamer, I can tell you that when I knock out an opponent in the game, they don’t just fall unconscious; they get knocked flat on their back for a while. This state usually occurs from using my abilities or when I grab an enemy instead of assassinating them, and then KO them with a powerful move, either by Naoe or Yasuke.

Trading

Merchants

Trading will also be key in the game to push Naoe and Yasuke’s talents further.

In the vast open world of Japan, merchants can be encountered in cities or along the roads. These merchants offer a diverse range of goods. Some deal primarily in equipment, others in resources, while some focus on aesthetic items. You also have the option to trade excess resources, unwanted gear, and valuable items with them for Mons, which served as currency during that period.

Merchants also sell unique things that you cannot find anywhere else, so don’t hesitate to stop by!

We trust you found our fresh perspective on Assassin’s Creed Shadows enjoyable! Join us again soon for an in-depth exploration of the Hideout.

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2025-02-28 21:58