Assassin’s Creed: Shadows’ Giant Slayer trophy unlocks when you assassinate a powerful Guardian in one hit. He must go down from a single assassin attempt only if you are out of his sight. Guardians are elite enemies, and they only spawn once an enemy triggers an alarm inside specific castles. When this happens, the HUD will change to WANTED, and Guardians will appear immediately to hunt you down. These special guards have icons above their heads and are labeled “Guardian”. If you don’t kill him in one strike, the trophy won’t unlock even if he dies seconds later.
How to Unlock the Giant Slayer Trophy in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows
Visit any large castle or fortress with an intact alarm bell, like Katano Castle in Izumi Settsu, Sakamoto Castle, or Kameyama Castle. Let enemies spot you near the bell tower. When you see a red bell icon above the guard’s head, he will climb up the tower and ring the alarm bell. Don’t sabotage it as if the alarm can’t be rung; Guardians won’t spawn. Once the castle is on high alert, you will be a WANTED criminal, and Guardians will come after you right away. Only after the enemy loses track of you, the ‘Assassinate’ prompt will appear.
Climb onto rooftops or outer castle walls to get out of the guard’s eyes. You can use smoke bombs to block their view or move vertical to run away. Once the Guardian can’t see you, he will start to patrol and search around. That’s the window you need to attack. As long as the Wanted status is active, they stay in the castle, which gives you time to set up a proper stealth angle.
Guardians have too many health segments that a normal assassin hit rarely works. For an easier chance, open the Settings and go to Options → Gameplay → Difficulty Tuning and turn on Guaranteed Assassinations. Once enabled, it lets you instantly kill any enemy in one attack. Sneak behind or above a Guardian while unseen, assassinate him to earn the Giant Slayer Trophy.
How to Kill a Guardian Without Guaranteed Assassination
When Guaranteed Assassinations is disabled, you can increase the assassination damage by either of these:
- Assassination Damage III Perk (Unlocked in the Assassin Mastery Tree)
- Hidden Blade Skill (Important for one-shot assassinations)
- Reinforced Blade Skill (Reduces enemy health segments)
- Equip legendary gear that increases damage
You will need to build Naoe for high assassination damage. Invest heavily in the Assassin Mastery tree, for which you should have upgrades that increase damage and the hidden blade to deal with large enemies. The later Assassination Damage tiers are very crucial, which have you to progress through the Godai Shinobi objectives.
If you engrave a legendary item with extra health-segment damage on assassination, you can level up the damage high enough to kill in one go. Rush Assassinate is valuable too, which lets you take down a Guardian from a distance or through other enemies without getting exposed.
Air assassination is the best way to complete this challenge. Guardians follow the same patrol routes when they lose track of you, so if you drop from above, they most likely won’t notice you. Wait until he stops or turns away, then make your move. If you see the assassination prompt, go for it. If not, don’t force it—back up, find a better spot, and wait again because you can’t force it.
