Every new Assassin’s Creed game mechanic, character, and quest line means that the stakes are constantly being raised with every new title. But the best part certainly has to be that with each new title release, we’re placed in a new location. This time around with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, we’re headed to one place that fans were eager for an AC game to take place in: it’s historic Japan. The history of Japan, with its great periods and happenings, is rich in content. Let’s look at specific “when” and “where” for Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
It’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows, bringing back the action of the late 1500s in Japan — the late Sengoku period. More exactly, we start in 1579, about twenty years before the events from the TV show Shogun. This has been a very interesting period in Japan; a lot of power and influence were gathered by merchants, and Portuguese traders began to wave new things at them—guns and Christianity. Such changes started to shake things up in Japanese society and culture.
Well, to those who have played “Ghosts of Tsushima”, this level is set three centuries earlier. In Shadows, we shall see cities, castles, and busy ports—with lots of running and exploring, one gets to do in the game.
The story of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows takes place during the period of the Azuchi-Momoyama, the tail end of the Sengoku period, which was full of civil wars. It all starts with Oda Nobunaga, who is assisting Ashikaga Yoshiaki to be installed as the last Ashikaga shogun, in the year 1568. By the year 1579, Nobunaga was enjoying his zenith of power, winning big battles, and even using firearms.
The AC Shadows trailer likely represents one of the big moves Nobunaga made in 1581 when he decided to go after the Iga Province—the reputed hub of ninjas and where the martial art form of ninjutsu was said to have been born. Nobunaga had tried to conquer the place before and failed, but he succeeded this time around in what would become a key victory for him in his quest to unify Japan.
So, the Azuchi-Momoyama period is the timeframe when Assassin’s Creed Shadows events going to take place, and central Japan especially around Kyoto is where the setting for the game has been designed. To this day, Ubisoft has not put out the full map, but places like Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, and the Takeda Castle that we see in the trailer would be part of it. Expect a lot of exploration and so many cool places that will amaze you as a player.
In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, one is dropped into one of the most key epochs in the history of Japan. It immerses you in the landscapes and actions of the key historical events during feudal Japan. It is not just a setting, important for game unfoldment with a rich and compelling story.
