In the lead-up to the launch of Ubisoft Quebec’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows, I was able to wax poetic about how I felt the take on feudal Japan resonated with me. While my 45 hours with the core narrative, side content, and exploration weren’t perfect, there was so much to take away. Fans have been clamouring for this era to be handled within the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Ubisoft Quebec led the charge on this ambitious project.
Recently, I took a trip out to visit the Ubisoft Quebec studio to hear directly from the team on how it designed some of the more overlooked aspects of the game. Assassin’s Creed Shadows invites players to experience a sprawling narrative, introducing players to the shinobi Naoe and the samurai Yasuke. It also refined combat by allowing players to choose between both characters, offering stealth combat by way of Naoe or brutal offence using Yasuke. However, there’s so much more that went into Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Whether it was the appreciation taken to designing all of the assets, representing the period of the music.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes players to feudal Japan, in the 1579-era during the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Nestled with a civil war in which Oda Nobunaga took claim over the Takeda clan, Assassin’s Creed Shadows involves historical key points during the time period. As with other games in the franchise, Ubisoft Quebec put a lot of emphasis on rendering an authentic representation of Japan. This includes building out over 100 locations and points of interest for players to discover and explore.
Speaking to Thierry Dansereau, Art Director and Stéphanie-Anne Ruatta, History & World Director for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, I was astounded by how much thought was put into building out the world for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Even though I had already rolled credits on the game, I certainly didn’t take time to appreciate the minutia of the efforts from the developers.
In a developer demo highlighting the port city of Sakai, Ruatta discussed how much time was spent creating an authentic representation of the location. In Sakai, players come across Portuguese ships, offloading products. There are also military vessels, merchants, fishermen, and Japanese boats. This location, during the medieval age, became of economic importance in central Japan,” she explains. “To recreate this economic center, and this point of conversion, where goods from Kyoto, but also Europe, China and western Japan, historical research was [conducted]. Ruatta explains that multiple architectural kits were developed. It resulted in the creation of over 2,000 objects in the game, many of which were designed for the location of Sakai.
“[Sakai] is mostly a merchant town, Dansereau explains. “In Assassin’s Creed, the rooftops are a key element for navigation. So, we paid a lot of attention to the rooftops, making sure that they were fun to navigate and to travel with our shinobis and Assassins.” One of the most interesting aspects of Assassin’s Creed Shadows was how the different seasons affect gameplay. For instance, during winter, icicles formed across rooftops. If you stepped over one, they would drop and alert nearby guards. “Sakai town is in the Settsu province, which is renowned to be like quite warm in winter,” Dansereau says. This is why there is not much snow accumulation. We have areas and provinces in the world where there’s a lot of snow accumulation. Our goal was to push the immersion level to another level.”
“Based on the research that we are doing, [we wanted to] make sure that each location, town, village, shrine, temple, and castle, have their own unique flavour and also be memorable for our players. So it’s something that we use historical data for to make sure that each location is true to the [historical] definition that we discovered.”
Alongside stunningly in-depth authentic representation across the world building, Assassin’s Creed Shadows also marries its visuals with a fresh composition of audio and music. Ubisoft Quebec partnered with composers The Flight. A musical duo consisting of Joe Henson and Alexis Smith, The Flight has collaborated with Ubisoft previously for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The first thing they did when they came to pitch, is they started reaching out to a network of musicians they love, to find people who can play just everything,” Greig Newby, audio director and Arnaud Libeyre, associate audio director explain. The duo went on to talk about how during production, The Flight brought on two core collaborators for the music. The first is Teke::Teke, a Montreal-based psychedelic jazz-rock band that incorporates 70s spaghetti western and Japanese music. “We discovered their music early and started playing with it in the game, Newby said. “It just felt so organic that we knew we had to make a collaboration happen. So we set the stage for that.”
The second collaborator The Flight brought on was Thunderdrum and Tiggs Da Author, based in the UK. We wanted to create, for the first time ever, a character-driven musical signature [for Assassin’s Creed],” Newby explains. “We’re not used to having music with lyrics. It was definitely a unique approach.” In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, breaking from tradition, certain moments in the story are accompanied by a swell of music that incorporates powerful lyrics. These moments, including one very early on in the game, stand out the most due to the impact of the music. “We wanted to push the boundaries of what our players typically have in an Assassin’s Creed experience and bring some things new to the franchise, bringing this modern band music with guitars and drums…We had to be careful not to push the envelope too far, but not disconnected from the experience.”
Ubisoft Quebec employs around 600 staff members. Assassin’s Creed Shadows was developed with many collaborators, including developers across Ubisoft’s umbrella of studios. While there are still many refinements to level progression and exploration that I’d have liked to have seen, one thing is clear. As players, there are so many little intricacies that go overlooked in games. We see the big picture, a smattering of assets, gameplay philosophies, and narratives, all accompanied by a swelling score. Having the chance to hear from Ubisoft Quebec, I’ve grown to recognize that at times it’s worth slowing down and recognizing that a good game is only as good as the sum of its parts.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac and Ubisoft+.
This interview has been edited for language and clarity.
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