Assassin's Creed Shadows Dev Talks Historical Context, Emotional Moments, and More

Assassin’s Creed games are known for their top-of-the-line stealth-based gameplay and rich, historical narratives that truly center players in the game’s time period. The upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows is no exception, transporting players to Japan’s conflict-ridden Azuchi-Momoyama period as they follow the dual journeys of samurai Yasuke and shinobi Naoe. Assassin’s Creed Shadows utilizes its Japanese setting to tell a story of honor, political conflict, family legacy, and the juxtaposition between samurai standing on the front lines of battle and shinobi working from the shadows.

Game Rant spoke with Assassin’s Creed Shadows associate narrative director Brooke Davies about the process of crafting this new story. Davies discussed how the chaos of Japan’s Warring States period influenced the story, the highs and lows of focusing on real historical figures such as Oda Nobunaga, Fujibayashi Nagato, and Yasuke himself, and how the game makes use of its dual protagonists to tell two very different but deeply connected stories. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

How Assassin’s Creed Shadows Handles Its Antagonists

Q: In the preview, we were introduced to the main antagonist group. Could you talk a little bit about how they compare to the Templars and the Order of the Ancients?

A: What I can say is that our setting offers a really interesting context because it’s the Warring States period in feudal Japan, and this is a time of great political complexity. At this point, it has been potentially hundreds of years of civil war, which has created a lot of factions, so that created an interesting ground to build upon some of the targets you will be hunting in the game.

Q: I played the Noble quest where I had the opportunity to kill or spare the target at the end. That was the first time I’d experienced something like that in an Assassin’s Creed game. Could you talk a little bit about that choice – why are we offered the opportunity to spare a “Templar?”

A: I think that we see the pain he feels at the end of that quest, the connection he feels to his son, and the realization of that coming kind of late for him. We see that in his eyes, in his words, and in how he chooses to spend his final moments, so it felt like a good opportunity to let that sink in and let players choose how they felt about those circumstances.

Q: Speaking of emotions, the prologue is very emotional as well. Could you talk a little bit about how the narrative team works with the cinematic team to make sure that emotion is being delivered?

A: Much of our work on the narrative team is working with other teams, like the cinematic team, to bring these moments to life. It also involves the actors themselves, what they bring to the screen, and our animation teams. There are just a lot of partners in this.

I would say, focusing on the core emotions, having everybody in the team have a really clear understanding of not just what we’re trying to achieve but why helped a lot. Why does it matter to the characters? What is important to them in this moment? Why do they feel this way? And we just have dream partners in our other teams; they also felt very connected to these moments and really understood that. I think that really shows in the result.

Telling Yasuke And Naoe’s Intertwined Stories

Q: Could you talk about Yasuke a little bit and how the team approached writing him? I think it’s interesting that he’s the first historical character to be a protagonist, but also one without a lot of concrete details. What kind of challenges did that present to the writing team?

A: I would say, for the narrative team, it was a really fun challenge: working with a historical figure, taking them from words on a page, and transforming them into a lived experience that feels genuine. It’s a very interesting and fun challenge to sort of work within the confines of another person’s life.

Even with Naoe, who is a fictional character. I think, we’re all very much products of our environments, which we are aware of to differing degrees, right? It was really important for the team for Naoe to feel grounded in the setting of the game. She is a daughter of Iga, born in the province of Iga, the birthplace of shinobi. She’s the imagined, fictional daughter of a real-life legendary shinobi, Fujibayashi Nagato. In both instances, when we’re working with historical figures and even with fictional figures, there’s this attention to environment, setting, and grounding, having them all fit together, and working with all the teams to achieve that.

Q: Can you also talk about what it is like working with these two different perspectives, these two different fantasies, and trying to tell a narrative through all of these elements?

A: Yeah, it was an awesome narrative tool to have these two perspectives there. Naoe and Yasuke are very different people – you got a glimpse of that. I think one of the moments when we get a great perspective on that is actually in the shared scenes that they have together. You saw a few of those in The Noble quest line. Not just how they are different when they’re on their own or when they’re with other people, but, when they’re together, we really get a sense of that dynamic.

You know, we have this great setting to explore. We have the Azuchi-Momoyama period, which is very politically complex, and their perspectives are really different. In this period, we have Yasuke, who served under Oda Nobunaga, who’s the same daimyo who has crushed the province of Iga, which is Naoe’s home province, and caused so much loss in her life. With the different characters in the game – they don’t just see things differently, they see people differently. This leads them to have different alliances sometimes.

Q: One of the challenges with any sort of game that has a dual protagonist, at least in my mind, is making it so players will play both of them, instead of just picking one and playing them. On the narrative side, what do you think their stories add to that sense of “Oh, I want to play the other character now?”

A: You saw this a bit in the prologue, but you get to play as Naoe and Yasuke through personal moments in their own story. That’s a good opportunity. We know that they’re going to come together, they’re going to work together and build something very special together, but they also have their own arcs through the story that we explore in their personal contexts.

Q: Is there any significance in the name change that Yasuke goes through? When he was with the Portuguese Jesuits, he was Diogo, and now he’s Yasuke.

A: That is something that we are excited for you to discover in the game!

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Has A Rich Emotional Narrative Steeped In Historical Truth

Q: Throughout this entire process, what has been the most fun, most weird, or most interesting thing that you have learned about this time period in Japan?

A: I have to say that learning is one of my favorite parts of the job. I think the ability to come to work every day and get to immerse myself in history, and the research that comes from all of the wonderful historians, consultants, and experts we work with. It’s a real gift. Honestly, it brings us so much narrative inspiration, and every day has new details to discover. It was really fun to work with that in the game.

Q: What would you like to say to players as they look forward to the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows?

A: Our narrative team put our hearts into writing this story, and I am so excited for the game to be in players’ hands and for them to live this story for themselves.

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Released

March 20, 2025

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ESRB

Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language

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X|S Optimized

Yes

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Number of Players

1

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