Assassin's Creed Shadows Character Swapping

Assassin's Creed Shadows won't punish players who favour one protagonist over the other, as explained in a new interview with creative director Jonathan Dumont.

Speaking to Screen Rant, Dumont goes into some detail about how Shadows' character swapping actually works within the game's structure. This has been brought up before in official marketing materials, but it's still interesting to get the director's take.

So, starting at the bottom, Shadows has two playable characters: Naoe, the stealth-centric shinobi, and Yasuke, the combat-heavy samurai. You can switch between them at any time while exploring the open world, and they each have their own skill trees, equipment, combat styles, and parkour abilities.

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But you don't have to keep jumping between them. Dumont says that the game "adapts" based on who you're playing as, with most story missions and quests giving you a choice of who to control.

As such, Dumont's opinion is that you're not "missing out on things too much" if you favour one hero over the other. "Have fun with the game, just play it as you want," he adds.

Dumont reveals that he likes to spend a few hours as each character, before swapping over when the time feels right: "Usually I play stealth and then I say, all right, let me destroy some camps and stuff all right for a while. And then I just change like that."

However, it should be noted that certain parts of Shadows will enforce the use of a specific protagonist. "They get individual introductions, and then they get their own questline also," the director explains.

"So that one is, let’s say Naoe, a personal questline cannot be played by Yasuke and those are two distinct things. But the core of the game can be pick your character and the game adapts."

In theory, the dual-lead approach should give Shadows some nice replay value — especially if you do end up sticking with one style of gameplay. But then, if recent titles like Assassin's Creed Valhalla are anything to go by, Shadows is going to be a long game.

Are you planning on playing as one protagonist more than the other? Or are you going to try and keep things balanced? Decide on an approach in the comments section below.

Who do you plan on playing as the most in Assassin's Creed Shadows? (588 votes)

  1. Naoe%
  2. Yasuke%
  3. I'm going to try and play as both equally%
  4. I can't say just yet, I need to try them out first%

[source screenrant.com, via videogameschronicle.com]