While not quite reaching the vast expanses of recent Assassin’s Creed odysseys, the upcoming Shadows looks to serve up a generous helping of medieval Japanese landscapes and cityscapes according to fresh developer insights. The open world’s scale is described as “roughly similar” to 2017’s Origins set in Ancient Egypt.
In a post-premiere interview, Ubisoft Quebec associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois shed light on the map’s scope, which forgoes open waters in favor of a dense, valley-strewn mainland focused on key 16th century locations like Kyoto, Osaka, and the castle town of Azuchi.
“It’s much more mountainous in Japan, small mountains and valleys, and what we discovered with the team who went scouting is that most of the interesting stuff is in the valleys,” Lemay-Comtois explained. “There are some cool temples on top of certain mountains, but for the most part it’s almost like a very steep, impenetrable bush that there’s no reason to go through.”
The confined map allows the developers to double down on authentically recreating this turbulent era’s cultural epicenters and battlegrounds as feudal warlords vied for control amid a brutal push for national unification. Nine regions comprise the playable territory, spanning modern-day prefectures like Wakasa, Yamashiro, Omi and Yamato while incorporating famous locales such as Lake Biwa.
Far from sparse, this concise Japanese world promises a dense cavalcade of cities and castles meticulously grounded in real historical backdrops. Lemay-Comtois describes balancing an “adventure as you move between them” with avoiding overlong cross-country odysseys between key story beats by right-sizing traversable acreage.
The discerning scoping appears to serve the historical narrative Ubisoft aims to depict. With a seasonal cycle also confirmed, Assassin’s Creed Shadows seems poised to provide an immersive, focused tour through a pivotal stretch of medieval Japan without sacrificing a substantial open sandbox to uncover its mysteries.
While likely more compact than the sprawl of Valhalla or Odyssey, this tailored geographical footprint raises hopes for a richly realized, content-dense take on the land of the rising sun’s Sengoku period when Assassin’s Creed Shadows launches November 15 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
