izigame.me

My rating: 6/10
* After enduring just two hours of Assassin's Creed: Shadows—and I use the term "gameplay" very loosely here—I cannot, in good faith, recommend this game. Putting aside the insensitivity toward another culture and the blatant manipulation of historical facts by the developers, the experience itself is riddled with issues that make it difficult to enjoy.
Most of the game's introduction is bloated with slow and awkward exposition. What unfolds is a typical revenge story—something that may have worked back in 2010, but now feels tired and overused. This trope has been done to death, and Shadows brings nothing new to the table. On top of that, cutscenes struggle to maintain a decent frame rate, even on a top-of-the-line rig. There appears to be no option to disable ray tracing, which further compounds performance issues.
Speaking of cutscenes, they seem to have skipped proper quality control altogether. Many objects held by characters are misaligned in their hands, and there’s frequent clipping through surfaces like tables. One early example that stood out was a repaired item made by a child named Junjiro. It was supposed to be resting on a low table, but during the cutscene, the object was oddly sticking straight up—half of it submerged below the table, with the other half awkwardly floating above.
When it comes to the overall gameplay mechanics, the swordplay is very basic. It's mostly reduced to button mashing—or in this case, left-clicking—until a health sponge enemy finally goes down. The game features typical "Elite" variants of enemies and leans heavily on other tired RPG mechanics like level-gated areas and gear that requires a specific level to equip. They’ve also done away with the classic Eagle Vision and replaced it with a thermal-esque ability called "Focus." While it works fine mechanically, it feels like yet another small piece of what made Assassin's Creed unique that’s now been lost.
Exploring the map doesn’t offer much improvement. Encounters feel sporadic and unnatural, with random group battles popping up in places that make little logical sense. It feels like Ubisoft has haphazardly scattered these events around the map purely for the sake of adding "gameplay," rather than creating an immersive or believable world.
Ubisoft also pre-loaded the game with multiple microtransactions. While MTX in itself aren't inherently bad, very few companies handle them properly—and this game is no exception. It’s a single-player game, yet the MTX seem to be there solely to leech as much money as possible from the player. Many of the cosmetics tied to these microtransactions or pre-order bonuses also seem to be more Chinese than Japanese in design, which only adds to the growing list of cultural and environmental inaccuracies. Beyond the typical Japanese sakura aesthetic, much of the world design feels off, like it was pieced together from general East Asian clichés rather than being rooted in historical authenticity.
To make matters worse, Ubisoft requires players to download and sign into Ubisoft Connect just to play Shadows on Steam. If I wanted to use Ubisoft's launcher, I would have bought the game there. Steam really needs to take a hard stance against third-party launchers forcing themselves on users through Steam purchases.
Lastly, ignoring the fact that physical copies of the game leaked weeks ahead of launch, Ubisoft made the baffling decision to lift the embargo early and implement Twitch drops before release. If you’re prone to FOMO (fear of missing out), you were basically pressured into spoiling the game for yourself just to "earn" exclusive content.
Edit:
As Assassin's Creed: Shadows has had more time in players' hands since launch, a growing number of bugs have come to light—further showcasing just how unfinished the game truly is. Some of the most common issues include:
1. NPCs running outside of restricted mission areas, then popping back into existence during cutscenes.
2. Enemy AI repeatedly attacking invincible NPCs, resulting in endless, broken combat loops.
3. Friendly AI dealing zero damage to enemies, creating fake battles that serve no real purpose.
4. Items held by NPCs vanishing and reappearing when their animations are interrupted.
5. NPCs failing to detect the player when standing still directly in front of them, only reacting when the player moves—allowing you to walk a few steps at a time and remain undetected.
6. Cutscenes frequently failing to play audio, sometimes resulting in completely silent sequences.
These bugs, along with many others showcased by YouTuber and Twitch streamer Kotton, highlight just how unpolished and buggy Assassin's Creed: Shadows is in its current state. It’s a disappointing reflection of how far Ubisoft’s quality standards seem to have slipped, especially for a title that was meant to be a major release. For a franchise as iconic as Assassin’s Creed, and a game so crucial to Ubisoft's future, this level of neglect is hard to overlook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeCH_2cSoIY&t=1266s

---{Graphics}---
☐ Realistic
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Simple
☐ Don't look too long at it
---{Gameplay}---
☐ Amazing
☐ Good
☐ Average
☑ Below average
☐ Bad
☐ Read a book instead
---{Audio}---
☐ Amazing
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Below average
☐ Bad
☐ Buy earplugs
---{Audience}---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Anyone
---{PC Requirements}---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Average
☑ High
☐ Nvidia tesla p40
☐ Runs poorly on anything
---{Difficulty}---
☑ Could play with guitar hero controller
☐ Easy
☐ Average
☐ Difficult
☐ Cuphead and Dark Souls combined
---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☑ A little grind
☐ Average grind
☐ Too much grind
---{Story}---
☐ N/A
☐ Bad
☑ Below average
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Amazing
☐ It'll replace your life
---{Game Time }---
☐ N/A
☐ Depends on how much you like grinding
☐ 1-3
☐ 5-8
☐ 9-12
☐ 13-20
☑ 21-50
☐ 51-100
☐ 100+
---{Price}---
☐ Worth the price
☑ Only if on sale
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could just invest in VHS tapes
---{Bugs}---
☐ None
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Quite a bit
☐ Fallout 76 on launch