A Game Of Two Halves – How Assassin’s Creed Shadows Pulls Off Two Entirely Different Protagonists

The notion of dual protagonists in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed games is hardly a novel one. Indeed, the whole concept debuted nearly ten years ago in 2015’s Victorian London set Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and arguably provided something of a breath of fresh air from the series’ traditionally solo escapades. In the case of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, though the cinematic and narrative interplay between twin assassins Evie and Jacob Frye reliably entertained on the regular, the two nonetheless played extremely similarly – albeit with each having subtle advantages over the other in stealth and combat respectively.
Though a similar dynamic also existed in 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, where you had two characters that were largely the same from a functional standpoint, this year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows looks to utterly upend the concept by providing players with two protagonists that couldn’t be more different. And really, it’s about time too, especially when you consider the vast periods and veritable smorgasbord of compelling characters that have come and gone in the series’ long and storied history.

Starting with Yasuke, Assassin’s Creed Shadow presents us with a fictionalised, though compelling take on a historical figure. While historians differ on the events of his life and the norms of Japanese culture at the time suggest that as a retainer to Oba Nobunaga – the Daimyō of the time who wanted to unite Japan – Yasuke might not have ever picked up a sword in real life, the fact remains that the Assassin’s Creed games have never pretended to be historically accurate in any way unless it serves the story. And, well, this is a series about magical artefacts and mysteriously powerful alien races, so turning Yasuke into a freedom-seeking ronin isn’t the most fantastical thing this long-running franchise has done, to say the least.

Right away, Yasuke feels immediately different to every other protagonist that has come before him in Ubisoft’s famously stabby franchise. A comparative giant to the natives that surround him, Yasuke towers over just about everybody and has a stalking gait and thudding fighting style to match. Adorned from head to toe in thick and durable samurai armour, before he even strikes his foe, it’s clear that Yasuke is something of a hardy bulwark capable of reliably soaking up damage. Certainly, having a main character that boasts this sort of confrontational nature and is ready to throw down in broad daylight in front of multiple foes instead of lurking in the shadows, clearly marks a departure for the Assassin’s Creed series.
It’s really from an offensive perspective, however, that Yasuke truly stands on his own. Juxtaposed against his typically smaller foes, Yasuke can use a massive metal club known as a kanabō to batter his enemies like pinballs into nearby walls and furniture, brutally shattering their bodies in the process. In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Yasuke’s time under Oda Nobunaga and his samurai has also resulted in the giant African warrior learning how to use the katana, allowing players to not just carve a bloody path through his enemies, but utterly detach their various limbs (and head) with distressing ease, too.

Beyond his impressive skill with oversized clubs and razor-sharp katana blades, Yasuke also happens to be a dab hand with the arquebus firearm, bringing violent suffering to any enemies that happen to be lurking at range. Put simply, if you want to both create and meet violence head-on, Yasuke is your man. After following his master around Japan for a good few years on a warmongering conquest, Yasuke soon befriends a young shinobi called Fujibayashi Naoe during an attack on the Iga Province and it’s here that we switch gears to take a look at the other half of Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ protagonist double act.
Quite unlike the hulking and much more confrontational Yasuke, the much smaller but no less deadly Naoe arguably fits in better with the series’ traditionally stealth-focused gameplay and themes. An eminently skilled shinobi by ‘trade’, Naoe perhaps embodies just about everything series fans wanted from an Assassin’s Creed title set in Feudal Japan.

Resolutely at home running across rooftops, skulking in the shadows, knocking out light sources, assassinating unsuspecting enemies from above or using her trusty grappling hook to cross distances at speed, Naoe is very much the heir apparent for the traditional Assassin archetype in Ubisoft’s franchise. Pointedly, it’s also through Naoe that we get a glimpse at Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s reworked parkour system, which serves as the backbone for her traversal abilities, as the agile shinobi can perform sprinting dives over cover, snappy safety rolls and wall backflips, to name just a few of the impressive acrobatic feats in her arsenal.

Should things happen to go south, however, Naoe is also capable of holding her own in confrontational combat thanks to her katana and tanto blades for close combat and her kusarigama, which is used to keep enemies at bay at mid-range, not to mention her kunai throwing knives and shurikens for attacking foes at a distance. However, it should be noted that Naoe lacks both the endurance and damage mitigation that the “tankish” Yasuke boasts in spades, so such conflicts should be entertained sparingly.
In essence, then, both Naoe and Yasuke couldn’t be more different from one another and it’s in their differences that Assassin’s Creed Shadows makes arguably the most bold move the series has seen to date. Not only do Yasuke and Naoe appeal to two completely different play styles, but each character has their own unique story and side missions too that not only delve into their personal stories but later on collectively dovetail into the overarching narrative.

Thus what Ubisoft have wrought with Assassin’s Creed Shadows is to subtly split the game into two halves on account of the yawning chasm of difference that exists between its two central protagonists. Entirely different from a gameplay perspective but interweaving with one another from a story point of view, Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s biggest gamble looks to pay off by not only providing its latest entry with a meaningful point of distinction over its predecessors but also in setting down a compelling blueprint for future entries to follow. After all, nothing is true and everything is permitted. Right?