Which Settings Should You Choose at the Start of Assassin's Creed Shadows?

There are four difficulty settings in Assassin's Creed Shadows. Story is the best option for those just looking to enjoy the game's narrative, while Forgiving serves as the game's easy mode. Normal does exactly what it says on the tin, and Expert is the game's hard mode. Players will be able to change the difficulty setting after starting the game by visiting the Difficulty Tuning menu, where they'll have access to separate difficulty settings for stealth and combat. It's worth noting, though, that even when playing on the Story difficulty setting, players will likely need to grind out plenty of side activities to increase their level, as main story missions alone aren't nearly enough to get players up to the recommended level.

Guided Exploration provides players with quest markers, allowing them to head directly to their target or objective right after being given a quest. If they leave this off, they'll need to rely on the game's scouting system to find their objectives, which works fine in provinces that players have spent a lot of time in, but can be fairly useless when an objective is in an unexplored part of the map. As with the difficulty setting, players will be free to enable or disable Guided Exploration after they start playing the game, although most will likely find that it's better to play Assassin's Creed Shadows with Guided Exploration mode turned on.

Canon Mode is the only option that players can't change after completing the New Game Setup, so they should think carefully about this one. With Canon Mode enabled, players won't be given any dialogue choices and will instead experience the canon story of Assassin's Creed Shadows. As none of the dialogue choices seem to have a lasting impact on the narrative and usually result in the same outcome, players aren't really missing out on much by turning this on. However, some may enjoy the illusion that their decisions actually matter.

Immersive Mode sets the language to Japanese and blends in some Portuguese dialogue for a more immersive player experience. Contrary to what the text beneath it says, the audio language won't be "locked" to Japanese, so players can switch back to English later on if they so wish. However, assuming they don't mind reading subtitles, they probably won't want to, as much like their English-speaking counterparts, the Japanese voice actors for Assassin's Creed Shadows do a fantastic job.