The Assassin’s Creed series has long been famous for its unique historical settings within regions and countries set during pivotal events centuries ago, from the Holy Land during the Third Crusade in Assassin’s Creed 1 to Sengoku period Japan in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Each game’s world offers players a unique glance at these historical settings and time periods, with each subsequent mainline game expanding in the depth in which fans can learn about the various foregone societies and cultures. Since 2017, the Assassin’s Creed series has greatly expanded its world by creating vast open worlds supported by increased RPG-like mechanics. With Assassin’s Creed Shadows being the latest game in the RPG line of AC games, it's worth making an in-depth comparison of Shadows to its RPG predecessors.
Assassin's Creed Shadows: Where Is The Treasure Behind The Waterfall In The Hideout?
Not all treasures in Assassin's Creed Shadows grant you weapons or armor, but the one behind the waterfall in the Hideout is still worth collecting.
These Assassin’s Creed world size comparisons do not include areas locked to prologue, epilogue, or DLC sections of the RPG games.
The Regions and Size of Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Japan
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the second RPG AC game developed by Ubisoft Quebec, who previously worked on 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. However, Shadows is actually the fourth fully fleshed-out RPG Assassin’s Creed game released, with the other games being 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins and 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage is generally considered to be too short and too small to be properly grouped with the other RPG AC games as it primarily takes place in the Round City of Baghdad. In contrast, Shadows allows players to be able to explore nine regions within central Japan in the late 16th century, including:
- Wakasa
- Omi
- Iga
- Yamato
- Kii
- Settsu
- Harima
- Tamba
- Yamashiro
In terms of the actual size of Shadows’ base world, Creative Director Jonathan Dumont announced in 2024 that Shadows will be about the same scale as Origins. This was later confirmed by comparison animations YouTuber DG VFX in early 2025, who revealed that Shadows’ world is about 84 square kilometers large. This places Assassin’s Creed Shadows as the fourth-largest game in the series, slightly larger than Origins but smaller than Valhalla, Black Flag, and Odyssey, the latter of which is the largest Assassin’s Creed game at 130 square kilometers. Most of Black Flag and Odyssey’s size, however, comes from their vast ship-traversing bodies of water in the form of the Caribbean, Aegean, and Mediterranean seas.
The Dynamic Japanese World of Assassin’s Creed Shadows
While Assassin’s Creed Origins and its fellow open world successors expanded the series' journey into RPG territory, their worlds were relatively stagnant with their environments. Both Origins and Odyssey featured arid environments, but they never really changed as players progressed through the story. Occasional sand storms may appear in Egypts desert and both games featured a consistent day and night cycle, but none of these truly altered the world or gameplay mechanics. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla had a more varied world, featuring snow-covered mountains, grassy hills, and sparse forests, but its environment also seldom changed. Ubisoft Quebec sought to rectify this issue in Assassin’s Creeds Shadows with dynamic weather, seasons, and lighting.
The story of Assassin’s Creed Shadows seemingly takes place over the course of several years as feudal Japan seasons will consistently change naturally as gamers play through the game. Spring, summer, fall, and winter are all rotated throughout Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ story with each season altering NPC and gameplay mechanics on top of changing the appearance of the game. For example, the snow-covered winter will cause Naoe and Yasuke to slowly walk through fields and be able to cross frozen bodies of water. Storms will occasionally appear throughout the game as well, with rainstorms making sneaking through castles easier as it drowns out the noise of players’ footsteps. Shadows may be smaller than its predecessors, but it makes up for it with a more detailed world.
Assassin's Creed Shadows
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 81 /100 Critics Rec: 82%
- Released
- March 20, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Quebec
- Publisher(s)
- Ubisoft
