Assassin's Creed Shadows Might Be Ubisoft's Return To Form, But Only If It Fixes This One Major Issue With The Series

Ubisoft has been struggling with the cancelation of various projects, including its maligned live-service shooter, XDefiant, as well as the multiple unfortunate yet necessary delays of its next big game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows. As a result, fans have begun sounding the death knell for the publisher, a sentiment that has been fueled by Ubisoft actively working with Tencent to offload some of its assets. However, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, perhaps in spite of the delays, has the potential to be Ubisoft’s best game yet.

So far, Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ previews have been painting a very positive picture, alluding to a fresh take on the classic Ubisoft open-world formula, as well as two distinct characters that are fun to play. That will all come as amazing news, especially to those who have pre-ordered the game already. However, one aspect the previews didn’t get much opportunity to delve into was Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ narrative. Ubisoft’s track record with storytelling has been poor as of late, and if Shadows wants to truly succeed, this is where it needs to excel the most.

Ubisoft Is Bad At Telling Stories

It Is Constantly The Weakest Part Of Its Games

Ubisoft hasn’t always been terrible at telling stories, but its recent offerings – at least those in the AAA space – have almost exclusively had bad narratives. From Frontiers of Pandora’s lackluster villain that appears only twice throughout the entire game to Watch Dog’s Legions’ frustrating attempt at telling a cohesive story without a central protagonist, Ubisoft has proven time and time again that it still doesn’t know how to write a compelling main quest for players to embark upon. Unfortunately, this stretches to all of Ubisoft’s franchises, new and old.

Far Cry 6, for example, squandered incredible performances in favor of a generic plotline that muddles its politics in favor of playing it safe – the same can be said of Watch Dogs Legion. As a result, it lacks any bite as well as interesting characters, and its main conniving villain does little to elevate the script. Even Star Wars Outlaws’ story struggles despite a somewhat compelling lead character and decades of lore to expand upon. It was saddled with a meandering plot that couldn’t do anything interesting with the source material due to its placement in a restrictive timeline.

It is worth noting that not all modern-day Ubisoft games have a bad narrative. However, those with stronger stories are typically its smaller, more experimental titles, such as Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Valiant Hearts, and Child of Light.

This problem extends to the likes of Far Cry 4, which felt like a pale imitation of its renowned predecessor, the original Watch Dogs, which’s overwhelming grit went underutilized in a mediocre plot about revenge, and a myriad of Assassin’s Creed games post-Black Flag. It isn’t just that the scripts are bad, although that plays a big role, as the way Ubisoft chooses to present these narratives also feels half-baked. Poor animations, motion capture, and camera angles make every narrative moment feel as uncinematic as possible, giving them no weight, meaning, or impact.

There’s a reason why people don’t laud Ubisoft’s narratives in the same way they do God of War, The Last of Us, or really any of PlayStation’s excellent first-party games. For all the deep themes, socio and political discussions, and compelling characters Ubisoft purports to throw into its various franchises, they’re never expanded upon meaningfully, ensuring that they all fall short of expectations. Similarly, Ubisoft’s lack of cinematic prowess ensures that nothing has the impact that it should, even were the scripts well-written.

Assassin’s Creed Narratives Have Struggled

Recent Entries Have Been Lacking In The Story Department

As alluded to, Assassin’s Creed is not exempt from Ubisoft’s poor storytelling, although it is, in many ways, exempt from certain criticisms. For example, unlike most of Ubisoft’s franchises, Assassin’s Creed’s protagonists are largely enjoyable, if, occasionally, genuinely interesting. The Frye siblings in Syndicate are a joy to be around thanks to their enjoyable banter, Bayek proved to be a thoroughly engaging protagonist to embody, and Kassandra was one of the few highlights of Odyssey. Of course, it goes without saying that Edward and Ezio are some of the best protagonists in Assassin’s Creed history.

However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, as Eivor has little to offer Valhalla, and Arno is underdeveloped, despite some impressive potential. Additionally, even the Assassin’s Creed games with the best protagonists struggle when it comes to the story they go through. Syndicate, for example, has a fairly lackluster story that never reaches the potential it should have. Similarly, Odyssey’s narrative is a bloated mess that lacks enough grand moments to feel satisfying. Frustratingly, Ubisoft has worsened Assassin’s Creed’s narrative woes by altering its structure, namely in Valhalla.

Assassin's Creed Shadows Yasuke Naoe Art

I Visited Ubisoft Quebec To Preview Assassin’s Creed Shadows – These Are The 10 Biggest Things I Learned

While Assassin’s Creed Shadows was in line with some of my expectations, a number of things managed to surprise me at the preview event.

One of the many reasons why Eivor’s story isn’t as engaging as, for example, Edwards in Black Flag is because Valhalla is broken up into multiple little stories focused on insignificant characters that never reappear. As a result, Eivor doesn’t have time to develop. The open-ended nature of Valhalla’s narrative structure means that Ubisoft can’t tell meaningful stories, especially when it comes to its main characters and the world they inhabit. Mirage suffered from a similar problem, albeit to a lesser extent, with its focus on hunting down targets that aren’t developed enough to make the player care.

Of course, another huge issue that is unique to Assassin’s Creed’s narrative is its focus on the modern day. Assassin’s Creed has always struggled to tell compelling stories because it’s bound by its self-imposed restrictive rules surrounding the Animus, Isu, and the modern-day sections. The most frustrating aspect about the modern-day plotlines isn’t that they’re inherently bad, as they have a lot of potential to be interesting, but rather that Ubisoft can’t make up its mind about whether to prioritize them or forget them entirely.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Needs A Good Story Above All Else

It Has The Opportunity To Tell A Unique Tale

Assassin's Creed Shadows Yasuke and Nobunaga on horseback.

Fortunately, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has the potential to correct the failings of its predecessors. Fans have been complaining enough about Ubisoft’s lackluster narratives and unconvincing villains for quite some time that one would hope it would finally listen. Luckily, at least according to some of the previews, there have been some improvements in the narrative department. Some have claimed that the cutscene direction in Shadows is a step up from past Assassin’s Creed games, and a trailer showcasing exclusively in-game story-focused cutscenes seems to prove this.

Importantly, Ubisoft is putting a lot of emphasis on the dynamic between Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ dual protagonists, as well as their own personal struggles. Despite Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ controversies surrounding one of its two protagonists, Yasuke, both characters look genuinely interesting. They are also deeply grounded in history, according to the developers, meaning they have a lot of pre-determined characteristics to play from as well as plenty of backstory to explore. If Ubisoft manages to pull it off, Shadows could end up featuring one of the series’ best narratives.

While Ubisoft has proven it is capable of innovation in many regards when it comes to the mechanical and technical aspects of its games, it has stagnated when it comes to their heart.

While Ubisoft has proven it is capable of innovation when it comes to the mechanical and technical aspects of its games, it has stagnated when it comes to their heart. Novel gameplay features and iterative open-world design decisions can only carry a game so far, as players will undoubtedly grow bored once they realize that there’s little point in caring about the world and characters they’re interacting with. Assassin’s Creed Shadows needs a good story, not just to save the series from being forgotten, but to prove that Ubisoft is still capable of crafting the memorable stories it once was.

Source: Ubisoft/YouTube