Assassin’s Creed Shadows Year 1 Roadmap: Story Expansion, Parkour Enhancements, New Game Plus, and More

Ubisoft has laid out its Year 1 content roadmap for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The open-world title will be treated to new story content, parkour improvements, quality-of-life and accessibility updates, and more over the next several months.

The biggest content drop will be the game’s first expansion, Claws of Awaji. Arriving later this year (and free for pre-order customers), it unfolds after Shadows’ epilogue and takes place in the new island of Awaji. Expect to meet new friends and foes, and Naoe will be able to wield a new weapon, the bo staff. 

Free, smaller narrative updates called Story Drops will add quests introducing new characters, fleshing out existing allies’ backstories, along with new abilities and activities. The first story drop arrives in early May, and is titled “The Works of Luis Frois”. It centers on the real-life Portuguese missionary and Jesuit historically famous for his work in Japan during the Sengoku period. 

Parkour will be improved and expanded following fan feedback. In late May, an update will add height-gaining back-ejects, re-animated height-gaining side-ejects, and a wholly new vertical ledge jump allowing Naoe and Yasuke to grab and climb awnings and lower overhangs. Ubisoft promises additional tweaks and improvements to parkour will arrive throughout the year.

Photo Mode will be expanded with new filters, stickers, character poses, facial expressions, along with the introduction of ambient music. A Community Feedback update in June will let players toggle headgear visibility on during dialogue and cinematics. Players will also be able to disable visual effects such as weapon glints, black-and-white ability filters, the stealth outlines when your character vanishes, and target assassination celebration effects. Furthermore, the Alarm system is being expanded to the open-world to provide a greater challenge.

Future updates include a New Game Plus mode that raises the level cap and a new, more challenging difficulty setting. You can learn about some of the smaller updates on the roadmap by checking out Ubisoft’s blog post. 

 You can read our review of Assassin’s Creed Shadows here. 

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