TLDR: AC Shadows is such a missed opportunity.
50+ hours in. Mixed feelings, which is rare for me because I genuinely like almost every game I play. This might be the first one where I'm truly split.
The gameplay loop is great and Naoe is genuinely fun to play. Her stealth mechanics are the best part of the game by a mile. For me personally the best gameplay loops in AC go Odyssey, Black Flag, then Shadows. The world is beautiful, the atmosphere is great, some of the story missions are interesting and hideout building is fun too.
They also did a great job with weapon variety. Choosing between a katana for higher single target damage, a Kusarigama for wider range and hitbox, or a tanto for stealth is a genuinely tough and fun decision. That kind of meaningful choice keeps combat interesting.
Now the real problems.
Yasuke is frustrating and feels forced. No Eagle Vision, barely any parkour, can't stealth assassinate, and even sprinting as him is annoying. Act 1 is actually great because you're playing as Naoe, but Act 2 is where things fall apart. That's when Yasuke becomes a bigger presence and it breaks the flow completely. He genuinely feels like he should have been a side character, not a co-protagonist. His story isn't interesting enough to justify the dual protagonist structure and the whole thing feels forced for the sake of having two playable characters.
Don't even get me started on the modern day story. It's just bad, and being bad is one thing, but the real problem is that it breaks immersion entirely. Black Flag Resynced removed it completely and that was the right call. Shadows should have done the same.
The bigger issue is the identity crisis. They tried to please old school AC fans and new RPG fans at the same time and you can clearly see it. They should have committed to one direction. Odyssey went full RPG and it worked. Shadows sits in the middle and satisfies neither side fully. The side quests reflect this too, not terrible but nowhere near Odyssey's depth.
Naoe's writing is also inconsistent. They want her to be revenge driven, angry and kind at the same time, which can work but only with strong writing. Instead she's already relaxed and cheerful before she even takes her first step toward revenge. And she noticeably becomes ruder after Yasuke joins, which feels engineered to make us warm up to him rather than something that develops naturally.
What's frustrating is that the potential is clearly there. When Naoe's father dies the cutscene is genuinely brilliant, her facial expression alone sold the grief perfectly. But that level of quality doesn't carry through consistently as the game progresses, which makes the drop even more noticeable.
The dialogue is weak too, and I say that as a non native English speaker. Multiple times I thought she could have said something completely differently and it would have hit harder.
Do I regret buying it? No. Is it worth full price? Also no.
It feels like a solid game caught in the middle of what it actually wanted to be.
