Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows released early 2025 on PC, Xbox and PlayStation to a pretty strong reception. A leap in time forward to December and Assassin’s Creed Shadows has emerged on the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s still the same great game, but it doesn’t necessarily strike true every time.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows follows not one, but two protagonists, on separate paths of vengeance through historical 16th-century Japan. Budding kunoichi (female shinobi – or an older term for a ninja) Naoe seeks to become a master of stealth to avenge her fallen father and discover the mysteries of a family artifact, all while hunting down the Onryo, a sinister masked syndicate.

Whereas Yasuke, a Samurai taken from his home in Mozambique, Africa, seeks to find his place in Japan under the command of a powerful warlord. The entire new historical setting of feudal Japan and the tale of Yasuke in particular actually has a fair bit of truth to his real-world history. 

For anyone familiar with the Assassin’s Creed formula, there’s the usual nice balance of exploration, combat, stealth and of course, climbing. What sets Assassin’s Creed Shadows apart is the dual-experience of each protagonist’s playstyle, while Naoe’s shinobi path prioritises stealth, Yasuke’s opts for the ways of the warrior, being a much more combat-heavy role, facing the enemy head-on.

The combat and stealth experiences struck a nice balance to keep encounters from feeling too repetitive. Being able to change weapons and gear as well as using Naoe and Yasuke’s unique movesets, there’s enough freedom to approach situations in different ways.

The open world of the Kansai region is interesting, where there’s a mix of rural countryside, small towns and cities. Early on, it was a bit of an adjustment due to the limited verticality, but as the game progresses, it becomes a bit more interesting.

Like all modern Assassin’s Creed Games, it has an absolutely massive amount of main and side quests to keep players busy when they aren’t out assassinating the big-bads, though it can get quite overwhelming and tiresome at times with the sheer amount of quests to do for completionists.

Overall, I enjoyed exploring Japan, but it does take some time before the map opens up and gets interesting, being very cutscene-heavy in the opening hours of the game.

The Japan of Assassin’s Creed Shadows is gorgeous – it feels authentic and deeply in touch with the Japanese roots. From the grasslands to towns, the architecture and landmarks feel perfectly in line with the historical time period, especially in the gorgeously rendered cutscenes.

Japan is captured in its ultimate beauty. Where Assassin’s Creed struggles is not necessarily in the game itself, but rather the Nintendo Switch 2 port struggles to find its footing.

While the actual game performance, both docked and handheld, stayed at the target frame rate of 30 fps, I had some slow texture load-in in densely populated areas and often in-game surfaces could look jagged and low resolution.

Handheld, it felt like some textures, lighting and reflections were less detailed than on PC and other consoles, which tended to make the game feel dated and dull. A real shame compared to how gorgeous it looks on other platforms. Assassin’s Creed Shadows looks better when playing docked, but the visuals take quite a dip from what I would like for a 2025 title.

All that being said, Assassin’s Creed Shadows thrives in its audio, with beautiful woodwind and string orchestration in traditional Japanese instrumentation really adding to the atmosphere and a few more modern takes thrown in for good measure. Voice acting is fairly standard but still quite strong.

I especially enjoyed that there was an option to play with Naoe speaking Japanese and Yasuke speaking Portuguese at times (the language of his previous slavery master before being taken in by the warlord, Oda) to reflect their respective languages in certain dialogue instances, adding that little extra love and care. Every clank of a blade, the whooshes of winds or the rushing of a stream makes the world feel much more immersive. 

Playing on Switch 2 isn’t overly different from other consoles; handheld felt a bit jarring, especially with the touchscreen implementation. I found myself accidentally touching the screen and skipping dialogue. Most other controls are relatively similar to those of different consoles.

Playing Assassin’s Creed titles on the big screen feels much more organic, and with a Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller or the Joy-Con Comfort Grip controller with the Joy-Cons slotted in, it does feel much better. The Nintendo Switch 2 port includes a New Game+ mode, all current content and a Nightmare difficulty. In-game, difficulty can be adjusted and tailored to your liking.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a worthy addition to Ubisoft’s iconic series catalogue. While the performance isn’t quite as impressive as other ports of the game, there’s still a solid piece of history worth exploring in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. 

Written by: Yasmin Noble