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In a series spanning dozens of games across nearly two decades, much of the globe, and uncountable centuries of history, it's little surprise that the Assassin's Creed series would have drawn from a lot of different points of inspiration. But when Assassin's Creed Shadows' Claws of Awaji expansion revealed a boss fight shaped by some of the Metal Gear Solid series' most iconic battles, I still managed to be pleasantly surprised - a feeling that only grew as I began to manipulate the fight for my own gain.
This article contains minor story spoilers for Assassin's Creed Shadows: Claws of Awaji.
Hunker down
When you arrive on Awaji, the titular island setting of Assassin's Creed Shadows' first expansion, you're quickly introduced to the shadowy clan that has the island in its vice-like grip. Of its four leaders, perhaps the most threatening is Nowaki, a master of stealth who has turned the island's forest interior into what often feels like one massive trap, ready to spring shut around you.
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Nowaki was born into extreme poverty, a member of the lowest class in Shadows' era of Japan, for whom the punishment for even looking the wrong way at a higher-class citizen could be severe. As a result, she learned to move almost entirely unseen, her poverty forcing her to become resourceful and creative. These were traits she could never let go of, even when she was raised up into Awaji's elite. As one of the most important lieutenants of Shadows' main protagonists, she quickly becomes one of your key targets, leading to one of Assassin's Creed's most interesting boss fights in years.
During my recent trip to Ubisoft Bordeaux, the team behind Claws of Awaji made clear their desire that the expansion's combat shouldn't be all about spamming the light attack, heavy attack, and dodge buttons. Having created a character who's a master of stealth, they were keen to create a boss fight that was more about sneaking than fighting. Coupling Nowaki's penchant for traps with an eagle-eyed skill with the teppo, they created an arena where giving away your position for even a moment can spell death.
Keep quiet
Nowaki's boss fight is inspired by some of the most iconic sniper fights in the world. Drawing from The Fear and The End from Metal Gear Solid 3 as well as Quiet from Metal Gear Solid 3, Ubisoft Bordeaux created a boss fight where half the battle is simply finding your foe. A swampy arena filled with both tripwires and meticulously-crafted dummies makes for a fight where there's no room to misstep and picking the wrong target spells disaster. Stumble over a tripwire and Nowaki will take aim with her poisoned bullets. Assassinate a fake and you'll find yourself stumbling away from a cloud of poison gas while your opponent fixes her sights on you.
It's here that some of Ubisoft's other inspiration comes to the fore. Drawing from immersive sims like Dishonored and Thief, the team wanted to make sure Nowaki reacted to the player. Trip a wire and she'll shoot before dropping a smokebomb and disappearing to another part of the arena, taunting you as she goes. Hit her with a ranged weapon and she'll retreat to cover or position herself deliberately close to her mannequins. As you start to close in, she'll get increasingly frantic, firing off shots in quick succession if she catches you with her back against the wall.
It's a fight all about manipulation. Nowaki is desperately trying to draw you into making a mistake, bringing you into the open where taking a single hit can quickly become a genuine problem. When she relocates, she picks a spot that will be hard for you to assail unseen from your current position. But that manipulation goes both ways. If you dismantle a trap without tripping over it, you can make Nowaki fire at empty space, giving away her location. If you can get her to taunt you, you can use eagle vision to determine what direction she's standing in. If you're really paying attention, you can use the patterns of the arena to work out where she's most likely to reappear. And that's how I finally proved myself as Awaji's greatest assassin.
During our Awaji hands-on, my group of journalists and influencers were tasked with seeing just how fast we could defeat Nowaki. Stepping into the arena for the first time, I quickly learned to disable her tripwires to figure out her location, but soon ran out of shuriken. A successful first try still took me 9 minutes – a decent time, according to the devs, but not one that would top the leaderboards. In my arrogance, my second attempt was slower, as I tripped so many wires that Nowaki was leaping around the arena at high speed. Still, by now I'd worked out how to manipulate her for my own ends, and for our 'official' times I eventually finished the fight in just over two and a half minutes, a time faster than any of the other attendees (I heard tell that Ubisoft staff could get that time down below two minutes, but for now I think I'm still the fastest non-dev to clear Nowaki's arena).
Obviously, winning this little internal competition helped make the fight a little more memorable for me, but more important than my thrilling victory is how this fight is indicative of what Ubisoft is trying to achieve with Claws of Awaji. A boss fight that's about genuine assassinations rather than button spamming action feels like a continuation of the work the Bordeaux studio did with Assassin's Creed Mirage, and that game's return to the feel of older games. The invocation of Thief, Dishonored, and Metal Gear Solid is a further statement of intent about Claws of Awaji's stealth heritage, and part of what's helping this expansion stand confidently as more than just a simple extension of Assassin's Creed Shadows' world.
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