Assassin's Creed Shadows "has a little bit of Tarantino flavor", but its real secret ingredient is intrigue: "It's almost like you're watching an episode of Shogun"

Assassin's Creed Shadows is set in feudal Japan, throughout the violent Sengoku era. But, talking with Ubisoft Quebec's David Nibbelin, the game's realization and cinematic director, it was important to ensure the game was still an Assassin's Creed game at heart. Concerned with the "emotional flow" of the narrative as a whole across the game's freeform structure – not just the cutscenes – Nibbelin is able to tell me a bit more about leaving the series' mark on history.

To best serve Assassin's Creed Shadows, that sometimes means being aware of the history of Japan's Sengoku period and the country's own legacy of adapting it, and knowing when to put their own mark on it – often mixing the two. Whether that's using cinematic techniques that add impact to moments of action, to a soundtrack that includes Japanese psych rock group Teke:Teke and a collaboration between composers Thunderdrum and the Tanzanian-born vocalist Tiggs Da Author.

Turn it up

"I think one of the great things about working on a project like Assassin's Creed is we don't have to tell the traditional Japanese story," says Nibbelin. "It's not a feudal Japanese movie where everything has to be very grounded, because the way Assassin's Creed looks at history is very unique. We do so in its own specific way, which means bringing in a little modern elements to it. We kind of get to play with the formula."

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Inspiration was taken "not just from Japanese movies, but also a little bit from Tarantino, and this idea of bringing some edge to our game – what can we do to make our moments truly memorable and unique in a way that only Assassin's Creed can do?" Musical choices, says Nibbelin, and choosing the right time for a needledrop, is a part of that. "The audio team, they really knocked it out of the park," says Nibbelin. Picking the right moments to use them is "a very careful balance," he adds. "We sort of have to craft the launch pad, if you will, so that we can bring the player into a moment where it doesn't feel contrived or out of the blue or just distracting."

The same balance has to be found with moments of community and violence, especially when it comes to each main target kill that ends Assassin's Creed Shadows' main chapters – each kill is followed by a moment to reflect. Traditionally Assassin's Creed games have taken you out of the moment for an extended dialogue with your victim for narrative reasons. But that's not the case here as much. "For the game we wanted to play, and the game we wanted to build, I think we wanted to approach it with maybe a diegetic approach," says Nibbelin.

Instead, the idea that Assassin's Creed Shadows is still taking place within the Animus is explored in different ways. "For example, the black and white treatments," says Nibbelin. When Naoe or Yasuke kill an assassination target, a filter over the screen casts colours in monochrome, with the red spray of blood the only punchy color. "And the zip cam when you spot a target," he adds. "Again, a little bit of a Tarantino flavor that we wanted to put in there." The goal has been to make the Animus' presence felt more as a "larger system at work [...] that's helping guide the player and present the world" rather than taking complete control away and removing players from the immersion of the world for extended periods.

Quentin Tarantino movies aren't the only influence the team has drawn from. "There's a tremendous amount of Japanese influence," says Nibbelin. "When we started doing our early production research, it was actually during COVID, and so we would have remote viewing sessions of movies where designers would be watching like Sekigahara, I think we did Ninja Scroll, and lots of Kurosawa."

This allowed the team to bask in everything from "traditional Japanese cinematics methods [and] interesting framing" but also culture. "I think it was something we definitely embraced as much as we could," says Nibbelin. "I know there was a scene from Sekigahara that is very influential for how the game opens, and the first scene you have with Oda Nobunaga." The goal was to "play with the formula", blending feudal Japan epics with an "Assassin's Creed influence" to create something as unique as they could.

I ask if there's one film Nibbelin would recommend watching to get the most out of Assassin's Creed Shadows. "Sekigahara was a really influential one," Nibbelin reiterates. Directed by Masato Harada, it's a 2017 period movie set during the battle of Sekigahara that brought the Sengoku era to an end, but, importantly, as well as the conflict itself, the political machinations that built up to it.

"I think one of the things that excites me about Assassin's Creed Shadows is how much we get to show you a little taste of political intrigue," says Nibbelin. "It's not just a wild west, samurai [goes] to a village, and leaves again. There's a massive web of political elements and intrigue and people that you've seen in history, and now you're finding out more about them that suddenly unfolds as you play the game. I think it's almost like you're watching an episode of Shogun, you get a chance to feel all these forces back and forth."

Striking back

With dual protagonists Yasuke and Naoe, even though you play as both during the prologue, the former samurai is absent for quite some time afterwards. In my own playthrough, it wasn't until around 12 hours I got to play as him again, and for some others on the team, 20 hours (after the prologue, Japan is your oyster to explore).

"One of the challenges that we faced with this type of game was how to deliver all the content we had, especially knowing we had so many memories that we had to deliver as well," says Nibbelin when I ask about Yasuke's early absence and balancing the back and forth between both characters from a structural perspective "For us, it's definitely a balancing factor with where can we show you these memories without it feeling like you're just sitting back and watching a movie, [while] at the same time being engaged compelled with your character journey."

Allowing Naoe to take center stage early contributes to this balance. "I will say that the time away from Yasuke was definitely meant to build this expectation about who Yasuke was to the player and maybe how you felt about Naoe. So there was an intention here," says Nibbelin. "We wanted to build it a certain way so that his arrival would really be a nice, punchy moment and, hopefully, an emotional high for the player – that they can finally make it back to the action in a way with him that they hadn't for a long time."

From an emotional flow angle with the narrative, threading the needle to bring plays in wasn't easy. "Taking player choice and open world into consideration, we were trying as much as we could to help structure that in a way that the player never really felt like they were just stuck in the doldrums for too long or feeling disconnected from the characters," says Nibbelin.

The opening hours, Nibbelin admits, can get pretty heavy. "At the same time, we want to balance that with some really empowering moments," he says of the scene where Yasuke returns as a playable character. "You've been through all this trauma, you've seen plans go wrong. I think it's one of the lowest points of the game. We want the player to suddenly feel an awesome moment where they could just be badass. [...] For us, it was a chance to see the player just come out of that darkness for a moment: 'Okay, now I can get back into this and have some fun with it.'"

A game as big as Assassin's Creed Shadows is a massive technical achievement, and it just so happens we have an exclusive interview all about it. "We don't want to force one terabyte of data on the players": Assassin's Creed Shadows' tech director on the clever tricks Ubisoft uses to "go beyond" current-gen.