Assassin's Creed Shadows has "unclimbable surfaces" that force you to find physical handholds because Ubisoft wants to be "more thoughtful" about parkour

With Assassin's Creed Shadows out in a matter of weeks, Ubisoft is starting to drip feed us a whole bunch of info on the game's mechanics. Now the devs have provided an in-depth explanation of how parkour works, and maybe the most notable detail is that - in contrast to many Assassin's Creed games - you won't be able to climb over literally everything.

Shadows will feature some number of "unclimbable surfaces" without physical handholds to grab onto. "This is a pretty big deal for us," according to associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois in a new blog post. "This means we had to be more thoughtful about creating interesting parkour highways and afforded us more control about where Naoe can go, and where Yasuke can’t, making our two playstyles even more contrasted."

Ubisoft adds that "most of what you’ll see in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is still very much climbable," but some areas will require a bit more "creativity" to get into. That's welcome news to me, at least - the tendency of recent Assassin's Creeds to just let you hold a button to clamber over everything has tended to make the open worlds feel a bit flat.

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It might not seem like a big change at first blush, but the blog also highlights how Ubisoft has swapped the crouch and dodge buttons as part of an effort to merge the dodge into the broader parkour system. "There are two main ways to parkour down," Lemay-Comtois explains. "The classic way is to press the dodge / parkour down button near a ledge without directional input: your character will climb down and hold that ledge in climbing position. The second - and flashier way - is to perform a directional dodge over that ledge, which launches a variety of acrobatic transitions."

It certainly sounds like Ubisoft is building a smart overhaul of the parkour mechanics the series is known for, but we'll see how it all plays in practice when Assassin's Creed Shadows launches on February 14.

Here are all the upcoming Assassin's Creed games you need to know about.