How the Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout works and the best buildings to get first

Assassin's Creed Shadows Naoe and Yasuke outside Hideout — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

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Best Hideout buildings
Hideout overview

The best Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout rooms provide essential upgrades and new features, making Naoe and Yasuke's assassination activities far easier. With rooms like the Forge, Dojo, and Study all standing in your Assassin's Creed Shadows safehouse, you'll be able to use gear upgrades, Ally training, and extra scouts. With many features locked behind this base-building system, understanding how the Hideout works is far from optional, so this guide will take you through the best Hideout rooms to build and upgrade first in Assassin's Creed Shadows, as well as the basics of base management.

Assassin's Creed Shadows best Hideout buildings

Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout forge — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

If you've got the Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout up and running, you might have a few options for rooms to build and may want to plan and prioritize certain upgrades to get their full benefits sooner rather than later. To help you out, here are the best Hideout rooms I recommend building and upgrading as early as possible:

Forge: Since the Forge is what unlocks Assassin's Creed Shadows weapon upgrades, this should absolutely be the first room you build. Thankfully the side quest to help Heiji can be completed very early on and quickly. I also recommend upgrading the Forge to level 3 before you hit Level 20 so that you can play around with engravings for your gear and won't have to worry about hitting upgrade caps.
- Built during the Way of the Blacksmith side quest.
Kakurega: Unlocks Kakurega fast travel, contracts, and provides an extra scout, all of which are massively helpful in the early game. Contracts are also a fantastic way of getting more Assassin's Creed Shadows money and Hideout resources for even more building projects.
- Built during the From Spark to Flame quest.
Stables: The Stables are already built for you, but you should upgrade them to level 2 as soon as possible to reduce the cost of smuggling a resource to only one Scout instead of two, letting you smuggle a lot of Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout resources per season. Make sure you loot the Hideout salvage chest in the stables after every season change too.
- Part of the Hideout by default.
Study: The main benefit of the Study is the extra Assassin's Creed Shadows Scouts it provides (one at each upgrade level), helping you smuggle more resources and search more quest areas. Upgrade the Study to at least level 2 quickly.
- Unlocked by progressing the main quest
Tera: A small building that increases XP gains by 10%. It can't be upgraded but this is just a nice boost to have, helping you get Assassin's Creed Mastery Points a bit faster.
- Unlocked after completing Act 1.
Dojo: The Dojo isn't relevant until you've unlocked one of the six Assassin's Creed Shadows Allies to train. While it's useful to be able to upgrade your allies and use more of them, only upgrade this when you need to.
- Unlocked after recruiting any Ally.

There are several other rooms you can unlock and build (Jinja, Nando, Zashiki, Tea Room, and Gallery), but their buffs are nowhere near as essential as the above, so not having them won't put you at a massive disadvantage. For example, the Gallery unlocks loadouts, though I mainly found this useful only while playing as Yasuke due to the variety of weapons he can wield. Similarly, the cheaper Scout refresh cost at a Kakurega that the Nando room provides is helpful, but only if you're burning through your Scouts every season – upgrade the Study instead!

Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout overview

Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout building gallery — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

If you're a bit stumped on the exact functions of the Hideout in AC Shadows, here is where you'll find an explanation of all the essential information. The Hideout serves as the headquarters for the Kakushiba Ikki, Naoe's assassin league, and all the Allies you recruit. It's also its own isolated space, accessed by fast traveling to the dedicated icon on the map, but be aware that your frame rate drops to 30fps while you're there.

At first, the Hideout consists of only a Stables and Hiroma, but as you complete quests, you'll unlock new rooms that you can build in the space surrounding the Hiroma. Either approach the model in the Hiroma or head into the field around the Hiroma and follow the 'Improve Hideout' prompt to start modifying.

From this aerial view of the Hideout, you can press Square/X to enter Build mode, letting you select a room to construct on the Hideout grid and spend Hideout resources to do so. White dots represent attachment points where you can link rooms together to create one big building. Once you've built a room, you can select it to open a menu with options to move, upgrade, customize, or destroy the room.

Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout kakurega upgrades — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

Furthermore, every room you build, and every room upgrade you buy, contributes to the Hideout's overall level, with each level unlocking a new upgrade:

Level 1: No bonuses
Level 2: Unspent Scouts gather Mon for the Hideout chest at season end
Level 3: Shrine boons last 15 minutes longer
Level 4: Unspent Scouts gather Hideout resources for the Hideout chest at season end
Level 5: Gear engravings at the Forge are 20% cheaper
Level 6: Unspent Scouts gather crafting materials for the Hideout chest at season end
Level 7: Health and Adrenaline refills at Kakurega safehouses and the Hideout
Level 8: Unspent Scouts gather gear for the Hideout chest at season end
Level 9: Gear upgrades at the Forge are 20% cheaper
Level 10: Hideout resource stockpiles also provide crafting materials

Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout golden akita dog pet — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

Finally, customizing your Hideout is completely optional but lets you alter things like the roofs, walls, stations, and shelves of every room. You can also place all sorts of cosmetics unlocked by looting chests, buying ornaments from merchants (particularly Ornament Vendors), and completing quests. You can also build paths, engawa corridors, and place statues, lights, rocks, trees, and even pets to make things more homely – perfect for any eligible Assassin's Creed Shadows romance partners that may be living there.

As well as knowing about the best rooms for you’re the Hideout, you should also make sure you've got mastered the best Assassin's Creed Shadows skills and have the best Assassin's Creed Shadows weapons equipped for Naoe and Yasuke.