Assassin's Creed Shadows romance borrows the best part of Odyssey letting us choose "lovers, either for a short, sweet time or longer term"

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is my favorite pick of the series' pseudo-roleplaying games, partly because of its lush summery setting and partly because you could bang enough people to fill a small Greek island. And thankfully, Assassins' Creed Shadows is borrowing from its predecessor's best bits by letting us choose "lovers" for a short stint or a longer relationship.

During today's Assassin's Creed Shadows Reddit AMA with developers, associate narrative director Brooke Davies revealed that "choices take on many forms" in the upcoming stabathon, impacting who we play as and the outcomes for several quests. 

"In terms of the story of our league, we get to explore core themes like community and chosen family through choices since Naoe and Yasuke can choose who to recruit as allies and who to connect with as friends and lovers, either for a short, sweet time or longer term," Davies continued. 

In that sense, Shadows seems to be expanding on Odyssey's thirstiness. Not only can you seduce potential partners, but you can also seemingly commit to them. (Kassandra would never, though I guess Naoe and Yasuke are cut from a different, probably less horny, cloth.)

Recruitable companions would make sense in a game like Valhalla, where players were constantly returning to their home village, or Odyssey, which had a massive ship serving as a homebase, but Ubisoft have yet to properly reveal a similar hub for Shadow's duo. A sim-like base-building feature was leaked a few weeks ago, however, so maybe that's where our friends and/or lovers will hole up. We'll see how it all shakes out when Assassin's Creed Shadows comes out on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS5 on February 14. 

Assassin’s Creed Shadows could be between 30 and 60 hours long as the developers reveal it’s “comparable to Origins/Odyssey and Valhalla.”