It's been a big year for games that make me feel awkwardly out of place. Just a month ago, I was brewing up perfume and splashing out on fancy cloth to fit in at a noble's wedding in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Now, I'm nervously half-bowing and trying to remember which side of my cup should face the room in Assassin's Creed Shadows Tea Ceremony quest.
The quest is a recreation of a Japanese tea ceremony, with Naoe a fish out of water in the company of three judgy companions who presumably do this every day. There is, I should mention, one last catch: one of these gracious guests helped kill Naoe's dad, and it's up to you to work out who.
Brewing conflict
Assassin's Creed Shadows review: "More confidence, texture, and purpose than we've seen since Assassin's Creed pivoted into RPG territory"
Compared to its predecessors, Assassin's Creed Shadows is far less willing to hold your hand. Objective markers are often missing entirely, replaced by clues (ranging from helpful to direly vague) that tell you where to search. There are consequences for fumbling stealth as Naoe – she's lethal but fragile, and surviving in open combat is a challenge in itself until you unlock Yasuke later in the game.
With that in mind, I approached The Tea Ceremony ready to believe that there would be real stakes in trying to identify the killer. I played my cards right, making sure to follow every etiquette tip I'd been given beforehand, all the while scrutinizing every line of dialog and sidelong glance to work out which of the guests was secretly the golden teppo-wielding Shinbakufu member I was looking to kill.
That's easier said than done. When the night came to an end and I was forced to confront someone, I was still stumped. Torn between accusing nobles Otama and Wakasa, I turned to the chat log (thanks, Ubisoft) to see if I'd missed any clues. I had. Before attending the tea ceremony, I'd been offered a choice of three gifts to bring for the host – a bamboo ladle, tea-leaf jar, and gold-trimmed tea pot. I chose the teapot, and when it was time to present it to our host, Otama rudely suggested its trim was tacky whilst Wakasa disagreed.
I was too busy worrying about etiquette to pick up on it in the moment, but staring at the chat log, I realized that the person I was hunting had a golden gun and would hardly be the sort to complain about a gaudy teapot. The reasoning was thin, but it was all I had – and sure enough, confronting Wakasa led to identifying her as the killer.
Here's where things get interesting. Guess right, and you'll get to follow Wakasa home and quietly kill her without any fanfare. Fumble your detective work, though, and I'm told that you kill Otama – who turns out to be a baddie anyway – while Wakasa flees to Osaka Castle, which makes reaching her significantly harder.
On one hand, I really like that there are consequences for messing up here. Castles in Assassin's Creed Shadows are no joke, and getting to skip a particularly tough one feels like a fair reward for making the right call on who to kill. But equally, Otama being conveniently evil feels like a cop-out. You messed up, but it's OK. It's not quite an illusion of choice, given how differently the rest of the quest plays out, but it does wash the player's hands clean of any moral blowback.
By virtue of The Tea Ceremony being the first major decision in Shadows, it sets the tone that all of the game's choice-driven moments will be as forgiving. That's a shame, because they're not: without looking to spoil anything, you can lose allies and even romance options – some more dramatically than others – if you don't play your cards right. Shadows' later choices actually feel more consequential than anything else in the series, but rather than using The Tea Ceremony to set that tone, it's saved as a slightly jarring surprise further down the line.
Don't get me wrong, I really dig The Tea Ceremony – partly just because I enjoyed learning more about the ceremony itself – and love the weightier direction Shadows takes Assassin's Creed in. But I'd be very keen to see Ubisoft double down on that friction with a little more confidence and willingness to let the player make a real mistake. There's no thrill without risk – and if I had stabbed an innocent woman for the crime of enjoying tea, I guarantee I'd have deliberated over every single one of Shadows' remaining decisions. Oh, and Wakasa? For what it's worth – yes, the gold is tacky.
See where Shadows lands on our ranking of the best Assassin's Creed games
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