Claws of Awaji is an ambitious expansion that hides a little too much of its shine behind Assassin's Creed Shadows' familiarity

Throughout its first hour, Assassin's Creed Shadows' Claws of Awaji expansion plays extremely safe. Other than one flashy setpiece, much of the first 60 minutes will be deeply familiar, especially with its narrative stitched almost directly onto the end of the base game. At first, it's an approach to DLC that feels dangerously close to being little more than a cynical add-on – making its dramatic swing away from that sensation feel all the more impressive.

At the end of Shadows, its dual protagonists' aims are clear: Naoe is hunting for information about her mother, Tsuyu, while Yasuke has declared war on the Templar order. So when Claws of Awaji opens with a lead on Tsuyu's potential whereabouts and a battle with a Templar general, it's hard to feel like this isn't just an extension of that story. Ubisoft Bordeaux tries extremely hard to disguise this obvious narrative continuation with a meticulously-crafted sequence introducing Awaji and its major players, but it's still hard to shake the feeling that this is the 'true' ending of the base game.

That feeling is cemented further by your actions. As soon as Naoe arrives on Awaji island, a short boat ride from Osaka, she's almost immediately investigating a local village before launching an assault against a hilltop castle. It's immediately familiar, and while that familiarity is likely to be well received by those seeking more of the traditional Shadows experience, it leads to an opening hour that doesn't feel different enough to hinge an entire paid expansion around.

Thankfully, that feeling doesn't stick, and Claws of Awaji quickly starts to become its own experience. As you leave the initial town, the expansions' newer ideas begin to reveal themselves, with Awaji itself leading the charge. Roughly the same size as some of Shadows' smaller regions, the island is more densely packed with activities than anything in the main game.

That density is a geographical necessity, the island's sea border leaving little extra space to spread into. But it's also a smart piece of design. In Shadows, each region is home to a major target, but Awaji's size means multiple important figures have to share the same space. That density gives Ubisoft a chance to aid returning players – even those intimately familiar with the original map are unlikely to want to spend the expansion with their hooded heads buried in a new one, so there's a key focus on natural landmarks. The island is small enough to offer sightlines to many of them at once, letting players quickly figure out their location and remain grounded in Awaji.

From darkness

Keeping your eyes on the island rather than the map will quickly prove invaluable, because Awaji constantly reacts to the player's presence. The moment you step onto Awaji, you're an outsider, and the island quickly begins to feel like one big trap that it's already too late to escape from. A small cabal of leaders has Awaji in their grip, and there's nowhere you won't feel that influence.

An oppressive military regime means that Awaji's settlements are full of far more guards than any residential district on the mainland, while a mysterious spymaster has agents everywhere. Their combined efforts against you make Awaji an extremely dangerous place, and seemingly-innocuous NPCs can leap out to attack you in the streets. With a keen enough eye, they can apparently be spotted before they strike, but if they pull off their ambush it's not long before they're joined by those swollen ranks of guards. Your assailants may not be much stronger than a standard villager, and they tend to go down fast, but they add a lot of extra weight to the numbers standing against you, and on at least one occasion I found myself hugely outnumbered by ranks of spies and soldiers.

Naoe's search quickly establishes her as the main character of this expansion, but playing as her, coming up against such a substantial group of enemies might have been a disaster. Thanks to Claws of Awaji, however, I can stand and fight. The DLC introduces the Bo, a long wooden staff, to Naoe's arsenal. It's a weapon that Ubisoft Bordeaux's devs told me was chosen to fill the crowd control-shaped hole in her kit, and it's immediately successful.

Little more than a six foot pole, the Bo does less damage than its bladed counterparts, but you can hardly tell. The fact that the wood bounces off bone and armor means that animation frames aren't lost as Naoe strains to dislodge a sword from an enemy, so the Bo makes up for its lighter hits with a flurrying attack speed. Add its excellent range and the fact that it can really shunt foes around, and it almost immediately became my favorite of Naoe's weapons.

Charged attacks can be moved through various stances, letting you choose whether to attempt to stagger an incoming enemy out of even their heaviest attacks, push them backwards, or even try to trip them entirely before following up with a devastating ground attack. Suddenly, the often flimsy Naoe was transformed into a fighter who can finally stand toe-to-toe with the kinds of groups of enemies that previously only Yasuke could take on. The Bo offers a huge overhaul to her combat for those that seek it out, while never really getting in the way of her more traditional shinobi fantasy.

The bo-tiful game

In the towns, ports, and fortresses that can often be found on Awaji's coasts, I wield Naoe and her Bo every chance I get. But in the wilder heartlands at the center of the island, big, uneven fights are far less common. Instead, Ubisoft has cooked up something even more threatening, wielding the darkness of Awaji's forests to add to the paranoid feeling that those hordes of spies inflict.

As you wander the woods, flurries of leaves or petals give the impression of being caught in a springing trap. Blair Witch-style sculptures lurk beneath the trees, the lighting team at full stretch to make them seem as terrifying as possible. Dynamic rain, wind, and fog cut visibility, and Ubisoft even admits to playing with the sensation of pareidolia – the sensation of finding often humanoid patterns where none are actually present – to create the impression of enemies lying in wait in the shadows. When you do actually get caught in an ambush, it's hard not to leap out of your skin.

Between the omnipresent guards, the hidden spies, and the forest laden with traps, I'd been worried that the sheer volume of interruptions would start to get irritating. And there's no respite, either – remove one of Awaji's oppressive leaders and the rest will step up to fill the power vacuum. But while Awaji content director Simon Arsenault admits that getting the balance between impactful gameplay and active hindrance can be a razor's edge, he's confident Ubisoft has struck that balance. Many of the obstacles can be sidestepped or circumvented entirely, and where you do engage with them they often expand into expansive, cinematic battles that are some of Awaji's best moments.

For all of Claws of Awaji's more subtle success, however, it's an expansion that is likely to fight an uphill battle. It will undoubtedly struggle, among certain audiences, to beat allegations that it's little more than a chapter cut unceremoniously from the base game. But look any further than its story and you can see Ubisoft Bordeaux creating something genuinely additive.

New takes on combat, inspired new approaches to boss fights, a more reactive world, and set pieces inspired by Japanese theater culture make for what appears to be a very strong expansion. It's more of what made Shadows so popular, of course, but it's also DLC that's hoping to stand very confidently on its own two feet. Judge it as just another part of Shadows' story and it will suffer, but spend time to weigh it on its own strengths, and it's an extremely worthy addition to one of Ubisoft's biggest success stories.