Assassin's Creed Shadows channels The Sims with its customizable base: "It's good to have a home and a place where you feel at ease"

I see the boars from a distance, too distracted butting heads with one another to immediately notice me. Using fog rolling in from the sea for cover, and crouching down in long grass rustling in the wind, I approach, crouched. A step at a time. Easy, easy. And there. Close enough. Not to kill, of course not. Assassin's Creed Shadows is more interested in the sketchbook than Assassin's Creed 3-style hunting and skinning.

These sketches are just one of many collectibles that can be placed at The Hideout, a home away from home that's more customizable than any in the series to date. And, importantly, nabbing an animal drawing in the wild also means you can place them in your base, and in many cases, also pet them. Likewise, bits of armor can be displayed, the series' history of intense collectible gathering all coming together in one space.

The Hideout contrasts the chaos and violence of Sengoku era Japan, where war and bloodshed was rife. "In a world where there's war, there's politics, [...] it's good to have a home and a place where you feel at ease," says creative director Jonathon Dumont. "We needed this sort of a centerpoint to come back [to], you know. The game is a little bit about rebuilding, so there's a lot of stuff about rebuilding. It's sort of a theme in the game that's embodied by the hideout."

Both Yasuke and Naoe have lost much by the time the action in the game really kicks off. Yasuke, brought to Japan as a slave, may be an outsider – but it's also a place he can think about building a home. And for Naoe, she's only just beginning to learn about her family's secret history relating to the Assassins. Building a kind of found family in this space, they'll all have plenty to say (in some cases, to Naoe or Yasuke specifically as personal bonds begin to bloom).

Starting grid

Having a base is a dynamic that evolves from previous bases in the series, most specifically Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Ravensthorpe where buildings could be upgraded to provide buffs as you got to know the residents of your new settlement. Assassin's Creed Shadows still allows players to only jump in exclusively to build up experience-boosting structures and the like if they want. But here, you can open up a grid, and plonk everything down from types of path, to trees, shrines, and even whole buildings to craft a chill spot to call your own.

"The other thing is, we build worlds all day, and it's cool for players to build worlds also, at least giving a small portion of a toolset that allows them to do that and growing it over time," Dumont continues. "And then there's different motivations for different people. So some people want to maximize all the upgrades, and some people just want to do cosmetics with it. Some people will just want to collect cats, you know, and put them in there."

I'm usually someone who just wants to reap the mechanical benefits. Yet, spending about an hour with it, I quickly go from giving dog pats to zooming in and getting buildings to snap together just so, creating covered walkways to protect from bits of light rain and decorating the courtyards with tasteful shrines, trees, and bamboo walls. There's an almost Lego-like appeal to having everything clip together, and then swapping out wild grass for something much more considered and, dare I say, tasteful? Fine gravel here, grass right next to it, shrine statues illuminated by lanterns at night which I've placed just so. A kitten mewing nearby. Bliss. (And is that… a monkey?!)

Wandering through the buildings, shoes automatically pop off as a nod to Japanese cultural tradition. There's a sense of community too, with recruited allies wandering around, acknowledging you, each other (yes, you can, and should eavesdrop), and the types of buildings you've incorporated. There's a real sense that even when you're not here yourself, life goes on.

Seasons change in The Hideout as they do elsewhere – it's just a natural part of the world after all – but it also feeds back into tweaking and building your Hideout. Scouts can be sent to collect resources that can be used to upgrade and build, and large bundles of resources take until the end of the seasonal cycle to get carried back to your base.

Each region you visit will have their own specialities you can bring back as well, like souvenirs. It was important to give the feel "bringing back your adventure," according to associate game director Dany St-Laurent. Allowing your collectibles to live outside of a menu, and be placed by your own hand, adds a whole new dimension to ticking off everything this digital Japan has to offer.

What's important is it's your hideout that grows and reflects your own path through Assassin's Creed Shadows. "One of the things that I really like is that no matter how you play the game, you could unlock this or that character, different people," says St-Laurent. "You can build the buildings in a different border. It's your journey."

Your allies add to this. Conversations can be affected by the seasons, and the different combinations of allies you might have recruited to create heaps of different chats all contribute to the flavor of the space. "All of these characters have their own personality. So when we did this feature, we took all the writers from the different studios all over the world, we put them into a big chat and said: 'Okay, if your character and your character were to live together for some reason, how would they interact?'," says St-Laurent.

Given how fast-paced and violent the rest of Assassin's Creed Shadows can be, it was nice to unwind with The Hideout towards the end of my session, and will be a place I keep checking in with when the game releases. "It's a place where you come back that you feel at ease, that plays at a different speed," says Dumont. Now, more than ever, I get the appeal.

What else to play? Check out the best Assassin's Creed games list we've assembled for which to leap of faith into next!