Assassin’s Creed Shadows Returns to an AC-Origins-Sized Map, Only Part of Japan is Covered

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the next big RPG in the series from the team at Ubisoft Quebec, and the rule for recent RPG-style entries in the series has been “bigger is better.” Assassin’s Creed Origins was big, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was bigger, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was perhaps even a bit larger. So, does Ubisoft plan to push the scope even further for AC Shadows? Thankfully for those who found some recent AC games a bit overwhelming, the answer is no.

According to a recent Video Games Chronicle interview with Ubisoft Quebec’s Simon Lemay-Comtois, Assassin’s Creed Shadows scales things back to a map “roughly similar to Origins.” Mind you, AC Origins still had a very sizable 80km² world, but at least the map inflation is being curtailed somewhat.

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Lemay-Comtois further detailed what part of Japan the game focuses on, as Ubisoft won’t be trying to render all of Japan, despite the nation’s relatively compact size.

“The story that we focus on is mostly on central Japan, so we don’t expand all the way to the entirety of Japan, so therefore we knew we had a rough idea for the territory we wanted to cover. So, something important happens in Kyoto, something important happens in Osaka, Azuchi – we need these places, so how faithful to these castles can we be, because they’re very interesting, so we build out those castles, they have a very big footprint.

And then we think about how much of the world do we need between those castles so that it becomes credible and feels like an adventure as you move between them, and it doesn’t take a real four days of horseback riding to get from one to the other. So, it’s kind of a tricky thing to develop, but eventually we find our footing with the types of cities and castles that we want to represent and that’s what justifies the size of our world map.”

Assassin’s Creed Shadows sneaks onto PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 on November 15.