Assassin’s Creed Shadows is out later this week and folks, it’s really good! And while one of the big reasons I enjoyed this latest installment is because it’s wonderful to play, it also helps that Shadows is a drop dead gorgeous open-world RPG with some of the best-looking scenery I’ve seen on this generation of consoles.
Releasing on March 20 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the first game in the series to be developed exclusively for the current batch of consoles. I wondered, back when Ubisoft announced it was ditching PS4 for the first time since 2014, if the shift to more powerful hardware would result in a dramatically better looking game. And the answer is yes. The extra power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S seems to have let Ubisoft’s artists and devs go wild.
This time around, Ubisoft has implemented seasonal shifts and created four versions of its digital Japan for each season. So when winter arrives there’s snow and ice everywhere, changing how the world looks and feels. Summer brings lots of bright, sunny days, green fields, and bugs. Spring is filled with flowers and rain. And fall, my favorite season in the game and real life, changes Japan into an orange and red collage complete with strong wind blowing colorful leaves all around.
The end result is not only the best-looking Assassin’s Creed game ever, but one of the most visually impressive open worlds ever created. As I played through Assassin’s Creed Shadows for review on my big dumb 4K TV, I constantly took screenshots because everything looked so good. The first time the game shifted into fall, when walking below some orange foliage I was bathed in an orange glow from the sunlight piercing the leaves above. It looked amazing, and wasn’t something I was expecting. The Assassin’s Creed games have looked fine for a long time, but they never really wowed me until Shadows. And so, because I have so many screenshots, I decided to show off my favorites. Don’t worry, there aren’t any spoilers in here.