Assassin’s Creed Shadows is almost upon us, after a long, tumultuous wait full of delays, controversy, Ubisoft stock drops and much more. Mere days away, Ubisoft is ramping up the marketing for the game, with content creators announcing they have keys, adverts on TV seemingly every five minutes, and a feeling of wherever you turn, you’ll see the game. Yet, they haven’t even mentioned the game’s best feature, and as such, the best way to play Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
Expert Mode is the Only Way to Play
Assassin’s Creed was always a franchise based around the idea of stealth. Hiding from enemies, dispatching them instantly from the shadows (or hay) and planning your assassinations from the rooftops. The recent entries in the franchise seemed to veer away from that, instead focusing more on the action-RPG genre, with Assassin’s Creed Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla being huge games. Each of those also featured enemies that you couldn’t assassinate in a single hit, something that went against the very essence of the idea of an assassin. Well, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is going to change that, and Ubisoft hasn’t even bothered mentioning it.
In gameplay shared by popular streamer and influencer JorRaptor (above), there’s an entire section dedicated to the differences in normal difficulty and expert, and the differences are stark. From enemies thinking to actually look above their normal eyeliner – making rooftop excursions far more difficult – to the enemies’ AI being all round more intelligent. No plot armor dumb AI here.
Whilst expert difficulty will push up the enemies’ health, making them somewhat resistant to damage like their counterparts of previous games, but if you go into settings and toggle on ‘Instant Assassinations’, you’ll get the perfect mixture of stealth gameplay and being punished for not being a good enough assassin.
With the new light and dark mechanics, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is clearly trying to appease the stealth fans that weren’t happy with the franchise’s change in creative direction, so with the added bonus of expert difficulty, it’ll be interesting to see how classic a feeling we really get with it.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows releases on March 20th, 2025 for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Mac.
For more Thumb Wars Gaming coverage, check out Josef Fares’ message to other studios and publishers, as well as David Goldfarb teasing a sequel to one of his best games.
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Luke Addison is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Thumb Wars. Having previously been a part of multiple outlets over the years, including building an entire gaming team from nothing to something, he thought it best to forge his own path and answer only to himself. As likely to be found playing the latest game as he is in the kitchen relaxing (by cooking), he always brings the same bold and brash attitude to everything he does, with a heavy leaning on sarcasm and dry wit!
