Assassin’s CreedShadowsis a real step forward for the franchise, but it doesn’t fix every problem. Having two protagonists with unique and contrasting skills and abilities is one of the biggest advances in merging the classicAssassin’s Creedcharacteristics into the open-world RPG genre, letting players choose if they want to focus on the traditionalAssassin’s Creedstealth mechanics with Naoe or charge in with Yasuke’s satisfying combos that were popular in previous games like Valhalla.
WhileShadowshas made big strides for the series, it has failed to addressone glaring problem that the open-worldAssassin’s Creedgames have had sinceOrigins: the loot system. After more than 60 hours inShadows,most of the loot I find is useless, and ignoring it becomes easier than selling or scrapping it for other resources.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Has Too Much Useless Loot
I’m Tired Of Picking Up The Same Katanas Again And Again
The first time you get aTanto or Kusarigama for Naoeor a Kanabo for Yasuke inAssassin’s CreedShadowsis exciting. You’ve unlocked a whole new skill tree, it will have a new ability and, if it’s a high enough rarity, you’re able to engrave it to make it stronger. Then you find another one and another untilyour inventory is full of common and uncommon weapons that all look similar and have underwhelming effects. Once you’ve found a legendary piece of equipment you enjoy using, you can keep that upgraded throughout your playthrough, and all other pieces of loot become useless.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Yasuke Legendary Weapons Tier List
Yasuke has a diverse arsenal of weapons in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, with over 40 legendary versions, each with unique and powerful effects.
Assassin’s Creed Shadowstries to make these redundant pieces of loot have some value through the resource system; you candismantle gear to get materialsto upgrade the weapons and armor you want to use. This also becomes useless quickly, as it’s very easy to obtain plenty of upgrade materials from chests and fallen enemies throughout Japan. This ends upmaking the useless loot more of a pain because you have to spend time scrapping it for resources you don’t need. While you may also sell extra loot to a merchant for mon, currency is equally easy to obtain.
AC Shadows Attempts To Address The Loot Problem
The Hideout Cosmetics Are A Step In The Right Direction
Assassin’s Creed Shadowsdoes improve its loot a bit,largely through the hideout system. To upgrade your hideout, you’ll need a lot of resources to build and upgrade key rooms. you may find small amounts of resources to loot in enemy camps, but for larger amounts,you’ll have to find stockpiles and tag them for your scouts to bring back when the seasons change. Because hideout resources are harder to obtain and are needed in larger amounts, it’s more rewarding when you find them scattered throughout the landscape or when you’ve cleared out a castle and can tag all those stockpiles.
Upgrade your Stables to reduce the number of scouts needed to tag a stockpile, then upgrade the Study to get more scouts.
Hideout customization is another wayShadowshas improved its loot. YourHideout is somewhere you’ll keep coming back to, so it’s nice that there are pieces of art, decorations, and other customizations to make it feel your own. I get excited when I loot a chest and see I’ve unlocked a new tree or a fountain, and I instantly start thinking about where it’s going to go when I get back to my hideout.
10 Things To Do After Beating Assassins Creed Shadows
When you finish Assassin’s Creed Shadows, there are plenty of things you can do to have fun without restarting the game and playing through again.
Having two protagonists has improved the loot system inShadows, as itmore than doubles the amount of Legendary equipment in the game. That means there are more exciting and rewarding moments when you complete a quest, clear a castle, or stumble upon a chest with a legendary piece of loot inside. That doesn’t fully solve the problem, though. Once you’ve found your favorite pieces of gear and customized them to look how you want, all other Legendaries become as valuable as the common and uncommon loot you won’t use, except you can’t even scrap them for resources.
Assassin’s Creed Needs To Rethink Discovery Entirely
Exploring The Open World Needs To Be Rewarding
Assassin’s Creedneeds to keep making changes to its loot system so it works with the rest of its open-world model, which is increasingly difficult as the worlds keep getting bigger. Aside from experiments likeMirage, it’s unlikely Ubisoft is going to makeAssassin’s Creedgames smaller in the future, soit needs to make its loot system scale with the worlds as they get larger.
After Assassin’s Creed Shadows, There’s One Feature I Can’t Wait For The Series To Explore Next
While Assassin’s Creed has changed drastically over the years, the lack of one feature feels like a massively missed opportunity for the series.
One approach that the franchise could use is a randomly generated loot table, similar to theBorderlandsgames orThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This would help loot feel fresh throughout the game and over multiple playthroughs. Even so, this would still need to go hand-in-hand with a reduced amount of loot spam, aseven randomly generated loot can become tiresome when it’s constantly available.
I like that equipment can be upgraded so you can keep using it as you level up, but you get strong equipment too early on inShadowsand can end up using it for the majority of the game. There need to be more impactful late-game items inAssassin’s Creed Shadowsand future games in the series — items that look different from previous loot and scale differently than what you would have used before.
