Assassin's Creed Shadows

I put a long stretch of evenings into Assassin's Creed Valhalla and eventually drifted away when the checklist started to feel like the whole point. Shadows fixes much of that. Feudal Japan is genuinely gorgeous: autumn leaves falling across a temple roof, mist sitting low over a castle at dawn. The dual-protagonist setup gives you a real reason to approach the same region two different ways. Traversal is where it earns its spot, climbing and gliding through fortress towns feels better than the series has in years. It's still recognisably Ubisoft underneath the new paint, though, towers, camps, and collectibles included. If that formula wore you out before, it probably will again here.

I've played Assassin's Creed since the early games, and Valhalla was the one that finally lost me somewhere in its second region, too much map for too little reason to keep moving. Shadows earns a better result. Feudal Japan gives it a setting worth the density, and switching between the two protagonists, a stealth-focused Naoe and a more combat-forward Yasuke, actually changes how you approach the same map rather than just swapping animations. It doesn't beat Ghost of Tsushima at its own game, the parkour and combat both play it safer than I'd like. But as the current Assassin's Creed representative on PS5, it's the strongest the series has looked in years, and worth a look if Valhalla burned you out like it did me.