Assassin’s Creed Shadows Steps into the Light

For the last 18 years, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed games have been sneaking onto the PCs and consoles of an entire generation of gamers and quietly eviscerating the competition. With many games in the series to date, the faithful fan base remains hungry for more. Step up Assassin’s Creed Shadows, heading into our hands on March 20th, and bringing with it one of the most heavily requested settings, along with much—shall we say—heated anticipation. Intel Gaming Access drew katanas with Pierre Fortin, Technology Director for Assassin’s Creed Shadows at Ubisoft Quebec, to slice things up.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is an open world, action-adventure RPG, set in feudal Japan during the late 16th-century unification period, specifically the Azuchi-Momoyama era. In the game’s ever-changing world, the forces of vengeance and forgiveness collide during the critical events of the country’s unification. The game introduces a new dual protagonist system, with Naoe the shinobi from Iga, and Yasuke, the samurai, crossing paths in a world where moral certitudes are rare.

“There is so much to look forward to!” says Fortin. “Feudal Japan has been requested by Assassin’s Creed fans for a long time, and we know that there are strong expectations.” From the specific time period portrayed and the historical research behind it, to their efforts to push the gameplay boundaries, Fortin is confident in the result. “We believe we have a very distinct proposal for players. Our fresh dual protagonist approach means each character offers distinct gameplay experiences as their stories intertwine, breathing fresh life into the franchise and how you can play as a player.”

Then there is the setting itself—a beautiful, dynamic open world rendering of 16th-century feudal Japan. Among its new features are customizable Hideouts you can tailor to your liking, and the new Spy Network that adds an optional layer of complexity. Protagonists Naoe and Yasuke can assign scouts from their cabal of spies to scour sections of the map for information about target locations, habits, and other useful secrets.

“Our goal was to craft the ultimate Assassin’s Creed experience, whether you’re a fan of the first games or the latest ones, or even new to the franchise,” says Fortin. “Indeed, the game brings core elements from previous Assassin’s Creed games while introducing a whole new set of exciting features. It also offers refined stealth mechanics and melee combat, dynamic seasons that will impact gameplay, and a new approach in exploring the world, putting players’ agency front and center.”

A single glimpse at Assassin’s Creed Shadows is enough to tell you there’s a lot going on under the hood, and Fortin isn’t shy about the benefits of a solid PC rig when it comes to getting the most out of the game. “A modern open-world AAA engine such as Anvil requires relatively strong hardware to run at its peak. Millions of objects are processed and rendered per frame, thousands of AI are simulated and all the trees are physically animated on the GPU,” he says. “All this processing, no matter the optimizations we make, requires significant hardware to run.”

That said, if you haven’t updated your CPU or GPU recently, the team has got you covered. “Our desire is to cast as wide a net as possible in terms of supporting PC hardware,” says Fortin. “We strongly believe in building scalable systems that can support a wide array of PC configurations. What’s the point of the best technology if no PC can run it and only a select few can benefit from it?”

“This strong belief had us invest both in high-end advancements as well as in solutions for lower-end PCs,” Fortin continues. “One notable example is the lighting in the game which can benefit from all the bells and whistles of modern GPUs with excellent ray-tracing capabilities, but also accommodate pre-RTX GPUs by using a proprietary software ray-tracing implementation.” 

But, if you have just treated yourself to a swanky hardware upgrade, you’ll still very much feel the benefit. “High-end PCs are not left without advantages, as we have also developed features such as ray-traced reflections specifically for those,” Fortin assures, while keeping the door firmly open to all-comers. “We offer an extensive array of customization options on PC, whether it’s for fidelity purposes or accessibility.”

With his hand firmly on the Anvil engine side of development, Fortin has plenty to say about the technological mountain they’ve had to climb to breathe life into the game. “Evolving an engine while a large-scale production such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows is on-going is always a big challenge, as you are producing content with technologies that are still in active development,” he says. “For example, we’re introducing dynamic season cycles which introduce lots of new complexities. Rallying lots of different teams around such a major development is a challenge, but one that having our own bespoke engine allows us to take on.

Intel stepped in to help Fortin and his team fight the good fight in making the game experience better for players. “It was very helpful to get feedback on our builds from the Intel labs, with guidance to improve the game for, obviously, Intel hardware, but not exclusively,” says Fortin. “Their expertise contributed to making the technology for Assassin’s Creed Shadows better.”

“We had advanced knowledge of the new XeSS 2 which we were able to integrate rapidly, but also give feedback on,” Fortin adds. “We’re still working with Intel on maximizing the potential of XeSS 2 within the game.”

The wide-ranging collaboration between Ubisoft Quebec and Intel has also resulted in a special in-game cosmetic item for budding feudal homebuilders. “The Peak Performance banner is a decoration that can be placed in the player’s hideout,” explained Fortin. “In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, players can customize their hideout however they want, and the Intel banner is a way to subtly add the Intel colors.”

With that little plug out of the way, we can swing our attention back to the imminent release of the game itself. A developer’s life is never dull, and Fortin’s team is still beavering away in the long grass to fulfil their lofty goals for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Dive into feudal Japan now!

Buy Assassin’s Creed Shadows 现已登陆 Steam

The Assassin’s Creed Shadows Intel banner in-game cosmetic item.