10 Years Later, Assassin's Creed Just Might Reach Its Full Potential, Finally

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has had a tumultuous development since its announcement three years ago. When it wasn’t the epicenter of gaming’s dumbest controversies, it was being delayed by a troubled publisher putting all of its financial chips on the much anticipated open-world sequel.

Last week Shadows was delayed once more to March 20. But this time, its developer gave players a clear indication of how that extra time is being spent: improving parkour. And luckily for long-time fans, it sounds like the developers understand what long-time fans of the series really want out of the series’ primary form of movement and transportation.

In a lengthy blog post, developer Ubisoft Quebec outlines some of the ways it’s improving the parkour of the next Assassin’s Creed game. For one, player movement looks less stilted than it did when the game was shown off last summer. Naoe no longer pauses before big maneuvers and jumps. Players have also been given more options than ever when transitioning off of an elevated pathway. When running towards the edge of a building, for example, players can hit the “parkour down” button as they would in other Assassin’s Creed games, or they can hit the new “directional dodge” to do a flashier, flippy-er exit off a roof.

The new dodge mechanics are used for more than just flashier parkour moves. It can be executed during stealth to cover more ground more quickly. It can also be used while running to clear chest-high obstacles in a single bound. This is particularly useful when enemies are firing projectiles at you, according to the developer. The dodge can also be used to safely hang off the edge of an elevated roof or platform, meaning you’ll no longer leap off the sides of buildings. When players are leaping off higher than usual platforms, the ability to execute a recovery roll can soften the impact of bigger jumps and allow the player to maintain some of their momentum.

All of these elements, combined with the return of wall jumps known as Ejects, the new grappling hook for swinging across gaps, and an emphasis on parkour lines, show that the developers are refocused on fleshing out a part of the series that’s felt ignore for the better part of a decade.

The last game that focused on giving player finer control over their assassin while on the run was 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Unity. A flawed but ambitious game, Unity was the first game in the series to give players an easy way to ascend and descend along Paris’ towering buildings. It was the first game to fully realize the momentum and skill of leaping across rooftops the way assassins do. Unfortunately, however, the game launched far too soon. The many, viral bugs undercut some of its best ideas. And even with parkour evolving over its processor, the expedited development meant not all of its new parkour moves worked consistently across the city.

As promising a start as Unity was, Ubisoft never got to follow up on those best ideas. The next game in the series, the underrated Syndicate gave players a grappling hook that practically automated parkour. 2017’s game, subtitled Origins, was set in Egypt where towering buildings were few and far between. Odyssey leaned more into the RPG mechanics that Origins introduced than its roots as an action game. And 2020’s Valhalla famously features the flattest open world in the series, making parkour non-existent.

While the whole point of 2023’s Mirage was to bring back the feeling of the earliest games, it was still a game built on the bones of the Assassin’s Creed games that had the least fleshed-out parkour controls.

With Shadows, Ubisoft Quebec is picking up where Unity left off. It’s not only trying to make parkour an essential pillar of Assassin’s Creed gameplay again, it’s adding depth by including more ways to keep up speed, intuitively avoid obstacles, and integrating that nimbleness into other parts of the gameplay. Chasing persons of interest and evading enemies will no longer be as boring as holding a button and forward. And that’s an exciting development for fans of what the series used to represent.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows may be a long time coming, but it seems as though it’ll be well worth the wait for fans who miss what the series was. With a return to a more urban setting, a highly requested historical backdrop, and the return of the series' best aspects, Shadows could be a new high for the 18-year-old franchise.

For fans of the feudal Japan setting, there’s a lot to look forward to in 2025. Not only is Assassin’s Creed making its return steeped in 16th-century. Sucker Punch Productions is releasing Ghost of Yotei, a sequel to the beloved open-world PlayStation exclusive Ghost of Tsushima.