Assassin’s Creed Shadows will get a New Game+ mode on 29th July, Ubisoft have announced in a video about their summer plans for the feudal Japanese open world stab-me-do. They’re also working on a free Assassin’s Creed Shadows update that lets you fast-forward the time of day, an ability that would certainly serve me well right now, as I contemplate the seven grim hours of video game journalism that separate me from the weekend.
The New Game+ mode will reset story progression, discovered locations and objective progress, but will carry over your character level, gear, knowledge rank, and hideout progression. It’ll let you start from the very beginning of the game, or skip the prologue to when you first inherit the hideout.
Ubisoft will also raise the level cap from 60 to 80, and are introducing new knowledge and mastery skill ranks together with new upgrades for hideout buildings, in particular the forge. Fans of live-served busywork can look forward to a third shadow project encompassing new resources, datafiles and animus-themed rewards.
It’ll all be followed by one of those much-trumpeted “quality of life” updates at the beginning of September. This will let you speed the sun across the sky at whim, unfog the map by completing every single viewpoint in a region, and uncap the cutscene frame-rate (on PC only).
Ubisoft, if you want to improve the quality of my life specifically, please can you dispatch some of your best shinobi to menace my landlord? The hallway light has been flicking on and off for 18 months straight. Alternatively, please dispatch some of your best shinobi to fix the hallway light.
Finally, Ubisoft have slapped a release date on their Claws of Awaji expansion – September 16th. Access to the DLC is included with preorders, so if you’re of the preordering persuasion, please resist the urge to buy it twice over.
Chaser: the video above harbours one of those Animus glitches with which Ubisoft are wont to tease future product announcements. I’ve screencapped it below. Please enjoy your continuing immersion in a simulation that has commodified the possibility of escape.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has apparently been a success for Ubisoft. It “delivered on its expectations” with five million players since launch, according to CEO Yves Guillemot, though Ubisoft’s overall financial performance during their last financial quarter was “mixed”. Our Brendy was also mixed in his Assassin’s Creed Shadows review. “A beautiful recreation of 16th century Japan is stained with the clumsy ink of an uninspiring revenge tale,” he wrote, “but take your time sneaking through castles and visiting temples to get the most from an impressive open world.”
