Assassin's Creed Shadows Is Ditching An Iconic Franchise Feature

In Assassin's Creed Shadows, one of the franchise's most iconic features--synchronization points--will work a little differently than before.

Following a cinematic reveal trailer, Ubisoft has revealed all kinds of details about the latest entry in the long-running series to IGN. The game will put players into the shoes of both a shinobi and a samurai in feudal Japan. While much of Assassin's Creed Shadows will sound familiar to fans--parkour, a large open world to explore, stealth assassinations, melee combat--there are some notable changes, particularly when it comes to filling out the game's map.

In the past, these have been done via synchronization points. These points are usually atop tall buildings or towers. Traditionally, synchronizing sees the camera slowly rotate in a panoramic view of the surrounding area, before marking all nearby points of interest on the in-game map.

That won't be the case in Assassin's Creed Shadows. There will be no spinning panoramic views in the upcoming title when synchronizing, nor will synchronizing automatically reveal nearby points of interest. Instead, players will need to survey the area and manually highlight areas of potential interest before investigating them further once back on the ground. Synchronization points will, however, still allow for players to fast travel between them.

It's a small, but significant change, as synchronization points, including their stylish, slow camera pan of the surrounding area, have largely worked the same for much of the franchise's long history. Other changes in Assassin's Creed Shadows include the lack of a bird that can be used to mark enemies, though players will still have access to Eagle Vision to track nearby foes. Light sources, shadows, and the weather will also play an important role in gameplay. For the first time in the franchise's history, Assassin's Creed Shadows will star a real historical figure as one of its dual protagonists: the African samurai, Yasuke.

Assassin's Creed Shadows will be similar in size to 2017's Assassin's Creed Origins, Ubisoft has said, which means there should be plenty of Japan to explore. It will feature a non-linear campaign story revolving around tracking down and eliminating specific targets, according to Ubisoft, and it's one that will also see players building out a spy network to gather intel on targets in a system that sounds similar to one seen in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

Assassin's Creed Shadows will release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Mac, and Amazon Luna on November 15. A collector's edition exclusive to GameStop is available for preorder now.