Assassin's Creed Shadows: Naoe or Yasuke for Your First Hours?
The two protagonists play like different games. Here is what each one is actually good at, and when switching is worth the walk back.
Shadows lets you swap protagonists almost freely, which sounds convenient and is actually the most consequential decision the game asks you to make.
Naoe — the stealth game
Fast, light, and vertical. Naoe can reach places Yasuke cannot even attempt, and her toolkit is built around never being seen in the first place rather than surviving being seen.
She is also the harder character to learn, because failure is expensive. If you are used to modern Assassin’s Creed, where detection is an inconvenience, Naoe will take a few hours to click.
Yasuke — the action game
Heavy, direct, and far more forgiving of a plan that falls apart. Yasuke turns a compound you would have unpicked for twenty minutes into a five-minute fight.
Which to start with
- New to the series, or you want the stealth fantasy: Naoe.
- You bounced off recent Assassin’s Creed stealth: Yasuke, then come back.
- You want to see the most of the map early: Naoe — traversal alone is worth it.
When to switch
Switch when an objective is gated by something your character is bad at, not because the game suggested it. Most missions are completable either way, and walking back to a swap point costs more time than adapting.
