With the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, you get to play as not one, but two characters whilst assassin-ing your way around feudal Japan. Joining forces to thwart another evil plot, Naoe and Yasuke are both very different in just about every way, from their backgrounds and motivations to combat style, tools, and weaponry. As you switch between the two of them at will, you’ll need to adjust your playstyle to account for their strengths and weaknesses, and depending on your preferred playstyle you might wonder, can you play Assassin’s Creed Shadows only as Naoe or Yasuke?
In this guide
- Who are Naoe and Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
- Who is better in AC Shadows: Naoe or Yasuke?
- Can I play as just one character in AC Shadows?
Who are Naoe and Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Naoe – the sneaky Ninja Assassin
Naoe is a trained shinobi who is out for revenge in typical Assassin’s Creed fashion, which means she’s both stealthy and sneaky, and your go-to for anything involving either of those two things. In addition to being small, quick, and not wearing clunky, loud armour, she also has a grappling hook to help reach rooftops and vantage points, and a set of tools – kunai, shurikens, bells, and smoke bombs. Naturally this combination of things makes her ideal for sneaking into a castle and methodically assassinating every poor guard who happens to be on duty.
She’s not useless in combat either. She doesn’t deal huge amounts of damage and might have a bit of a tough time taking out the implausibly giant guards, but she is capable provided you make full use of parrying and posture attacks on vulnerable enemies. She can equip two of a katana, a kusarigama, and a tanto/hidden blade combo to fight with and will need to be light on her feet to ensure she doesn’t get boxed in by enemies. The kusarigama will help with that, as its upgrades give improved crowd control.
Yasuke – The towering Samurai
Yasuke, meanwhile, is an actual samurai. And by actual, I mean he is based on a historical figure. The slave of a Portuguese Jesuit before Lord Oda Nobunaga took an interest in him, he became the first black samurai in history.
Yasuke is built for combat. In addition to being head and shoulders above most other people in the game, he can absorb much more damage than Naoe can, thanks to his full suit of samurai armour, and carries more rations to quickly restore health. He can choose between a long katana, a naginata, a kanabo, a yumi bow, and a teppo, which is a shotgun-like rifle.
Yasuke doesn’t have any tools, not even a grappling hook, and if you want a ranged weapon you’ll have to use one of your two weapon slots for a bow or teppo. The bow itself can be silent, but guards tend to find it a bit suspicious to see a giant pointing a bow at them. Yasuke’s biggest weakness is how profoundly un-sneaky he is – when he moves he makes more noise than Naoe, as he’s wearing a lot of armour, he climbs much more slowly, and when attempting a leap of faith he bounces right out of the haystack, though still without taking damage thankfully. However, Yasuke doesn’t need any of this. Stealth? He just wades into a camp and fights everyone at once. Climbing? Please, Yasuke can literally sprint through closed gates, breaking them into pieces.
Who is better in AC Shadows: Naoe or Yasuke?
As fun as Yasuke is to play as, rushing right into the thick of the action and battering enemies, his impressive lack of stealth does make Naoe the better fit for the stealthy assassin fantasy of the Assassin’s Creed series. Naoe is the better all-rounder. She can climb quickly, do the leap of faith, attack from range with her tools, and she has a wrist blade so she can assassinate properly as well, whereas Yasuke can only do “his own type of assassination” which usually involves a beheading and lots of noise. More importantly, Naoe can handle herself in a fight far better than Yasuke can handle stealth. It still won’t be easy when you’re fighting off half a castle as her, but at least she can drop a smoke bomb and run away to hide again.
Can I play as just one character in AC Shadows?
The game is clearly designed to necessitate the use of both characters, as Naoe and Yasuke both have important roles through the game’s story, but if you have a favourite, then you can largely stick to playing as just one or the other.
You can switch at any time when in the open world, and major story missions are broken up with decision points to let you choose which character to play as for the next section, so you can simply pick to play as your favourite of the two at those points. The one sticking point is when you need to talk to specific NPCs as a particular character, forcing you to switch for at least a short time.
