Assassin’s Creed Shadows is sticking with the action RPG gameplay where gear and loot are a key part of your progression through the game. Weapons and gear come in various types and apply to different gameplay styles, but a basic tanto isn’t going to be anywhere near as good as a legendary tanto, and comes without perks.
Alongside levelling up and gaining Mastery points, you’ll need to look out for legendary chests and more. Here’s what to look for to get the best gear and loot in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
In this guide
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows loot tiers and perks explained
- How to find legendary gear and legendary chests in AC Shadows
- Levelling up weapons and gear in AC Shadows
Assassin’s Creed Shadows loot tiers and perks explained
Shadows has a loot system that uses the familiar common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary item tiers. The higher the tier, the more powerful the piece of equipment, generally speaking, though if you’re particularly lucky and get a good drop, an epic item could be more powerful than a legendary one.
Uncommon items and up come with a perk that can make a big difference, like increaseing armour when health is full, or boosting your damage per adrenaline chunk filled, whilst rare items and better can also be inscribed with another perk of your choice at the forge in your hideout.
How to find Legendary chests
Generally speaking the most consistently powerful gear you can count on finding is legendary gear. The stats are betters, the perks are better, and they probably look cooler too. The most consistent way to get it is by opening legendary chests.
There are a few ways to find legendary chests, but most reliably they are found in castles. To open a castle’s legendary chest you first need to defeat all the Samurai Daisho in that castle which can be a little time consuming, but you’ll also find a bunch of resources which you can later use to upgrade your equipment and earn Mastery points, so it’s time well spent!
You can also find legendary chests out in the world, and there are a few things to look out for. First, if you see some soldiers threatening a civilian and kill said soldiers, the civilian will reward you with your choice of either a scout support or some world information. The world information can sometimes give you information about a legendary chest nearby, or a kofun, which is a cave to explore with a legendary chest at the end.
You can also get locations for these chests in kakuregas, which are like outposts where you can fast travel to and restock your equipment. You can get radiant missions from here as well as areas to search for nearby content, such as legendary chests and castles.
Levelling up weapons and gear in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Remember to pick up as many resources as possible as you play, as on top of the loot’s tier system, they also have levels. Once you’ve built a forge at your hideout you’ll be able to upgrade your gear’s level to ensure it’s still useful after you’ve levelled up a bit. When you upgrade the forge you’ll also be able to inscribe another perk onto rare or better equipment, giving you another modifier of your choice. These perks can be very useful and can be unlocked by completing certain challenges in-game, such as a certain amount of assassinations, as well as be rewards for completing certain quests.
One of the earlier legendary items I found was a tanto for Naoe that, after using a weak point attack (by holding R1 until charged) against a vulnerable enemy, would trigger another vulnerable state afterwards, allowing me to use another weakpoint attack and deal even more damage. As she’s a character that’s much more focused on speed, a skill like this was very useful, so I’ve focused on upgrading it ever since. Once you find an item with a trait that works well for your playstyle, you can keep upgrading it like this until you find a replacement that works even better, or that is so good that it changes how you play.
There you have it. Looting in Assassin’s Creed Shadows comes with the standard item tiers, but you need to keep a look our for Legendary chests to find the best gear, and then keep on top of upgrades to all your weapons and items.
