Yesterday, ahead of launch, I wanted to flag the fact that Assassin’s Creed Shadows doesn’t require any prior knowledge of the series – story-wise, it’s basically standalone. Now the game has been released, there’s just one more thing I wanted to call out, so your playthrough goes as smoothly as possible.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ hideout is a fun thing to customise, but it wasn’t until mid-way through the game that I really looked into its upgrades – and they’re really useful. Perhaps I was just being unobservant, but you are rarely forced back to the hideout – unlike in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – so these are more easily missed.
At first, I assumed upgrading the hideout just meant unlocking some fancier-looking buildings. But no, doing this also gives you some crucial perks to improve your in-game quality of life.
What’s the best hideout building to upgrade? That would be the Study, which has perks relating to your Scouts. As I mentioned in our Assassin’s Creed Shadows review, one of the game’s biggest changes to the series’ formula is how you’re meant to work out where you’re going for yourself, based on clues and a search radius uncovered by map pings.
Want more map pings? You’ll need more Scouts – and building your Study grants an additional Scout member. Further Scouts are then added to your roster when you upgrade the Study to levels two and three. Even better, upgrades also shrink the search zone that your Scouts provide you with – narrowing down where you need to get to much quicker.
Other useful hideout buildings? The Stables are worth building so you can tag resources for any remaining Scouts to scoop up at the end of the season. The Dojo, meanwhile, lets you level up your ally characters – the ones you can call upon in battle.
Ultimately, you’ll want to build all of your hideout’s upgrades – and Eurogamer has a full guide to every Assassin’s Creed Shadows hideout building – but these are the ones I’d recommend going after first. They’re all useful, but when pretty much every activity in the game requires you go find it first, this is an easy way to save yourself some wandering around (though wandering around in Shadows inevitably always leads you someplace very pretty).
Constructing and upgrading buildings requires resources – crops, wood and minerals (not rocks) – which you will acquire naturally by looting bandit camps and castles. If you’re after a specific resource, you can get a generous amount by undertaking a Contract mission from any Kakurega (the mini-hideout houses you unlock across the map). Just look for the Contract with the resource you need listed as a reward.
So, how’s your time with Assassin’s Creed Shadows going so far?