This is a beginner's guide to Assasin's Creed Shadows (AC Shadows). Discover all the tips and tricks to help you get started on Naoe and Yasuke's journey.

Beginner's Guide to Assasin's Creed Shadows

Tips for New Players
① Adjust Settings to Fit Your Desired Experience ② Turn On Guaranteed Assassinations ③ Explore Izumi Settsu Extensively ④ Get Familiar with Leveling and Mastery Points ⑤ Raise Knowledge Rank to Unlock More Skills ⑥ Complete Contracts to Farm Resources ⑦ Get Familiar with the Scouting System ⑧ Unlock Yasuke by Completing Act 1 ⑨ Upgrade Your Hideout Buildings

Tweak Your Settings Based on Your Preferred Experience

Setting	Effects
Difficulty	Choose between Story, Forgiving, Normal, or Expert. In Expert Difficulty, enemies are stronger and deal more damage.
Immersive Mode	Can be toggled On or Off. Immersive mode sets the game voice language to use both Japanese and Portuguese.
Guided Exploration	Can be toggled On or Off. When turned On, this feature shows you the exact location of objectives, eliminating the need to investigate and explore locations to find your targets.
Canon Mode	Can be set to On or Off. When turned On after starting a new game, you won't need to make critical dialogue choices since Naoe and Yasuke will use the canon lines in conversations.

Assassin's Creed Shadows comes with a variety of quality-of-life settings that can make the game easier or more challenging depending on your preference. Choose from the settings above based on your preferred difficulty.

Best and Recommended Settings

Turn On Guaranteed Assassinations

If you don't want to deal with health segments and having to upgrade gear and skills to get insta-kill assassinations, you can turn on guaranteed assassinations via the Difficulty Tuning menu. If you aren't a fan of the new RPG approach to assassinations, turn this setting on for an experience similar to early AC games.

How to Turn On Guaranteed Assassinations

Get Familiar with Leveling and Mastery Points

In Assassin's Creed Shadows, your Level will determine your base stats. Earn XP to level up and increase your stats. When you level up, you get +1 Mastery point. You can then spend them to get Skills from the different Mastery Trees of Naoe and Yasuke.

Unlock costs for skills will increase as you go up each Mastery Tree. Farm Mastery points by farming XP for level ups or killing Samurai Daishos inside Castles (since they reward you with 1 point per kill).

How to Level Up Fast

Increase Your Knowledge Rank to Unlock More Skills

Skills in each Mastery Tree will be locked behind Knowledge Ranks. In order to purchase better skills as you progress, you'll need to increase your Knowledge Rank by earning Knowledge Points. If you find any of the activities listed below, complete them to get Knowledge Points:

• Shrines: Pray at each of the indicated shrines within the POI to get a Knowledge Point.
• Temple: Find all Lost Pages in the temple to get a Knowledge Point. Some temples will have enemies, so clear them out first.
• Kofun: Navigate the Kofun's maze-like layout and find both the Legendary Chest and a Knowledge Point reward.
• Kuji-kiri: As Naoe, meditate and complete a rhythm minigame to get a Knowledge Point.
• Hidden Trails: Complete a Parkour course as Naoe and loot the chest at the end to get a Knowledge Point.
• Kata: As Yasuke, follow the button prompts in sequence to get a Knowledge Point.
• Horse Archery: As Yasuke, complete the course to get a Knowledge Point.

How to Increase Knowledge Rank

Explore Izumi Settsu Extensively

Before you unlock Yasuke in Act 2, you'll first want to explore Izumi Settsu (the starting region), thoroughly. You'll want to discover locations and farm resources so that you an easier time exploring and playing once you have Yasuke unlocked.

• Find and synchronize with all Viewpoints in Izumi Settsu. Unlocks Fast Travel spots to make traveling around easier.
• Farm Mon to make unlocking Kakurega (fast travel hideouts) easier later on.
• Farm XP, Mastery Points, and Knowledge Points so Yasuke gets access to his best skills as soon as you unlock him.
• Farm Hideout Resources since Yasuke's gear upgrade requirements use Hideout Resources instead of Crafting Materials.

What to Do First

Complete Contracts to Farm Resources

If you want to power level while also building up a surplus of Hideout Resources, look no further than the Contract Board. These can be accessed from inside a Kakurega, and they allow you to take up 3 contracts per season that reward you with a lot of XP and Hideout Resources.

The contract objectives are pretty simple as well, basically boiling down to steal supplies, kill all enemies, assassinate a target, or destroy enemy cargo.

Familiarize Yourself with the Scouting System

A core part of the gameplay loop will be Scouts and how you use them. In AC Shadows, you'll be using Scouts to complete a variety of tasks that help you on quests and hideout management:

• Scouts can be used to determine the location of quest objectives.
• Scouts can smuggle supplies from hostile locations back to your Hideout.
• Scouts can be used to get rid of your Wanted status in a region.

Scouts refresh whenever the season changes. You can also spend 200 Mon at any Kakurega to replenish 1 Scout if needed.

How to Get More Scouts

Unlock Yasuke by Completing Act 1

Once you have enough Hideout Resources saved up, you can proceed with the main quests, Temple of the Horseman, Lightning and Thunder, and Mibuno Showdown. After finishing the quest chain in Yamashiro, you should be able to freely switch characters.

Naturally, unlocking Yasuke lines up with the new region you can explore - Yamashiro - since most Castle rewards hear are for the samurai. Previously inaccessible content like the Makino Kurumazuka Kofun, Katas, and Horse Archery will also become available to complete.

How to Unlock Yasuke

Upgrade Your Hideout Buildings

While playing, don't neglect your hideout. Upgrading key buildings like the Forge and Kakurega will make exploring the rest of the map easier. For priority upgrades, make sure to fully upgrade the following buildings as soon as possible:

• Upgrading the Kakurega to Level 3 is a priority since it unlocks additional Kakurega locations across Japan for you to purchase. More Kakurega means more safehouses that you can fast travel to and resupply at.
• Upgrade the Forge to at least Level 2 in order to unlock Engravings. This new feature allows you to slot in an extra "perk" for your rare, epic, or legendary weapon or armor.
• Upgrade the Study to Level 3 so you get even more Scouts to do your dirty work. More scouts means more bodies to send on resource and scouting missions.

All Tips and Tricks Guides

Beginner Guides
What to Do First	What to Buy and Sell First
How to Heal	How to Save
How to Sheathe Weapons	How to Switch Weapons
How to Sprint	How to Parry
How to Deflect	How to Engrave Weapons and Armor
Dialogue Symbols Explained	How to Use Pathfinder Mode
Gameplay Guides
How to Unlock Yasuke	How to Make Yasuke Dab
How to Switch Characters	How to Change Seasons
How to Get the Assassin Armor Set	How to Transmog
Best Hideout Building Upgrades	How to Get More Scouts
How to Respec Abilities	How to Remove Wanted Status
What to Do with Castle Keys	How to Wear Hood
Exchange Store Guide	All Horse Controls
What to Do with Red Barrels	Should You Play as Yasuke or Naoe?
How to Claim Deluxe Edition Items	All Hideout Buildings
What are Orange Enemies?	How to Track a Quest
How to Daze Enemies	-
Farming Guides
Knowledge Points	Mastery Points
XP	Money (Mon)
Data Fragments	Hideout Resources
FAQs
Can You Play Offline?	What Happens When You Die?
Where is Imai Sokyu?	Can You Change the Time?
What Does Praying Do?	Should You Help NPCs?
Is There a Battle Pass?	What are Anomalies?
Should You Turn On Immersive Mode?	Should You Play in Canon Mode or Not?
Should You Turn Guided Exploration On or Off?	Can Yasuke Climb and Parkour?
Game Settings Guides
List of Controls	Best Settings
Quality or Performance?	All Language Options
Guaranteed Assassination Setting	-

Assassin's Creed Shadows Related Guides

Assassin's Creed Shadows Wiki

Guides by Category

All Categories
Interactive Map	Quests
Allies	Tips and Tricks
Weapons	Armor
Headgear	Trinkets
Castles	Temples
Kofun	Abilities
Mounts	Choices
Trophies	News

AC Shadows Recommended Guides

Recommendations
Best Naoe Build	Best Yasuke Build
Best Abilities	Best Weapons
Best Armor	Best Allies
Best Tool Upgrades	Best Engravings
Activity Guides
Shrine Locations	Kuji-kiri Locations
Kata Locations	Horse Archery Locations
Hidden Trail Locations	All Activities Map
Naoe Activity Map	Yasuke Activity Map
Map Guides
Fast Travel Viewpoint Locations	Kakurega Locations
Chest Guides
All Legendary Chest Locations	All Hidden Chest Locations
Legendaries Guides
Legendary Weapons	Legendary Armor
Legendary Headgear	Legendary Trinkets
Other Guides
Game Length	Difficulty Differences
Romance Options	Missables and Points of No Return
New Game Plus	All Key Locations