Assassin's Creed Shadows: 30 important tips and tricks you need to know before starting the game

Character and Combat Essentials

1. Leverage Your dual protagonists: Use Naoe for stealth missions and Yasuke for direct combat encounters. Naoe excels with the kusarigama in combat situations, while Yasuke can perform stealth attacks if you invest in the right skills.
   
2. Prioritize Naoe's Smoke Bombs: Unlock this tool early in her Mastery Skill Tree. It blinds enemies, allowing you to escape or assassinate them within the cloud. Pair it with the quick throw skill for the ultimate safety net.
   
3. Get the Tanto ASAP: The Tanto knife (exclusive to Naoe) is arguably the game's best weapon. The special Tanto from the target Wakasa allows you to perform two Posture attacks on vulnerable enemies instead of one, creating devastating combat combinations.
   
4. Use Eagle Vision before doors: Activate this ability when approaching buildings or doorways to reveal enemies through walls, keeping your stealth intact and preventing unwelcome surprises.
   
5. Check assassination viability: Always verify if your assassination attempt will succeed before committing. Yellow prompts indicate you'll only wound the target, while red means you won't hurt them at all – both will blow your cover.
   
6. Master Naoe's Shadow Abilities: The Shadow Barrage and Shadow Piercer abilities pair excellently with the Tanto. Shadow Barrage grants temporary immunity to melee attacks (except grabs), creating powerful combat opportunities.
   
7. Auto-Healing outside combat: You'll automatically heal to full health when not in combat or restricted zones, but rations won't replenish automatically.
   
8. Recruit companions: They can fight alongside you and will stick around in combat for several moments, providing valuable support during tough encounters.
   

Navigation and Exploration

1. Stick to roads: Horses handle poorly on steep terrain, and roads lead to more points of interest, including shrines, temples, castles, and side quests.
   
2. Prioritize synchronization points: Unlock these eagle symbols when entering new provinces to establish fast travel networks, saving significant time on back-and-forth journeys.
   
3. Look for painted walls: Following the series tradition, painted surfaces indicate climbable areas – crucial information for efficient navigation.
   
4. Get Naoe's ascension boost: This skill in the Shinobi mastery tree dramatically increases climbing speed with the grappling hook, accelerating synchronization point unlocks.
   
5. Use scouts strategically: They reveal objectives in your target area, saving time on searching. Despite seeming limited, scouts can be effectively restored as needed.
   
6. Light candles in Kofun: When exploring tombs, illuminate candles as you progress to both brighten these dim spaces and track which tunnels you've already explored.
   
7. Fast travel limitations: You can't fast travel out of restricted areas like enemy bases, but synchronization points are always considered safe zones for fast travel.
   
8. Remember character movement differences: Yasuke can burst through walls but can't walk tightropes, while Naoe can grapple across gaps but can't move heavy objects.
   

Gear and Progression

1. Transmog from the start: You can customize your appearance without sacrificing stats, and all discovered gear remains available as cosmetic options even after selling.
   
2. Sell early game loot: In the beginning, prioritize selling equipment for mon (currency) rather than dismantling it for materials.
   
3. Wait to upgrade gear: Hold off on upgrading equipment until at least level 20, as you'll frequently find better gear in early levels.
   
4. Save scouts for smuggling: Once you upgrade your hideout, scouts can smuggle large resource caches, substantially accelerating your mid-game progress.
   
   
5. Understand the three progression systems: Your level determines base stats, knowledge rank unlocks skill tiers, and mastery points purchase the actual skills.
   
   
6. Hunt Knowledge Points: Completing Horse Archery, Kata, Kuji-kiri, and Lost Pages activities are the fastest ways to increase your knowledge rank.
   
7. Castle raids for best rewards: Clear castles and forts for substantial loot, XP, and unique legendary weapons or armor pieces from the reward chests after defeating Samurai Daisho.
   
   
8. Complete the Out to Pasture quest: This early chain unlocks the Forge at your hideout, enabling gear upgrades to match your level – a crucial feature for progression.
   

Exploration and Combat Techniques

1. Constantly scout your surroundings: Hold the Aim button to reveal all nearby items as yellow lights and objectives as blue lights, making exploration more efficient.
   
2. Balance main and side content: The difficulty increases rapidly if you focus solely on main missions. Mix in side activities to stay ahead of the level curve.
   
3. Mark locations in reverse order: When planning to visit multiple marked locations, place markers in reverse order (destination first, then working backward) to create an efficient path with your Pathfinder.
   
4. Retrieve ranged ammo: Naoe's Kunai arrows can be retrieved from enemy bodies, and don't forget to pick up her Shinobi bells. Yasuke's arrows are sometimes retrievable, but Teppo shots aren't.
   
5. Engage with random encounters: These often reward you with marked quests or free area scouting, providing substantial benefits for minimal effort.
   
6. Explore the Codex: Don't overlook this menu, which contains detailed information about Japanese history, often featuring scanned artwork from real-world museums – adding depth to your experience beyond the gameplay.