Ubisoft Quebec unpacks the four-year journey to make Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been a long time coming.

For Ubisoft Quebec, the Canadian developer that spearheaded the project, it was a massive four-year endeavour that aims to marry the stealth and action-RPG gameplay that’s come to define two distinct eras of Assassin’s Creed. On top of that, Shadows is the culmination of fan requests for a feudal Japan-set Assassin’s Creed game that have been circulating for well over a decade. And finally, it’s an ambitious tale that follows dual protagonists Naoe, a shinobi, and Yasuke, a historical African samurai (the first time the series has starred a real person), as they work to defeat a clandestine organization.

All of this was top of mind at a launch event for Shadows on March 19 at Ubisoft’s Quebec City studio, at which MobileSyrup was in attendance. The excitement among the developers is palpable, the fruits of their labour about to be shared with the world in mere hours. It’s a (sadly necessary) reminder that amid all of the unjustified, racially-charged toxicity surrounding Shadows, game developers are human, just like us all.

For Nathalie Bouchard, general director of Ubisoft Quebec, it’s especially fitting to be able to release Shadows now, in 2025.

“It’s cool because we are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. I feel that this is the game that we needed at this time, with all the experience that we’ve had over the past years. So I really feel that the team was ready for this,” she says. “You can see that Shadows is a very ambitious game, [so it’s about] being able to just provide the talent and the seniority of the team to deliver that game. So I really feel that it was probably the best thing that we could do at the 20th anniversary of the studio.”

Ubisoft Quebec itself has played a key role in the development of Assassin’s Creed for a decade, starting with 2015’s Victorian England-set Syndicate, which introduced a dual-protagonist premise that Shadows would later expand upon. And three years later, Ubisoft Quebec’s Ancient Greece-set Assassin’s Creed Odyssey would fully take the series into a sprawling Witcher 3-esque action-RPG framework.

Charles Benoit, game director on Shadows, says the team has learned a lot from these experiences, as well as the opportunity to alternate being lead developer on an Assassin’s Creed game with longtime series developer Ubisoft Montreal. “We learn from them, they learn from us, so it’s always a learning process in terms of what you can do and production. Like how we structure and everything — we try something new and just improve,” he says.

“We are proud, being able to represent the Quebec talent. Quebec City is a very strong city in terms of video gaming ecosystem. So being able also to invite not just the employees, but also the politicians and the mayor, it’s a big thing. I think that we really are able to celebrate at the Quebec level.”

Given that Ubisoft Quebec employs around 600 people compared to Montreal’s 4,000 (it’s the actual biggest game development studio in the entire world), that’s no small feat. Bouchard says the Canadian teams being part of Ubisoft’s larger global roster of studios has also been a major “benefit” during development. “When you create such a game [as Shadows], diversity is very important,” she says. “So having the opportunity to have people from other cultures, other countries, other languages as part of the creation of the game, it’s amazing.”

Nowhere is that more evident than Shadows‘ meticulously recreated 16th-century Japan, which has been a key point of praise among the game’s critical reception. Part of that was the result of the core development team working closely with Japanese creators, including Ubisoft’s own studios in Tokyo and Osaka (the latter of which recently closed). But of course, key members on the team were also sent to Japan for research purposes.

“Being North Americans, we knew that it was a challenge to get to know that Japanese culture. So we paired ourselves with Japanese experts, internal and external partners, but also our Ubisoft Japanese studios. We’ve watched lots of movies as well. We’ve looked at museum databases,” says Shadows art director Thierry Dansereau. “We went over there as well. And we had the community that was also with us throughout until the very end, looking at everything to make sure that we could present, in an incredible way, the Japanese culture.”

In a separate interview, Masumi, the Japanese-American singer-songwriter and actress who plays Naoe, praised Ubisoft Quebec for their work in bringing her motherland to life.

Image credit: Ubisoft/Brad Shankar

“They really did a lot of research on Japan, which made me very happy — reading the stories and how a lot of details and things were incorporated. There were times in voiceovers or even in cinematics [when] I would talk about, ‘You know, in Japan, I think this is how we would say it, or this is how I would act,’ and we always collaboratively talked about things like that. It was a very, very friendly, supportive space, which I’m really grateful for,” she says.

“There’s so much packed in there. Even just the little small languages that you can pick up. The mannerisms. The way people treat each other. The way people talk to each other. There’s a lot of culture packed in there. And as a Japanese [woman], it makes me feel really proud that somebody really wanted to understand and depict the culture and show it to the whole world. That’s really cool to me.”

Meanwhile, Danserau admits he was taken aback at the “scale” of Japan during the development process, which is particularly noteworthy considering he’s done this kind of historical research for six other AC games.

“There’s so many things [that surprised me about Japan], but the density of the forests — when we were there, we didn’t expect to see that much,” he says, noting that Japan is actually one of the most forested countries in the world after only Finland. “And then the mountains are covered by trees as well. So that was going to be an interesting challenge to be able to showcase that many trees.”

He also says that there’s an “incredible harmony between architecture and nature,” which was most prominent when visiting Japan’s historical sacred shrines and temples. “Everything feels perfectly composed. And we asked some of the experts that were with us, and this was as intended. When they were building stuff, they were planting trees beside — they knew what the end result would be. And they do take care of their trees. So even old trees, they will have supports so they don’t chop trees. They love aging material and stuff — it’s part of their culture.”

Danserau says this was an “eye-opening experience” that instilled the team with the goal of capturing that “organic feeling — that magic blend of nature and architecture.”

Benoit has a similar anecdote when it comes to Japan’s oldest castle, Himeji Castle, which is one of the key landmarks in the game. “When we reconstructed it, we understood more of the distance and what you can see from a castle, how big it is, how impressive it is. One of the good things that we grasped from going there was the mountains. They are super tall with a lot of trees, so we changed the way we wanted to structure the world to make sure if you see those big mountains in real life, you would not be able to cross it, so let’s make sure that in-game, you need to go around.” He adds that other little adjustments included how lighting affected Japan’s topography, like how the sun went through clouds.

He says that knowing from the start that Shadows would be on current-gen consoles only influenced a lot of the design choices when it came to the technology. “It was an occasion to push [AC game engine] Anvil to the next level, but also push AC to the next level when it comes to technicalities, and what we managed to achieve from a world point of view […] there’s a lot of things that weren’t possible in past games.”

The highlight of this, he says, is a dynamic seasons system that runs throughout Shadows. Besides making a slew of stunning aesthetic changes to the world, the shifting seasons also affects environmental stealth opportunities, like frozen ponds in the winter that you can no longer hide in or tall patches of grass that can conceal you in the summer. Danserau says the fact that this was only possible now with the latest consoles meant that the team had to “rethink everything” when it comes to world design.

“We need to make sure, from a colour point of view, that everything follows a certain logic. So we need to have a good understanding of the biomes and the ecosystem, so what grows when. And then even props — some props have snow in winter on top of them, like rooftops, and not in other seasons,” he says.

“And we added another challenge, because we also wanted to push the dynamism with dynamic objects to fulfill that fantasy of being able to interact with your world. Because the goal was to create a world that’s the most immersive as possible. So now, you can slice an object, but then you will see what’s inside the object once you slice it, so you need to see some thickness as well. And then we added another challenge — you can slice it at an angle.”

The team hopes this sort of work will be appreciated even by people who aren’t necessarily hardcore gamers, a group to which Bouchard says she belongs. “I’m not a ‘good’ player,” admits Bouchard. “But for me, just being in that game and seeing all the details — because I know the team and how dedicated we were to making it at this level — the beauty of the world to me is really something that I’m very proud of. I feel that I can watch the game without playing it for hours.”

Image credit: Ubisoft/Brad Shankar

Even Danserau, who is more of a so-called “hardcore” player, says he’s really enjoyed being able to just leisurely immerse himself in the world of Shadows.

“I’m the father of four boys, so normally when I’m playing video games, I’m playing as fast as I can to go through the content so I can see the whole game. I’m always rushing because I know time is an issue in my case. But this case, for some reason, since all the systems are speaking to each other — the weather states, the wind, the seasons — I’m just slowing down my pace and taking my time, even though I’ve been living with this game for years,” he says.

“It just calms me down. There’s something contemplative about it. I find myself just putting down the controller and just looking at the systems as they happen […] This is great, this is what our game is giving us. I think sometimes I’m guilty of just looking at it. I stop being a developer for a second and just enjoy the end result.”

These interviews have been edited for language and clarity.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac and Ubisoft+.

Image credit: Ubisoft