Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ free updates include new game plus, new story

Ubisoft is promising more Assassin’s Creed Shadows updates than you can shake a bo at, with plans to deliver “free updates on the regular” that will add items such as a new game plus mode, new quests and story expansions, and community-driven improvements, the publisher announced Wednesday.

As previously announced, Shadows’ first expansion, Claws of Awaji, is coming later this year. Claws of Awaji will introduce a new area to the game’s map: Awaji Island, which is located in the eastern part of Japan’s Inland Sea. (Well, technically, it’s already on the map — you can see it lying approximately due west of the port city of Sakai. But you’ll actually be able to explore it in the expansion.)

Claws of Awaji “continues Naoe and Yasuke’s story right after the end of Shadows’ epilogue,” Ubisoft said in a blog post. It will add about 10 hours’ worth of content to the game, including a new weapon for Naoe: the bo, a staff used in Japanese martial arts. Ubisoft offered the expansion as a bonus for anybody who pre-ordered the game, but has yet to announce a price for everyone else.

In addition to Claws of Awaji, Ubisoft will release a number of free updates that the company is calling Story Drops, starting in May with “The Works of Luis Frois.” Frois, a Jesuit missionary and scholar, is among the group of Portuguese men who land in Japan with Yasuke at the beginning of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The second Story Drop is scheduled to be released in June, and will add to the game another ally that you can recruit into the League of the Hidden Blade. Each Story Drop will include “additional backstory that will permanently impact the game,” according to Ubisoft.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ developers are also working on more quality-of-life improvements. Following the game’s first post-launch patch earlier this month, which added auto-follow for the player character’s horse, the team is planning to add new parkour moves to give Naoe and Yasuke more options. (Here’s hoping the developers bring back the ability to sell or dismantle multiple items at once — which was included in the early April patch but was later disabled due to bugs.)

For instance, it’s currently impossible to jump from a standstill to grab a ledge that looks like it’s within reach; that’s coming in a future patch. Also in the works are community-requested features such as the option to wear headgear in cutscenes. Larger features are on the way, too, such as a new game plus mode that will raise the level cap, and new difficulty settings for both stealth and combat that will make them more unforgiving.