Assassin's Creed Shadows introduces an all-new weather system, with seasonal changes to make your Animus simulation more realistic. While it's not unheard of for Assassin's Creed (or stealth games in general) to have realistic weather events that alter various game mechanics, Shadows goes a step further by introducing a rotating calendar of seasons. Taking inspiration from the humid summers and heavy rains of real-world Japan, AC Shadows' seasons are informed by an updated, highly reactive set of game systems that allow the environment to respond in realistic ways to weather events, instead of just playing preloaded animations.

But weather is far more than just an aesthetic choice to gameplay in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Weather Changes With The Seasons

How To Use Weather To Your Benefit

The weather differences between seasons do indeed have a major impact on stealth and combat in Assassin's Creed Shadows. In effect, each season may either help or hinder your efforts to hide, depending on the weather. Things like heavy rain (more common in summer) and strong wind (more common in spring) will muffle the sound of your footsteps, which means you can move a little faster without alerting enemies. More frequent darkness in winter means it's easier to hide in the shadows.

In addition, the material conditions of each season can create additional hiding places for Naoe. Ordinarily, Naoe can hide beneath the surface of ponds, rivers, or moats - she can even learn an ability that lets her breathe underwater. However, in winter, these bodies of water will freeze over, preventing her from breaching the surface. Foliage may be thicker in spring and summer, giving Naoe extra thickets to crouch in.

Enemy behavior will also change in each season, which, again, may affect how you deal with clearing out strongholds. In winter, enemies may huddle around a central fire, making it easier to hit them all with a smoke bomb or other area of effect attack.

Scouts Are Refreshed With Every Season

Spying & Looting

One of the most important gameplay aspects available to you in AC Shadows is the recruitment and usage of scouts. You're often not given a specific marker when taking on a quest, and will sometimes get a larger area that you need to search in more detail to find your objective. To save yourself time, you can deploy scouts in the correct area; they'll return with more information on where to find your target, along with some tips and tricks for how best to deal with them.

However, you have a limited number of scouts (though you can recruit more throughout the game), and once you deploy them, they're out of commission for the rest of the season. As soon as the next season arrives, though, all your scouts will become available again. Therefore, you'll want to prioritize your objectives and make sure you send your scouts to the right location in order to avoid wasting them.

Gathering loot is another important aspect of gameplay in AC Shadows for a variety of different reasons. Of course, you'll find better weapons and gear as you play through the game, hidden in chests here and there. But more importantly, you'll need to locate resources for your hideout. Over time, you can build various structures to improve the quality and services available to you there. In order to do so, you'll find all manner of crafting materials in enemy strongholds.

While you can carry some crafting items yourself, you may need to assign your scouts to gather certain materials for you as you infiltrate strongholds.

When you tag an item for collection, it takes your scouts a while to retrieve it and bring it back to base. At the end of the season, they'll return with your materials, and you can use them or store them as your heart desires. Personally, I recommend waiting until near the end of the season to start gathering materials - doing it early on can be a drain on your scouts when you need them for AC Shadows' main campaign.

New Sidequests Become Available Every Season

Taking On Contracts

Many of the side activities available to you in AC Shadows fall under Contracts, a series of quick, one-stop sidequests you can take on from the Kakurega building in your hideout. Each of these is relatively simple: you'll be assigned to go to a certain location, usually an enemy base, and either assassinate a particular figure, destroy a particular resource, collect a particular item, or eliminate every enemy present. Narratively, these reflect Naoe, Yasuke, and their allies' attempts to undermine Oda Nobunaga's army; materially, they're a great way to rack up some mon and resources.

However, each Contract has a deadline: the turn of the next season. And each time a new season arrives, new contracts become available at the Kakurega. You'll want to consider how much time you have left in the season before taking on new tasks, and try to prioritize checking for new Contracts each time the seasons change.

When & Why Seasons Change In AC Shadows

Can You Change Seasons Manually?

On average, it appears that seasons change about every two to three gameplay hours in Assassin's Creed Shadows. You'll know the season has changed when you see a brief montage featuring various shots of the season's characteristic weather events: changing leaves in autumn, snow in winter, et cetera. There's a hidden season meter somewhere in the game's code which, once it's full, will cause seasons to change once it encounters an appropriate trigger. Each season also has two "steps," which are used by various gameplay functions to measure the age of time.

However, seasons don't just pop in and out as soon as their time arrives; you have to trigger them. There are two ways you can trigger seasonal changes: either by fast traveling, or by holding right on the D-Pad while on the map screen. Generally, I found it okay to wait for seasons to change when I fast traveled, but immediate season changes might come in handy if you're having difficulty finding a hiding spot for a stealth mission.

Seasonal changes are an incredibly immersive new feature, and go a long way towards making AC Shadows' world seem alive. They also have some serious impacts on gameplay, requiring you to understand and respond to their unique conditions. With these unique considerations in mind, you can foresee and exploit seasonal changes for the maximum positive impact on your gameplay in Assassin's Creed Shadows.