Shadows’ dual protagonists Naoe and Yasuke. Players will have a lot of freedom in how they can complete the story with the two characters, each of which have separate roles to play in the conflict-filled period known as Azuchi-Momoyama.

The aforementioned era is the final part of the Sengoku period, which translates to the “Warring States period,” a time of much political upheaval and war. The two are great foils for one another in both narrative and actual gameplay, with Yasuke presenting a hard-hitting, direct approach based on strength, but Naoe relies much more on stealth. While Naoe is an original character, a ninja who is an enemy of daimyo Oda Nobunaga, Yasuke is based on a real historical figure from the time period, a samurai who served under Nobunaga.

Screen Rant interviewed the creative director of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Jonathan Dumont, to discuss how his approach has changed since Odyssey, finally tackling a Japanese setting, and the biggest challenges of dual protagonists.

Dumont On Taking Assassin's Creed To Japan - Finally

A Journey Both Players & Developers Have Been Waiting For

ScreenRant: So first, I would love to talk about the setting of this game a little bit because, obviously, Japan has been such a hotly-requested location for an Assassin's Creed game. What sort of research went into developing such a rich environment, and did you feel any sort of special pressure when it came to, "all right, we're finally delivering this locale to the fans."

Jonathan Dumont: For sure, the fans were requesting it, but we really wanted to make it as well. So we go through the normal, I would say, research process early. And so, very early in, the first couple of people that are on the team are part of our research. Quite a bit of a research went into this one from our local historians and house historians, to specialists, to just a little bit everywhere in the world, coming from Japan as well. And then you make choices on what you're going to be telling as a story.

We landed on the Azuchi-Momoyama era because it was such a pivotal moment for Japanese history and then the world is kind of in flux, so it's an interesting place for an Assassin's Creed story. So there's always the fictional Assassin's Creed Templar assassins [...] But we try to ground it in the world that is probably the most, I would say not most pivotal, but one of the most pivotal moments in Japanese history.

Now the detail that goes into doing all of that, there's a lot of research that goes into doing an Assassin's Creed, and we try to take the humble approach of "we're learning everything." So it's true for Japan, but it was true for a different setting. So yes, it was requested, so we're trying to make it as good as possible, but there's always a pressure to try to do it well.

ScreenRant: You've also worked on another open-world Assassin's Creed game, Odyssey, so I'm curious if having that open-world experience under your belt helped make this feel any easier in any way. And, aside from settings and characters, if you found any other big differences between working on those two projects?

Jonathan Dumont : Yeah, well, Odyssey was not my first open world. I did AC Syndicate as well, because I was the world director for that one and [Immortals]. But prior to that, World of Warcraft as well.

I think the thing is to look at what's coming out of the setting and let it change the way that you want to tell a story, change the way that you want to shape the world and let it guide you. So be open to what it could be and then try to find the right size for the gameplay that you're trying to sell as a backdrop.

The thing that it was interesting for Japan is that when we got here for visiting, we were very surprised at - or influenced quite a bit - by the mountainous areas and how much we needed space to create that. So it changed a little bit the scale-ratio that we had in the game.

Also, the castles were impressive. Like in pictures, they looked cool, but we didn't quite get the size. But when we were standing in front of the castle Himeji, holy cr*p, that's a fortress. So those changes shape the way that you're going to be doing the world, and then small historical facts or small details just get added. So there's quite a bit of that that goes into the crowd representation also and all of that.

ScreenRant: Had there been any elements or mechanics that you had maybe wanted to try in previous games that you worked on, but you didn't get a chance to do until this game?

Jonathan Dumont: There's two that emerged a little bit [...] The first one is I think going away from a static postcard in the world and trying to have a world that breathes and moves and through seasons, through weather, and the technology or the current consoles helped us to do that and how we structured our technology.

So we really wanted the thing where if I stand on top of a mountain, you're not going to be the only person that sees that, but you're going to see something unique that you're not necessarily going to be seeing what the designer wants you to see, right? And then changing the exploration, how the exploration systems work. I think it was the right setting to do it with.

The world is beautiful. You want people to be looking at it, instead of just following a marker. So we wanted to break that a little bit, and giving you tools to do it. And then the last thing was really doing a hideout that's completely customizable so that you can see your pets in there, you can see the things that you've collected in the game, see the relationships that you've had. So I think that's something that I had been in the sort of design sheets that we had for a little bit. But Valhalla did something pretty interesting, and then we took it for a little bit further with the customization.

And I think Japan was a great place because we wanted to have our place in Japan. So when you come back to the experience you have, you feel at home somewhere and it feels peaceful and then there's bad stuff that happens.

ScreenRant: Can you give me a window into what players can expect from the side-quest material in this game?

Jonathan Dumont: Sure. The way that the side quests work, there are different types of side quests. There's one that translate into, I would say objective boards, or let's say bandits. So you have special bandits, and there's side content where you have to hit all the bandits in that one. And they're different, and they have all names, and they have specialties. So we have quite a bit of that objective-based, "find these targets in the world." So it's very target-oriented.

And then the other one is relationship-oriented. So a lot of characters that you meet, you'll have pretty long quest lines with them. So you can meet them sometimes in the main path, sometimes just on the side. And then you build relationships with them. So sometimes you can recruit them, sometimes you can have romantic options if you feel like, and then you're building those relationships. So those are a little bit sort of the two bigger ones that we have there.

There's a couple of surprises where some of the side content is sort of hidden behind a couple of meditation mechanics, where we do get to experience the past of Naoe and then Yasuke as well. So these are flashbacks that we get. So at first, you play, you don't know exactly who they are, and then you get the full, "oh, that's why he's here," or something like that.

ScreenRant: And speaking of surprises, is there anything about this game in particular that you think will surprise longtime fans of the series for whatever reason?

Jonathan Dumont: Longtime fans of the series, I think they will enjoy, a little bit, coming back to the roots of the parkour, and stealth, and how much we spend time trying to craft the light and shadow detection. And all the gadgets that we have and then yourself being sort of changed by the weather systems and things like that. So I think people would like the depth that we gave to the stealth and the grappling hook and the pearl navigation. So I think that's something that will strike them a little bit.

And then I think the story of our two characters makes...just the ing point of all of it, which I'm not going to speak of, but I think it would make for...our fans should like that as well.

How Assassin's Creed Shadows' Dual Protagonists Work In-Game

Make Your Choice, But Feel Free To Switch!

ScreenRant: What was the balancing process like between creating these two protagonists that do feel distinct from one another, but also complementary and like they fit together in a natural way?

Jonathan Dumont: It's complicated because we didn't make it easy. So we really wanted both of them in gameplay to have advantages and strengths and weaknesses, and really sort of try to be true to the archetypes as well. So that's why Yasuke is not the best in parkour, and he'll be limited in some capacity there. But in combat, he's a samurai and he's an explosive samurai.

And then the same, the opposite a little bit more, for Naoe, which is super speedy. And then she can hide a little bit everywhere. She's like a gymnast almost. She just jumps around. But if she faces multiple enemies, it's a little bit trickier for her, right? So we try to capture that sort of balance between both.

In the narrative they're very complementary, but they tell the story from two different sides so that's a little bit... The thing that we wanted is you to discover Japan, if you don't know too much about Japan, from somebody that's from the farmlands or somebody that's really in the rural side of Japan. And then Yasuke is a stranger, but that is in nobility. So you sort of see it from two sides and I think it complements them well working together. And yeah, they're quite lovable. Both of them are quite lovable.

ScreenRant: Did you always, from the beginning, have those two archetypes in mind, or did they evolve a lot over the course of development?

Jonathan Dumont: No, it evolved. It started very early in conception. We're trying to think about the protagonist and, of course, it was going to be a ninja, an assassin, it's going to be a ninja. But the more that we wanted to give complex combat or overpowering combat, the samurai fantasy started emerging quite a bit, and we're like, "all right, we didn't want to dilute the ninja." So we said, what if we had two characters? And then it started thinking about that.

We had experience doing this with the Syndicate where we had two protagonists with Evie and Jacob, but they played a little bit more similarly. Now it [comes] more from the gameplay and then [saying]: "okay, let's tell two stories, and who could they be, and how can they be different and what do they bring?"

In the case of Yasuke, when we read about who he was, he was a very intriguing character that not much was known about -"oh, that would make like a cool thing because we don't know what happened to him." And from Naoe, it was her father. The father of Naoe is an historical character. So she's a fictional daughter of a historical character. And not much is known also about the ninjas or the Shinobis of Iga. So I think these were great starting points to have, yes.

ScreenRant: And you mentioned how Syndicate also had a dual protagonist situation, but they were more similar. Were there any major lessons you feel like you learned from those dual protagonists that you carried with you into this?

Jonathan Dumont: I think here and there, there are things that will, some concepts that we have. I think trying to have them not too different voices [...] two sort of different archetypes and one needs to be fire, the other one is a little bit ice, a little bit, trying to get that into the game so that you can have some negative banter, but make them complementary. So that was something that we took a little bit more from Syndicate and moved into Shadows.

But from Syndicate, they were already twins that knew themselves all their lives, they knew each other all their lives, so they add more of a history. Here in Shadows, they learn to be together, but it's a tough time at war in Shadows, so they don't necessarily start off as friends. So that's building the relationship is I think it makes for a very interesting story, though.

ScreenRant: And I know with Shadows you can go through, I think you've said either like 80 or 90% of the game playing just as one of them if you want to. But I'm curious how much players will miss out on if they do that. And, as a sort of related question, if you have one you prefer to play as in the game?

Jonathan Dumont: I hate that question, pick your children, all right! Okay. So I don't think you're missing out on things too much. I think it's more on your preference to [say], "okay, I'll see how the game will adapt a little bit to the character if you choose one over the other." They get individual introductions and then they get their own questline also. So that one is, let's say Naoe, a personal questline cannot be played by Yasuke and those are two distinct things. But the core of the game can be pick your character and the game adapts.

So I guess you can switch for gameplay reasons, you can switch if you think that you like one of the other [protagonists] better, but I don't think you're missing out. That's more, all right, have fun with the game, just play it as you want. And there's going to be a couple of choices here and there that I wonder what happened, what would happen with this character, but I don't think you're missing out.

We're not imposing players try to split the time. So if you prefer one character for any reason, you can play maybe - I don't know, I'm not going to put a percentage - but quite a bit of the game using one of them. But if you want to balance it out. I play quite a bit balanced out and what happens is, I play with one for three, four, five hours, and then I switch, and then I just play two, three hours. Usually I play stealth and then I play, all right, let me destroy some camps and stuff all right for a while. And then I just change like that.

ScreenRant: Sort of blow off some steam.

Jonathan Dumont: I do like [how] both voices sound very different, in the sense that they look at the world a little bit differently. So I think it's interesting to switch more too.

ScreenRant: You said a lot about how the dual protagonists and the scope of the environment were difficult for this game. But I'm curious if there were any difficulties with it that you didn't necessarily expect going into it, that you found as you were going?

Jonathan Dumont: Into building the game? I think building a game that moves, has seasons and two protagonists is already pretty challenging! So that is quite a bit of a challenge. I think just trying to make the best credible world is already a challenge for everybody that's working on it. It's what we'd like to do [...] I think those are the two real challenges. We're trying to depict as much as possible a credible world and be respectful to that world, and then take the learning approach of things that you didn't know early that you learned as you were creating.

But that always will be the case when you build an open world. And then just having fun with our storyline in it. So I think there's always a challenge of mixing and matching two protagonists that they have different vibes, but tell sort of a similar story but not, so I think that's quite a bit [of] a challenge.