‘Assassin’s Creed: Shadows’ is an open-world action game set in feudal Japan. Players take on the roles of Naoe, a lethal shinobi, and Yasuke, a formidable African samurai, as they navigate the treacherous landscape of warring clans during the Sengoku era.
The game is rated M18 for violence and sexual references.
Played from a third-person perspective, players can alternate between Yasuke, and Naoe, as they progress through different missions across an open world environment. Both characters are equipped with their own unique abilities, weapons and combat playstyles. When faced with enemies, players can wield a range of weapons including katanas, kanabō war clubs, yari spears, shuriken, kunai, and scythes to eliminate them. Players can also shoot at explosives to trigger an explosion to take out nearby enemies. Each weapon has its own skill tree for player progression. The game also features a spy network system where players can gather intelligence and bribe officials.
The game contains frequent depictions of violence with blood effects. During combat, successful strikes on enemies will result in blood splatter to occur and stain their clothing in the process. A pool of blood will also form beneath slain enemies. While controlling Yasuke, players can use certain weapons to dismember and decapitate enemies, accompanied by blood effects. Stealth assassination sequences frequently show characters being stabbed in the neck or torso. Violence is also depicted in cutscenes. One of the stronger scenes depicts a man’s severed head rolling on the ground after an implied decapitation, with blood spurting from the neck stump. Other cutscenes depict characters being shot or stabbed in the body and head. Players will also encounter bloody environments with corpses strewn on the ground lying in blood pools. The M18 Classification guidelines permit “depictions of realistic violence, such as killing, maiming or causing other serious injury to humanoid characters.”
Through selecting certain dialogue responses, players can optionally develop romantic relationships between the protagonists with other characters, including those of the same sex. This may culminate in intimacy where the pair is shown caressing and/or kissing before the screen fades to black. This is permitted under the M18 guidelines, which allow “some homosexual content, if discreet in treatment and not gratuitous” and “depictions of same-sex kissing and hugging.”