One of Assassin’s Creed Shadows most known and advertised features is the dual protagonist. At almost any point in the game, the player can freely choose female shinobi Naoe and male Portugue samurai Yasuke, being able to tackle most of the game’s content with whoever they prefer. At the beginning, however, Naoe takes front and center, and it’s unclear when the character switch becomes available. So, let’s find out when can you switch from Naoe to Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows – we’ll avoid spoilers, promise!
After the game’s opening, which introduces both of the playable protagonists in a handful of flashbacks and a particularly intense confrontation, the player takes the role of Naoe. She’s a skilled but ultimately quite inexperienced shinobi, whose whole existence is put into disarray after her clan is confronted by the troops of warlord Oda Nobunaga.
Without revealing any of the story beats that follow, you will certainly notice how you can’t immediately switch to Yasuke at this point – despite having used the character for a couple scenes in the opening sequence already. The reason is simple – for plot reasons, the player has to follow a certain set of events with Naoe first, with the samurai Yasuke only joining the picture at a later time. But when can you switch from Naoe to Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Even if you laser focus on the story missions, and ignore on the now available massive open world of the game, chances are it’ll take you a couple hours to get to that point. To be a bit more precise, one story mission will tie to Oda Nobunaga himself – a mission which also signals the end of Act 1 of the game. Shortly after this, in Act 2, the player finally gets the agency so much desired: being able to switch between Naoe and Yasuke on the fly. From this point onwards, aside from a couple missions which require a specific character, the player can use whichever warrior to suit their needs. With Naoe being more stealth-focused and Yasuke being the brute force, both have their unmissable strengths!
Which character are you looking forward to play with the most? Or, if you played Assassin’s Creed Shadows already – did you prefer Naoe or Yasuke? Let us know in the comments below, or hit us up on our forums, on social media, over at YouTube and so forth!
