Assassin’s Creed Shadows improves on one of the series’ best features

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the latest Assassin’s Creed game to take place in a vast, beautiful world — so large that it can be overwhelming. For grand open-world RPGs like this, making sure the map screen is legible and pleasant to look at is a must. But just as important in a game this sprawling is the objectives screen, where you keep track of the main story tasks and the dozens of side quests that become available as you talk to NPCs and explore playable areas. Shadows’ objectives menus is one of my favorites so far: It continues on the franchise’s recent iterations on quest maps, creating one that’s easy to navigate and that helps me feel more connected to the game’s world and story.

Shadows’ objectives screen is an improvement on an idea the franchise toyed with and expanded on in Odyssey, Valhalla, and Mirage: It’s laid out a bit like a family tree, with different areas of the screen representing different quest groupings, areas of the world, and people you’re helping. 

While many games use a hidden branching objective system (where you have to complete one or multiple tasks before getting to the real one), Shadows shows it, being upfront about most tasks taking multiple steps. Because every task is laid out with a visual connection to a person or region, it’s a far better representation of how far you are in the game than the usual approach of a list of greyed-out tasks you’ve completed.

And because different areas of the objectives screen portray different parts of the game or its world, as you progress, it reflects your own priorities and what you’ve spent your time on in a way I haven’t really seen before in a game. Tasks are sorted by what they’re relevant to, not the skill level required to complete the task. In my file, I prioritized assassination missions, which have are many options. So I have a lot more red Xs on my objective screen than some of my coworkers who’ve spent similar amounts of time in the game, but focused their attention elsewhere.

I bounced off of Valhalla and didn’t try Odyssey or Mirage, so Shadows is my first open-world RPG with an objective screen laid out like this. I’ve really taken to it: It looks cool and not overcrowded, but it also makes me feel more connected to the world and my role in it as a player, because my tasks aren’t faceless to-do lists in a nondescript menu. I am doing the things I’m doing in Shadows for someone specific, or to get to someone specific.

My coworkers who have played more of the recent releases in the franchise agree that Shadows’ version of this screen is the most polished yet. There are some tired RPG mechanics in Shadows’ beautiful world, but the franchise keeps killing it with new ways to display your objectives. And it all makes your actions as a player truly feel like they’re making a difference in the game.