I rate Assassin's Creed: Shadows as one of top games of the franchise.
In fact so much so that I'd rate it over all of the other RPG Assassin's Creed games [Origins, Odyssey & Valhalla].

That being said, I do have some gripes that I will list, being as spoiler free as possible.
These points are all assuming that you're not playing in the more linear assisted or canon modes.
I am also aware that some of these are due to the way I play, however I do know for a fact I'm not the only person who plays in this way.

- The game is *extremely* open. This can at times be to it's detriment. For example, you can randomly come across characters that are hostile, but not know why. Upon defeating them you are prompted in your objective tree that they are part of an unknown organisation. That's all well and good, however the game never informs you how to find out more about said organisation, meaning you can end up killing an entire group of people, find out who they were after, and possibly discover that you could have spared some of them or followed different story threads other than "kill, kill, kill".

- Having to use scouts to find your objective or person to talk to is a fun mechanic... until it's not, which happens very quickly. Again, this is another thing that wouldn't be an issue in the assisted mode where the game slightly pushes you where to go, but ffs, having to do that map scan crap in a location every time you want to find an objective is objectively awful. It was also far too easy to accidentally switch mission lines because the game just did not auto-select the next mission in the line I was currently doing. Found myself lost in terms of story on more than one occasion.

- Another point about the map being open, the Kata & Kuji-Kiri should not be available until the flashback missions introducing them have been completed. Once again trying to remain spoiler free here, but I'm the kind of gamer who likes to do as much side content as it comes up because I won't go back to it if I blast the main story past it. Kata & Kuji-Kiri are side minigames for Yasuke & Naoe respectively that exist solely to progress their skill trees. However, I did not get to the side missions for Yasuke's backstory / flashbacks until 60 hours into this game [granted it is available much earlier but it was in the last part of the map I explored]. Kata is introduced as a brand new thing in one of these missions, despite the fact I had done nearly 20 of the things.

- Leading me to my next point, the Kuji-Kiri for Naoe should actually have been reserved for much later in the main story. Where the Kata for Yasuke is training forms with weapons, the Kuji-Kiri for Naoe seem much more emotional & deep from a story perspective, where she herself seems to be gaining perspective & finding her calm centre. This is fine, except for the fact that once again, I did all of these before progressing the main story. Then when it came to the main story she was back to being very angry & vengeful out of nowhere, with Yasuke being her calming counterpart. I actually like this dynamic between the two of them, but with having done the Kuji-Kiri before the main story it very much felt like a character regression for Naoe.

Finally some quickfire bits;
- All romance options seemed very hollow & unearned.
- I did not use the league companion assistance in combat once throughout 95 hours of gameplay.
- Finisher / assassination animations are *extremely* lacking in variation.
- Too many "kill x amount of y enemy type" missions. One in particular in Harima is a freaking chore. If you know, you know.
- The ending of the story was quite abrupt & unsatisfying, despite feeling like it was just getting really... *really* juicy & engaging. That being said, it very much seems like the DLC will have a proper conclusion, just sucks that is behind a paywall.

With all of that being said, there is loads to love about this game;
- The hideout customising is really nice. It's not too complex but it's detailed enough to make it feel your own.
- The dynamic between Yasuke & Naoe is actually fantastically executed in my opinion, they genuinely seem like strangers turned allies turned friends.
- The weapons & gear systems are like the hideout, detailed but no so intricate that it's off-putting.
- Transmog from the beginning for weapons & gear [THANK YOU UBI].
- Weapon variety for Yasuke is very nice, slightly more limited for Naoe but it has been confirmed that more are coming.
- The gameplay differences between Naoe & Yasuke are so significant it actually feels worthwhile using both for different scenarios.
- The stealth & parkour for Naoe are brilliant. Perhaps not Unity levels of good, but definitely *really* good.
- Skill trees & abilities are detailed, varied & honestly, pretty damn sick to use.
- Store items are very cool looking & fantastical, but absolutely unobtrusive & not required to be interacted with at all.
- The map is freaking *GORGEOUS* & detailed at every turn. I found myself just having to look around at points.
- Main story [if done in the proper order] is actually quite good & engaging.
- It's pretty awesome that free story drops are coming out semi-regularly.
- From speaking with friends who have also played, it is entirely possible to experience the same story in different ways. I can't explain what that means without spoiling but it's *really* cool.

The TL;DR of this review;
- Do I recommend playing AC: Shadows?
-- Yes, but with the Assisted Story & Canon Modes turned ON. I feel the game functions better as a linear story with open world elements rather than a full RPG. The way Assassin's Creed as a franchise has always worked better, so it's genuinely great that this option is available to us as players.

Let me preface this review by stating, I am running this game on;
- i9-12900KS
- Nvidia RTX 3090
- 32GB 5600MHz DDR5 RAM
- Samsung 980 Pro NVME SSD

With those specs, maxed settings at 1440p with DLSS set to Quality, I am averaging 72FPS, with lows down to 50fps. However, even when it dips, I have no noticeable jutter or loss of input latency. That being said, I can absolutely see a vast majority of users being unable to run this game well.

First & foremost, I see a lot of people complaining about the dialogue.
I very much enjoy the dynamic between Frey & Cuff.
Is it groundbreaking insightful stuff? No.
Is it interesting and funny? I'd argue yes.
Perhaps it's a bit frequent, but you can literally adjust the frequency of that dialogue to important story moments only, so it's a non-issue. It's also nowhere near as badly written as people on Twitter posting clips would have you believe. In the context of what's happening, those scenes work. Quite well actually.

The gameplay is solid & very, very fun.
Parkour while blasting creatures with spells that you can mix & match is awesome.
Being able to switch the Support, Offensive and Ultimate spells on the fly is also amazing.
The UI is one of the few in modern games that isn't a pain the butt to navigate & is actually quite intutive.
I also very much like the XP trees for spells & the crafting, upgrade & augment systems. You can customise your gameplay experience regardless of the pre-defined main character, which in my opinion is an impressive feat.

Visually, beautiful.
Pretty much sums it up. Hard to run, sure, but at least I can see why.
So many AAA titles coming out are just poorly optimised for no reason & run like absolute garbage.
At least this game is graphically beautiful, with particle effects everywhere to boot, explaining the requirements.
Could it be optimised better? Maybe, I'm not a dev. But the latest updates for the Witcher 3 have that game looking visually on par, but running worse than this one on my machine, yet I see very few complaints in that regard for that game.

I still have much of the open world to explore & I've seen a lot of complaints stating the world is empty.
My only response to that is, that's kind of the point.
The main story states there's a corruption killing literally everything. So, yeah. Empty, bar the corrupted enemies wanting to kill you.
The traversal again makes this a non-issue. You can travel so fast that it doesn't really matter. You can get to the events & encounters quickly regardless.

My opinion may change the more I play & see how repetitive [or not] the gameplay loop is. If it does, I will edit this review.
Despite that, my opinion on how visually impressive Forspoken is probably won't change, nor will my opinion on the UI/UX & trees.

Am I happy that this game is 70 quid on PC? No.
Am I happy with my purchase anyway? Yes.

Do your own research, but at the end of the day, the only limiting factor I see keeping this game from reaching a mainstream adoption, are the heavy specs needed to run it. It's a good game & does not deserve all the s**tposting hate it's getting on social media & in this review section.