Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Claws of Awaji DLC Video Review
Assassin’s Creed expansions come in two flavors. Straightforward follow-ups that elaborate on the drama and intrigue of the main game, or completely bonkers flights of fancy that turn everything upside down by adding unicorns or dragging you to Asgard. Shadows expansion, Claws of AI, is firmly the former, almost to a fault. Now, I get some new combat tricks thanks to a whole new weapon type, and the general pace of exploration is made more hectic and tense as enemies are way more dangerous and way more motivated to bring the fight to you. But the land itself doesn’t feel much different than the rest of Japan, and the straightforward adventure is light on revelation and doesn’t make too great a case for its own existence. [Music] The story that carries our heroes off of the mainland and onto the island is much like that of the main game, filled with colorful characters and a shadowy group of conspirators that need to be brought down systematically. But it’s a simple and predictable tale on the whole. It does pick up the threads of now’s missing mother and the growing influence of the Templar Order in Japan. Yaske, this is my mother, Suyu. It is an honor. We will have time for a proper reunion later. But it doesn’t do much to tie those up in satisfying ways by the end. It also doesn’t make much of a case for seeing any more of this world. For all of Vajala’s faults, each expansion felt like it was introducing a new dimension to the greater world that Ivor and friends occupied. Claws ends and 16th century Japan doesn’t feel much bigger than it did 10 hours before it. Usually, I just charge in through the front gate, but I will keep this option in mind. Whichever route you choose, I wish you well. Aaji Island is just as beautiful as the rest of Japan, but it’s not so significantly different from the mainland that a person who hasn’t already spent 60 plus hours playing would be able to spot the difference at first glance. Unlike when Ivore went to Ireland and Bajala for instance, Aaji is a bit more mountainous which is more noticeable when having to navigate up and down the length of the map because of the significant lack of fast travel points throughout. And there are some visual gems hidden away like a dark swamp with creepy foliage or a big warship that’s under construction. But if you seen a mountain caked in winter snow earlier this year, this will look exactly like that. There’s more of the same kinds of side quests and activities you do on AA as well, which is good for gaining knowledge points to invest in the limited amount of new skills and upgrades available to Ni and Yasuke, but still pretty optional and ignorable otherwise. Side quests seem even more tucked away than the main game. Good day. What is all the fuss about? Days we’ve waited for the latest delivery of food crates to Ura. Impossible to find reliable help these days. I didn’t come across any of them organically and had to put extra effort into finding people with problems I can solve. Now it gets her hands on a new weapon in Claws of AI. a bow stack. Fashioned as a hybrid of a long range crow controller and a single target mixup machine. I found it to be much better at the latter than the former. This is mostly because of its novel stancebased attacks using high jabs to interrupt enemies and low sweep to take them off their feet and open them up to big reliable damage. On the off chance that I got into extended brawls as the shinobi, the bow was reliably my second slot choice. [Music] There are new skills for both Yasuke and Nawei as well, but I didn’t find them to be particularly spicy enough to unseat my triedand- trueue staples tested under dozens of hours of chopping and stabbing. Some new equipment is available to plunder from castles as well, but as it was in the base game, these aren’t really much of a carrot worth chasing, unless you really love having all the icons on the map cleared. The island of Aaji is thick with opportunities to put all of your skills and gear to the test. It’s dense with folks who at best don’t trust you or at worst would travel far and wide for a chance to kill you. I felt I was being hunted and conspired against much more than in the base game. Every horse trip longer than 100 meters left me exposed to road traps set by enemy ninja. City guards are much jumpier and more suspicious and will not hesitate to start a melee in the middle of the market to take you down. I liked how the general chaos of the island cleverly married with the main quest objectives to take down the three trusted taiish of the Templar leader in the region. For instance, those roadside ninja, they work for Noaki, a guntoing hunter that is terrorizing the region for sport. [Applause] Stopping to take them out instead of avoiding them gives you a chance to run their pockets for clues to where their master might be hiding. Those jumpy guards all answer to Tom Toaji, the beefy vanguard that enforces the order with an iron fist. I am Imagawa Tomi. You offer me the chance to avenge my lord K. He’s very conspicuous in his castle, surrounded by elite guard. But picking fights and causing general ruckus will compel him to send those guards out to stop you. When they don’t return on account of you retiring them early, he’s left more and more vulnerable for your inevitable siege. This one is no longer of use to you, Tomi. Using your scouts to track down objectives will put the search zone on high alert thanks to the third big on the island. A shadowy spy master of a thousand aliases. Even if you defeat Tomia Noaki, Yasuhira is a ghost. It’s a strange harmony that might have been obnoxious in the larger adventure, but is a welcome challenge when considering Claw’s relative brevity. None who see his face live to tell the tale. When the main quest missions come to crescendos that require the team to work together more directly, Claws of Aaji still splits the task between Yasuke and Nawei appropriately, leaving Yasuke to do much of the open combat and now to take stealth and assassination duty. The handful of new boss fights also do a good job playing into the pair’s individual strengths. Your legacy fades with you. Including a very cool stealth battle that kind of evokes Metal Gear Solid and demands all of Nawi’s skills to overcome. [Music] Assassin’s Creed Shadows brought some much needed promise and energy that the series was lacking. And the Claws of AI expansion doesn’t really move that needle much in either direction. It forgettable story and lack of new interest in side distraction don’t detract from how fun it is to ride through the tumultuous bad lands of the region using brute force and subtifuge to take down yet another dark cabal of evil doers. But it doesn’t make the strong case for the necessity of any more epilogues either. For more, check out the full Assassin’s Creed Shadows review and our review of Shinobi Art of Vengeance. And for everything else, stick with IG.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Claws of Awaji reviewed on PC by Jarrett Green. Also available on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.
“Assassin’s Creed Shadows brought some much needed promise and energy that the series was lacking, and the Claws of Awaji expansion doesn’t really move that needle much in either direction. Its forgettable story and lack of new interesting side distractions don’t detract from how fun it is to ride through the tumultuous badlands of the region using brute force and subterfuge to take down yet another dark cabal of evil doers. But it doesn’t make the strong case for the necessity of any more epilogues, either.”