Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ expert difficulty looks like the best way to play since it does way more than just dial up enemy HP bars

I’m almost definitely playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows on expert difficulty and it’s because the game doesn’t simply turn every enemy into damage sponges.

One of my favorite things in games is when harder difficulties don’t simply buff enemy stats and call it a day. In Halo, aliens will begin to flank you and dodge bullets and turn into geniuses on higher difficulties. And that line of thinking is being carried over to Assassin’s Creed Shadows as enemies will develop some brain power and remember to, err, look up every once in a while.

In gameplay shared by JorRaptor, Assassin’s Creed Shadows gives you difficulty settings for stealth and combat alongside a toggle for instant assassinations. What’s most interesting is that “even roofs are not safe” on expert difficulty.

While you can stealth atop rooftops and wall sides on normal without a problem, dialling up the difficulty means you’ll need to take slightly less conventional routes since enemies will spot you up there. You’ll instead need to go prone often and take advantage of the cover of architecture to avoid enemy eyesight. The rest of JorRaptor’s stealth showcase almost reminds me of the sneaking you’d need to go through in Splinter Cell rather than your traditional AssCreed’s.

Ubisoft is dead set on accommodating players on both sides of the action/stealth spectrum as the publisher recently released a video showing Yasuke smashing dudes with a huge club instead of trying to sneak around. You can still be a badass, blades-blazing Naoe or a slightly quieter Yasuke, though.

Here’s the full Assassin’s Creed Shadows roadmap with DLC and future content.