Yesterday, ahead of launch, I wanted to flag the fact that Assassin’s Creed Shadows doesn’t require any prior knowledge of the series – story-wise, it’s basically standalone. Now the game has been released, there’s just one more thing I wanted to call out, so your playthrough goes as smoothly as possible.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ hideout is a fun thing to customise, but it wasn’t until mid-way through the game that I really looked into its upgrades – and they’re really useful. Perhaps I was just being unobservant, but you are rarely forced back to the hideout – unlike in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – so these are more easily missed.
At first, I assumed upgrading the hideout just meant unlocking some fancier-looking buildings. But no, doing this also gives you some crucial perks to improve your in-game quality of life.
What’s the best hideout building to upgrade? That would be the Study, which has perks relating to your Scouts. As I mentioned in our Assassin’s Creed Shadows review, one of the game’s biggest changes to the series’ formula is how you’re meant to work out where you’re going for yourself, based on clues and a search radius uncovered by map pings.