“We all played Valhalla,” game director Charles Benoit tells me.

It’s thematic of the story to have this group and these reunited people and make a family again.

So it felt good with the Hideout as a place [to] reconstruct your own community."

Naoe pets a black and white cat in the Hideout of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

“It’s all real-time,” creative director Jonathan Dumont says.

“Everything happens there and you just go back right into it.”

And as I walked around my newly-planted zen garden, an idea struck - what this placereallyneeded was cats.

Cover image for YouTube video

Lots and lots of cats.

“I think this is really a reflection of how different they are as people,” Davies says.

This article is based on a press event in Quebec, for which Ubisoft covered travel and accomodation.

A top down view of the building mode in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, where the player is placing a Tera building.

A study is being constructed in the building mode of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

An engawa corridor is being constructed between two buildings in the Hideout building mode of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Cats are being placed on a cobblestone path in the building mode of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A female shinobi pets a kitten’s belly in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A female shinobi pets a cat in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A female shinobi pets a tanuki pup in long grass in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Wall options for a building in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A shinto shrine with sakura trees is being placed on a grassy village plain in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A female shinobi walks up to a red torii gate and shinto shrine in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A large scarecrow is placed in Assassin’s Creed Shadows' hideout

A female shinobi walks up to a large scarecrow in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A top down view of a building as the player decides what decoration sets to use in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Naoe enters a dojo in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

A sumi-e scroll of a heron from Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Yaya talks about her husband in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Yasuke talks to Tomiko about skewered heads in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

The Allies menu screen from Assassin’s Creed Shadows