How big will the Assassin's Creed Shadows map be?
Assassin's Creed Shadows takes us to Japan in the 16th century for the first time in the franchise's history, but just how big is the map going to be?
Highlights:
- Assassin's Creed Shadows will feature a large, open-world map to explore
- The Shadows map will be closest in scale to Origins
- There will be a much greater focus on realistic scale for things like castles and mountains
Are you curious about how big the Assassin's Creed Shadows map will be? It looks like Assassin's Creed Shadows will be the next mainline title in the franchise, following in the footsteps of games like Odyssey and Valhalla.
The map will be large and open, but considering the game seems to be taking some different approaches to the formula, just how big will it be? Let's discuss what we know so far.
The Shadows map will be big, but not the biggest
From an interview conducted by IGN, we know a few things about the AC Shadows map. According to Creative Director Jonathan Dumont, the map will be 'On a scale level, maybe we can compare it a little bit more to the size of Assassin's Creed Origins.'
Origins was set in Egypt and had a widely open map. The later games (Odyssey and Valhalla) certainly had bigger maps, but there may be a good reason for this reduction in square mileage.
Dumont goes on to clarify that the focus this time is on a more realistic scale. While the maps of the last few major AC games have been huge, they pale in comparison to their real-life counterparts.
Despite what Odyssey might have you believe, in reality, you cannot stand on a mountain in the middle of Greece and clearly view the western, eastern, and southern coasts of the country.
'We did want to have a much closer to real-life scale ratio. So because castles took a lot of space, and we really wanted the mountains to feel like mountains, [we've made] the environments feel wider in the game.'
It seems unlikely then that Shadows will feature a scaled-down replica of the entirety of Japan, but rather a more dense and realistically proportioned section of the country.
That is it for what we know about the size and scale of the Shadows map. For more, head to our Assassin's Creed homepage where we have all the info you need ahead of the new game's release, details on when it is set, all AC games in chronological order and our ranking of the best games in the series.
About The Author
Dave McAdam
Dave is a Senior Guides Writer at GGRecon, after several years of freelancing across the industry. He covers a wide range of games, with particular focus on shooters like Destiny 2, RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, and fighting games like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8.
