Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a secret weapon that completely breaks the game
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a weapon that breaks the whole idea of being a ninja, and thus the entire point of the game. With it, you can turn Naoe into an unkillable brawler that would make Yasuke hang up his sword. It’s so powerful that I’m pretty sure Ubisoft will remove it in a patch, so you should take advantage of it as soon as you can.
The best part? You can grab this weapon in Izumi Settsu, the very first region the game starts you off in (shout-out to YouTube user JorRaptor for highlighting it). A little north of your hideout, there’s a small camp called Tozuku’s Lair. The viewpoint in the Katano Foothills is nearby if you already have that unlocked. The camp has a few enemies to clear out first, and then you can loot the chest for a legendary tanto called Igan Sunset.
Don’t worry about the stats on the Igan Sunset, just look at that legendary perk engraved on it. Whenever you use the unique Escape Strike tanto ability, time will slow to a crawl. It might not sound very useful, but trust me when I say it might ruin the game for you.
To use the Escape Strike ability, you need to unlock it on the tanto skill tree. The only problem is that it’s only available on the second tier of unlocks, which requires you to gather up enough knowledge points first. Hit up the orange icons (often hidden behind white question marks) on your map to collect these. I’d aim for simple ones like Shrines, Temples, and Kofun to save yourself some time. When you have enough, use two mastery points to unlock Leap Strike, and one mastery point to unlock Escape Strike.
Congratulations, you’re now effectively immortal. When you enter combat with your tanto out, you can hold R1 or R2 (right bumper or right trigger on Xbox) and press circle (B on Xbox) to dodge backwards and trigger slow-mo. If an enemy tries to attack you, you can simply step out of the way and do another Escape Strike. And because you can also Leap Strike — which requires the same button combination while you hold your analog stick in a direction — you can freely ping-pong between enemies until they’re dead.
I’m pretty sure if the Assassins knew about this technique, their long war with the Templars would’ve been over quick. Be warned, though: Those cursed with this knowledge will find it really hard to patiently sneak around as Naoe when you know you can’t be touched in a fight. I haven’t finished the game, but I have yet to find anything that can actually hurt me during it. Just be sure to upgrade your hideout’s Forge so you can engrave the Igan Sunset’s perk onto better tantos.
This is the kind of tactic I’d probably recommend avoiding until you’re ready to fully trivialize the whole game, or if you really like playing Yasuke as the primary brawler of the two. Part of the fun of playing Naoe is methodically clearing out a camp until only the big enemies remain and you can pounce on them from the shadows. I’ve only brought out the tanto when things go awry, but I won’t judge you for wanting to speed up Naoe’s revenge story with a little time magic.
