Assassin's Creed Shadows: Here's How Mastery And Knowledge Works

Assassin's Creed Shadows will feature a progression loop that allows players to fine-tune the skills of protagonists Naoe and Yasuke, while also ensuring that no character is left behind thanks to shared progression systems. Ubisoft says its goal for the game was to stay as close as possible to the philosophies of mastery and martial arts, as players will be able to focus on investing points in the Mastery skill-trees and gaining ranks in Knowledge.

Mastery features a traditional gameplay system of earning experience points by leveling up your character through the normal course of play, eliminating targets, and defeating unique enemies like samurai Daisho who lurk inside fortified castles. By earning enough points, players can expand their skills by learning new combo attacks, increasing their proficiency with weapons, and by unlocking new abilities. Yasuke will gain new samurai abilities, while Naoe will gain new stealth-focused skills that will turn her into a lethal assassin.

What's important to note here is that Naoe and Yasuke share their progression, so if you focus on playing as one character specifically, the other won't be under-leveled when you decide to tag out. "With the unique Mastery trees, we want to give players the freedom to dedicate themselves into a specific weapon, playstyle, or archetype, and ensure they can deepen their mastery of it," associate game director Julien explained in a blog post. "The points you invest in a Mastery tree also unlock additional bonuses for that weapon or archetype, further reinforcing your progress."

Mastery essentially allows you to specialize the direction in which a character grows, but if you ever get tired of the archetype you've developed, these builds can be reset at any time and you can funnel the refunded points into different skills to change up your playstyle.

When it comes to Knowledge, this can be upgraded by exploring the world around you through non-violent activities. The higher your rank, the better the upgrades you'll unlock for Yasuke and Naoe. Some of the activities you can take part in include finding Lost Pages in temples, praying at shrines, doing some Kuji-kiri Meditation for Naoe, or learning new Kata for Yasuke. Any Knowledge gained by one character will be shared with the other, letting both of the Shadows leads benefit from the exploration done by their counterparts.

After a few delays, Assassin's Creed Shadows will officially launch for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on March 20. If you're looking to avoid spoilers, you might want to steer clear of social media as physical copies of the game have made it into the wild and several people are posting spoilers online.