Ubisoft has made a huge move lately by releasing Title Update 1.1.4 for Assassin’s Creed Shadows with loads of new content for the players to enjoy. The update brings Corrupted Castles, an Advanced Parkour Update, and some high-end Gold Weapons, among the crazy new additions. It is like the next episode in the saga of the tricks that keep drawing gamers back to the medieval Japan setting.
So what are we waiting for? Let’s dive into the patch notes and see what has been added.
The first astonishing thing is Corrupted Castles. The description of these places makes them sound as if they were the same castles as the ones from before but in the end, they are nothing like the ones before; corrupted means completely different, not just changed. Immediately, the players showed their interest and one of them, Nicholas Blake even pinpointed the question by saying: “what is the corrupted castles about?”. This is really an initial step to the query. In their tweet, the official account did not give any extra information apart from the castle emoji and the name on the post. But mixed with the players’ comments it seems very likely that these are the modifications of the castles that you have already conquered where the most exciting and the most challenging come back again were offered to the players as new quests along with reasons to revisit the places.
Some of the players asked how they could find out where these corrupted places are located on the map. One of the players posed a question: “Where are the Corrupted Castles?”. The response from the Assassin’s Creed account was, “From the top of Oda Keep in Omi!” So, if you want to get in on the action straight away, there’s your starting point.
Next up is the Advanced Parkour Update. Parkour has always been the most important aspect of Assassin’s Creed and it seems that they are still working toward a better experience in Shadows. The question of how exactly “advanced” is not even mentioned at all in the patch notes, but the gamers say that they have experienced smoother motions along with better routes. The ability to climb, run across, and down mountains is indeed a nice area of improvement in a game where you spend a lot of time on rooftops.
A new series of Golden Weapons can be said to be basically a new kind of bling to the players’ armory. Why not imagine such a luxurious gold blade? The players are not sure about it, but they believe that it is nothing but a cosmetic change, still, it does give the players something new or rather different to chase if they are the type of person who is into that sort of thing.
However, player reactions to this situation now make it quite interesting. The timing of the updates is not a reason for everybody to be equally excited. LoveYAHUAH216 commented: “Couldn’t the game have just been delayed a full year? Instead of all these updates months after people have completed the game.” That hurts. It seems that feeling has been in the gaming community for years – the “should’ve waited for the complete edition” argument.
But right after that, Osmar Graner brings us to the proper context with his comment: “Ubisoft keeps teaching the gaming community that we should always buy their games a year after release – you get the entire game + updates for less money.” He cannot be more right. Patience in gaming is a strategy that has never been more relevant.
On the other hand, some players are experiencing technical problems. A user named Ares251 noted: “after the update on Xbox series x, I couldn’t launch the game.” Tough luck, especially if you are very much interested in the new content but cannot even get into the game. Other gamers also complained about a performance drop and SkeletonFake commented in Spanish that they used to get 80 fps with frame generation but now they can only get up to 40 fps. It is always very disappointing when updates cause performance issues.
And then the argument about the reward system comes up. RONIN__999 commented: “You should make killing the new Corrupted Samurai Daisho award a skill point each like it is with the regular Daisho. It would be worth doing it. Random purple gear isn’t attractive.” That raising of concern is very valid, the game if just added new challenging content the rewards better be meaningful or otherwise they are just going to waste.
A number of players were very curious about the option to entirely disable the Corrupted Castle features. CasteloPZ just asked, “Can I disable the corrupted castle features?” That is in fact a pretty interesting question – aren’t the gamers have to say the content can be switched on and off just like they want? Maybe they are quite happy just with the game as it was and do not want to face new challenges in their already-completed world.
The patch also comes with six new achievements linked to the Awaji expansion.
