Assassin's Creed Shadows has a long legacy to live up to, both in of matching past heights and avoiding past pitfalls, but one area that should be set for success is the art direction. With a consistent breadth of historical detail on display, even the weakest games in the series are full of eye candy. Of course, every setting brings some new challenges, and Assassin's Creed Shadows is complicating affairs by trying out some major new tech on top of everything else.

Taking the franchise to the long-awaited setting of feudal Japan, Assassin's Creed Shadows deploys a new weather system called Atmos and new opportunities for both stealth and destruction that involve features of the surrounding world. While nothing is a major break from the standard franchise style, there's a lot that catches the eye. At a preview event in Ubisoft Quebec, Screen Rant sat down with Assassin's Creed Shadows art director Thierry Dansereau to discuss some of these opportunities and hurdles, from reconstructing landmarks that no longer exist to wrangling the transitions between weather states.

Redefining Weather In Assassin's Creed Shadows

New Technology & Major Opportunities

Screen Rant: One of the biggest leaps that Assassin's Creed Shadows makes is the attentiveness to weather and the ways in which the fauna reacts to that. Was the process of crafting a world where the visual element changes so much depending on, what was happening in it, what the season was, all of those elements?

Thierry Dansereau: Yes. Well, it all started when we started this project almost four years ago, when we learned that the game would be new gen only. And also the fact that it was Assassin's Creed set in feudal Japan, the long-awaited setting, it was for us an occasion that we could not miss, and we knew that we needed to do something special, and we asked ourselves how can we push it further.

Something that, you know, came with the level of immersion and we said, okay, how can we bring that up a few notches? And at some point, one of our guys did a test with the Sakura trees, where we could see the leaf growing and then getting to maturity falling down in autumn and then going dry up in winter. And then when we saw that there was a huge level of excitement raised among the team that was there back then and we said, okay, we want to have dynamic seasons. And the setting was complying with that because there's four seasons in Japan as well. So it started from there.

And then we asked ourselves [...] how can we push the level of immersion where the world has an impact not only visually, but also on your gameplay? So we started to try to link all those nodes to make sure that all of our systems would have an impact. And then add to that that we wanted, okay, how can we renew the stealth experience? And how can renew the melee experience as well? So this is where also it was introduced to do a protagonist idea. So all of these ideas were born very early on, and this is where it all started.

And then we have our programmer team, which is very close to the core team, and we were fortunate enough also because it's Anvil pipeline and all those programmers. Assassin's Creed was one of the top priority projects, so we had the full of that programming team. So it appears to be possible. So I would say this is the starting point of all of this.

Screen Rant: One detail that really stood out to me was the way that after a rainfall there's still a little bit of water falling off the roof, running off. There's that transitional stage. Does every change in weather come with those kinds of transitional elements?

Thierry Dansereau: Yeah, for most of them, yeah, especially when it's related to rain. On that aspect, some of our tech people developed what they call Atmos, and it's all very meteorologic systems that are created with humidity maps, so it's very, like, technical ways to create clouds and stuff.

It was a fun system at first, but then I soon realized that it took too much time to change transitions, and when you're making a video game, you need to have things happen a bit faster. So this is why we started to think of weather states. Those are states where the right inputs are put in place so we could trigger almost on the go — it takes a few seconds to load it — but like light rain, heavy rain, thunderstorm, before storm, misty, foggy area. So we have 19 of them, which are triggered either by quests, but also they appear systemically in the world. So it all goes with thematization at some point because it's a video game.

It's a huge open world. We need to make sure that the player will see and feel a difference while he's traveling into this world. So, the seasons are super cool, but it takes time before you'll be changing seasons. So you could have a long session, let's say in summer, and if you're not teleporting or go through loading, you'll stick in, let's say, in summer, and so you can travel quite a lot.

The other art lever that we use is that we added probability, weather stability per provinces, according to the knowledge we've gathered on Japan. So for an example, Iga. The birthplace of the Shinobi. We know it's a valley, very humid, lots of rain, lots of fog, so there's a higher probability that these weather states will be triggered there, as opposed to Setsu — you saw Osaka, it's open air — mostly maybe big clouds, maybe a bit less rain.

So all of these probabilities and systems add up. They were made to create a characterization of each of our provinces, so the player could at least notice that.

Laying Out The World Of Assassin's Creed Shadows

Where Art & Level Design Meet

Screen Rant: How do you figure out what the lay of the land looked like at this point in history? What's the intersection between how much historical texts and precedent might offer about where you would find a rice paddy or a quarry or fully forested land, and where you might have to start guessing?

Thierry Dansereau: Ah. There's a scale ratio issue. So even though we have the biggest scale ratio since the open-world formula because we had an issue —the Japan landscape is filled with mountains, and if you try to cover too much, the mountain will look like hills as soon as you put trees on them. So we needed to have a scale that's more realistic. So because we wanted to feel mountains, like, it feels like mountains. And then there's tons of historical data. You'd be surprised how much the Japanese, and every society for that matter, keep track of their history.

But then there's those in-between areas. So, we know where the main cities are, the temples and shrines, especially that are still there nowadays, for most of them. Of course, there's the destroyed castle that we've rebuilt based on historical plans. So we have information about, you know, okay, this region was renowned for soy plantations. Rice is pretty much all over Japan. This one is mostly tea because we know that they were big on tea and commerce. So we have information like that, but then in between, say, there's a leeway where we do take our creative freedom.

And we use those in between also to stage our world. So, you know, how do we stage up a point of view. So the road will open up, and then now, okay, I see Osaka in front of me. We do a lot of these when we're making our open world. Make sure that we stage every location.

You mentioned this is the biggest scale ratio of any of the games. Do you have a rough number for that?

Thierry Dansereau: Yeah, I used to it. I can give you the number afterward if you want. At some point we did mention it, but now I’m old, so I forgot about it.

Screen Rant confirmed through a PR representative that the overall scale ratio of the map is "approximately around 1:16. 250/260 km for 15km."

Screen Rant: The presentation earlier discussed the level of detail going into things like the wood and varnish for constructions. Is it painful at all to perfect a door and then have Yasuke just smash through it in the game?

Thierry Dansereau: No, not at all. Not at all. In fact, it adds to, that was part of our dynamism. Being able to interact with props, breaking doors, shutting down lights, cutting bamboo and, you know, stuff like that.

This is what we wanted. We wanted our players to feel grounded. And being able to interact and cast shadows, you know. This is a great benefit of having RTGI also, you know, when you shut down lights, the whole room reacts to the new state. So it's all part of the intended goal, I would say.

Screen Rant: The effect of lighting on stealth in this makes for an interesting intersection of art design and gameplay-oriented level design. How would decisions on setting up the lighting for an area happen?

Thierry Dansereau: Yeah, but these are, you know, the black box for most of them. So, you know, castle, military fortress, you know, they are considered as black box or gameplay area, so most of the time it's led mostly by level designers that have to make sure that gameplay-wise, the setup is functional.

And then there are always level artists involved as well to make sure that the lighting then feels credible. So there's a lot of back and forth and trial and error, making sure the setup feels right when we're doing something.

A Tapestry Of Artistic Inclusions & Influences

Color, Consultants, & Kurosawa

Screen Rant: Art, in the very literal sense, has a significant presence in the game. You can decorate with options like the sumi-e, which Naoe and Yasuke can paint in the wild. What other forms of historical Japanese and East Asian art could players expect to see in this?

Thierry Dansereau: Oh, there's the Noh theatre as well. So there are a couple of Noh theatres where you could see actually a piece played in front of your eyes.

Then there's going to be, I don't want to spoil too much, but there are many things related to art because the end of our time period, it's just before the Edo period where art really emerged in Japan. But that's because, you know, Samurais ceased to do war and then tended to specialize in other things. So we do try to cover a lot of topics when it comes to art in Japan.

Screen Rant: When creating a game about shinobi and samurai, does the visual language of jidaigeki films by Kurosawa and things like that have a significant influence on the game?

Thierry Dansereau: Yes to some extent, because we watch a lot of movies as well. You know, Sekigahara, Kagemusha, or Ran as well, were movies that we looked a lot at because we thought that they were true to the depiction of the time period of back then. We went also with museum databases. We visited some museums. It's easy also to find them online as well.

And we work with also a lot of experts and, you know, renowned experts. We worked with the biggest castle specialist of Japan, so we visited sites with him, and so he was explaining when that got done and what is the meaning of this. Of course, there's a lot of data and content to gather and process but we try our best to create a credible genre.

Screen Rant: The color feels very striking in this game. It's not the first Assassin's Creed game to be very colorful, but it is very colorful, especially if you compare it to how desaturated the first couple of games were comparatively. Were there any particularly interesting opportunities when it comes to color in the game?

Thierry Dansereau: Me, I would say personally it comes from the lessons learned on the making of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. We saw, even on Reddit and channels like that, players feel great when there's colors. And you love to be in a world that's worth saving. So you want to spend time where you feel great.

And to be honest, it's all there, it was in front of our eyes when we visited Japan and even when we're looking at references. When you think of Japan, you think of spring, the blossom tree, you think of autumn in Kyoto with all the reds all over the place, the painting on the architecture as well. So color is there, but we've just slightly pushed it, even in grading when it comes to season, so we slightly enhanced some colors depending on the season we're in.

Screen Rant: The photo mode wasn't available in the preview session, but what opportunities can players expect from the photo mode? Is it essentially on the same page as recent games?

Thierry Dansereau: Yeah, that's been revamped, but you could expect the same features that were presented in the latest game, and I guess many small improvements will be made along the way.

Screen Rant: Are there any ways in which Yasuke's armor and his weaponry were adapted for his unique cultural position, or do they mostly stick to tradition with a bit of Assassin's Creed flair?

Thierry Dansereau: Yeah, we do try to stick to tradition a lot, even for Naoe's outfit, especially the ones that are given in the game.

Then there's the MTX and all that stuff that's coming in where we do allow ourselves to be a bit more on the fantasy side. So you can expect, later on, outfits that could be a bit more on the fantasy side. But we do try to stay true to the time period and also the outfits that were used during our time period.

Living & Breathing Japan For Assassin's Creed Shadows

Bringing The Setting Across The Finish Line

Screen Rant: The delays for this game are seemingly focused on general quality assurance, but have the past few months of continued development had any new opportunities when it comes to the art direction?

Thierry Dansereau: By its polish. It's an occasion for us to take any occasion that we have, because I think our job is to push, push, push until we're pushed away. And that's how we do our job, so it's okay to always want to do more. So we’ve taken that occasion to try to polish as much as we can to have the better experience.

Screen Rant: Himeji Castle is one very iconic landmark here. Were there any others of a similar scale where it was like, this is something that we've really got to do justice to?

Thierry Dansereau: Oh yeah, yeah, but most castles actually are made from historical plans. So of course, there's a size scale issue. There's something that has been like, let's find some we can do as big as they were. But the footprint is very close to knowing these shapes and how it was back then.

Screen Rant: Are there any locations in the game that you think players might find especially surprising?

Thierry Dansereau: Yeah, but there's one — and it's been mentioned, so it's not a spoiler — we've rebuilt the Azuchi Castle. So, the Azuchi Castle gave its name to the time period, which is the Azuchi-Momoyama. The Azuchi Castle was built by Oda Nobunaga close to Lake Biwa in Ōmi. It’s considered one of the Japanese marvels that's been destroyed, so it's no longer there. We visited the museum when we were there.

So I think that's a nice feature to be able to visit and play in such an iconic castle. I think many players that are a bit knowledgeable about history will be super interested to go and visit this place.

Screen Rant: Are there any settings that Assassin's Creed has not yet explored that would particularly excite you in of art design?

Thierry Dansereau: Oh, yeah, probably. But I have to say that I'm so focused on just shipping this game, so I'm not thinking about the future at this point.

Screen Rant: You are in Japan at the moment.

Thierry Dansereau: I'm in Japan. I don't want to spoil the release of this game. I want to fully embrace it and live it. Because it's been like, there were tons of up and downs, and you know, it's tough to do video games. There are so many people, and I think we should celebrate the hard work. We stayed focused on delivering the best experience possible, and I think we should be very proud as a team.