Assassin’s Creed Shadows gets new parkour system as Ubisoft faces difficult year
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Ahead of Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ launch next month, Ubisoft has shared a surprisingly thorough breakdown of its revamped parkour mechanics. It is not hyperbole to say Assassin’s Creed Shadows may be the most important release in publisher Ubisoft’s history, considering the tumultuous year it had in 2024.
![[Assassin's Creed Shadows ninja and samurai standing side by side]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_235459603-ca66.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
The company’s shares were already dropping all last year and between a string of underperforming titles and cancellations, there have been serious discussions of Ubisoft selling itself off to Tencent. Time will tell if Assassin’s Creed Shadows is successful enough to pull Ubisoft out of the fire, but in the meantime the publisher is trying to drum up hype for the February 14 launch, with a lengthy breakdown of the game’s parkour mechanics.
Parkour usually comes as standard in an Assassin’s Creed game, especially one with ninja protagonist Naoe as one of its playable characters (although the playable samurai, Yasuke, can do parkour as well). A recent blog post from Ubisoft reveals that the parkour system has been given an overhaul for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. For starters, long time fans will need to get used to the crouch and dodge buttons switching places.
This is to take into account a new prone stance and the ability to transition from a dodge move into parkour, as explained by associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois:. ‘In Shadows, dodge has been merged with parkour down mechanics, which unlocks a whole bunch of new parkour moves,’ says Lemay-Comtois, ‘This new mapping also disconnects stance-switch (e.g. standing, crouching, prone) from parkour, ensuring you can use any stances without accidentally going down a rooftop when you don’t want to.’.
