Yasuke, one of the dual protagonists in Assassin's Creed Shadows, is bucking an important series tradition - he's not an assassin, Ubisoft doesn't want him to be an assassin, and he doesn't have the abilities that an assassin normally might.
In an interview with 12DOVE, associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois confirmed that "Yasuke is not an assassin, because the narrative makes sense that he is not." Elsewhere, Lemay-Comtois said that a big part of Yasuke's importance in the plot of Assassin's Creed Shadows stems from his existence as an outsider, someone who can find his way into a distinctly Japanese story without having to wholly understand Japanese culture.
Lemay-Comtois didn't reveal any story details, so we don't know exactly what will happen to Yasuke by the end of the story, but he's clear that "he works with [fellow protagonist] Naoe, but he's not an assassin, and he doesn't have to be." That means that he's not likely to have access to the kind of combat and stealth tools that Naoe does - the split design forced Ubisoft to "always embrace" the reality that these two characters are completely different.
Embracing that means the team could never go say "'what if Yasuke has Eagle Vision? It would be easier'." "No," explains Lemay-Comtois, "he needs to not have it so you play different with him than you play with Naoe."
While it goes against Assassin's Creed tradition, this tangential relationship with the Assassins is far from unheard of. Haytham Kenway, a major character through Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Rogue, is not an assassin, and Lemay-Comtois points to Barnabas, the ship captain from Assassin's Creed Odyssey as another character who plays a central role but is never actually an assassin. Yasuke is "much more involved in the story" of Shadows than Barnabas was in Odyssey, "but he doesn't have to be an assassin, he has his own motivation and core beliefs that align with Naoe's, and off they go."
Be sure to check out our Assassin's Creed Shadows big preview hub for more details about the game from our hands-on preview.
Assassin's Creed Shadows had to have 2 different characters because players want both stealth and combat, and you couldn't have both with just one
Assassin's Creed Shadows' Japanese setting has been "very, very tricky" because Ubisoft wants to be "respectful" and "avoid telling a culture about their own culture"
