Ubisoft recently celebrated Assassin"s Creed Shadows crossing five million players, with the RPG hitting the impressive milestone less than four months after launch. Now, the company is preparing a slew of new features as a part of its summer updates schedule, just as it attaches a release date to the Claws of Awaji story expansion.
Coming in soonest is New Game+. Ubisoft plans to implement the highly requested feature on July 29, which can be activated right after the credits roll as an opt-in measure. Once triggered, story and objective board progression will reset, but level, gear, skill points, and other progression-related elements will carry over to the new save.
"When launching New Game+, you can choose to start again from the very beginning, reliving the important events of the Tensho War in Iga - or you can fast-forward after the prologue to the moment Naoe inherits ownership of the Hideout," explains Ubisoft. "Either way, we made sure that none of the basic tutorials will bother you on your second playthrough."
The level cap is also being updated to 80 from 60, with "new Knowledge Ranks, new Mastery and Knowledge Skill ranks, and new upgrades for all Hideout buildings" coming alongside Project 3 to work on.
Following that, September is when Ubisoft will bring some requested features by the community:
- The world map unfogging after completing viewpoint synchronization (per region).
- The ability to skip time-of-day, jumping ahead to dusk or dawn.
- A new Forge upgrade level to reach Mythic (from Epic) and Artifact (from Legendary) equipment rarities.
- Hideout Updates and Upgrades.
- Uncapped framerate for cutscenes (PC only).
- Additional goodies that may be familiar to long-time series fans.
- Further bug fixes and stability improvements.
Lastly, Ubisoft today revealed that the Claws of Awaji story expansion for Assassin"s Creed Shadows will land on September 16. This questline takes place after the completion of the main story. Moreover, anyone who pre-ordered the base game will get this story pack for free.