
Assassin’s Creed Shadows has several different types of collectibles, but according to the statistics, no collectibles are more difficult to find than the legendary sumi-e paintings. Shadows has regular sumi-e: paintings of creatures that Yasuke and Naoe can paint. However, there are also five “legendary” sumi-e opportunities which are found in more difficult to reach locations.
Legendary Painting

According to Steam’s global achievement statistics, only 0.1 per cent of players have collected all five legendary sumi-e. If we look at console players, 4.6% of PlayStation players (per PSNProfiles) have achieved this feat and 1% of Xbox players (per TrueAchievements). This makes it one of the rarest achievements across the board, especially so for Steam players.
The five legendary sumi-e are the Wise Macaques, the Red-crowned Crane, the Sakura Shika Deer, the Silver Fox and the White Tanuki. These are found in remote locations around Japan, off the beaten track where most players wouldn’t wander by accident.
Shadows hasn’t been out long, so a smaller proportion of players unlocking achievements related to collectibles is completely normal. You can observe this trend on Steam’s achievement list, where several completion-themed achievements remain rare. The achievement for visiting every province on the map, Pathfinder, sits at 5.2 per cent. The achievements for maxing out Naoe and Yasuke’s skill trees are both sitting at under 1 per cent.

The most common achievement on Steam, Adept Samurai, is awarded for performing a finisher as Yasuke. Interestingly, this achievement has been unlocked by 95 per cent of players. This is notable because this means that 95 per cent of players that own the game on Steam have actually played the game. This is surprisingly uncommon, but the triple-A price-tag of Assassin’s Creed Shadows likely means that only those who intend to play the game actually bought it.
Assassin’s Creed has proven a commercial and critical success for Ubisoft. The company recently created a subsidiary that’s majority-owned by Chinese conglomerate Tencent, focused on Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six.