Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a lot going for it, especially when it comes to its dual protagonist approach, but the boss fights aren’t frequently among the strong points. As a relatively minor aspect of the game, it’s not surprising that the average boss encounter doesn’t prove especially memorable. While I wouldn’t ask for fights to be souped up into multi-stage showdowns in climactic combat arenas, I’m still a little disappointed by how incomplete the game’s solution to these challenges feels.

Although some of the tougher challenges can be found outside the main story, the primary bosses of Assassin’s Creed Shadows tend to be Shinbakufu members that Naoe and Yasuke hunt down across the course of the narrative. Main story missions can be completed as either Naoe or Yasuke, and the prompt to choose between the two tends to also appear before boss fights, making it possible to lean into either speed or power for the showdowns. When it comes to bosses, however, Naoe and Yasuke just aren’t created equal, and it prevents either option from feeling great.

Yasuke Is Too Powerful For Assassin’s Creed Shadows Bosses

Boss Fights Feel Completely Trivial

Yasuke’s strength makes most encounters in Assassin’s Creed Shadows fairly easy to brute force, but it’s only really a problem when it comes to bosses. While tearing through enemies doesn’t stop a castle-wide brawl from being fun, it does make bosses feel underwhelming. When playing as Yasuke on the Normal difficulty setting, boss fights tend to be over in seconds, turning the game’s most climactic moments into quick post-cutscene addendums.

Turning up the difficulty can obviously help with this problem, but it still feels out of tune with the rest of the game. It also leans the balance of boss fights squarely into Yasuke’s zone, consequently leaving Naoe adrift. While she can hold her own perfectly well against bosses on any setting, there’s no difficulty tweak that makes bosses feel equally fair for both characters, as Yasuke will almost always perform much better than Naoe.

Although Yasuke’s kanabo hits hard, it can provide the most interesting challenge against some bosses, as it does at least tend to require a sense of timing.

On some level, this inherently makes sense. Yasuke is supposed to be better at combat, so selecting which character will engage in a boss fight specifically is more or less an Easy versus Hard toggle. All the same, Assassin’s Creed Shadows could still do a better job of maintaining that concept while making bosses feel more satisfying regardless of which character enters the fray. As it stands, Yasuke can sleepwalk through every main story fight, and even the foes in his personal story barely provide a challenge.

How AC Shadows Could Fix The Boss Difficulty Problem

Yasuke Doesn’t Have To Be So Easy

The most obvious tweak that Assassin’s Creed Shadows could employ would be timing adjustments. Yasuke’s slower than Naoe, but he rarely feels slower than bosses. If bosses hit a bit faster without hitting harder, they could more frequently break out of Yasuke’s ability to pummel them without necessarily throwing off Naoe’s rhythm. It would still make things more challenging for both characters, but the effect on Yasuke would be greater, helping to alleviate the sense that they crumple instantly in every Yasuke duel.

For a more involved adjustment, Assassin’s Creed Shadows could give Naoe more interesting environmental opportunities in boss fights. If more fights took place in areas with interesting options for verticality or ways for Naoe to briefly hide, she could embrace a more flexible style than Yasuke, evening the playing field so that boss fights could be buffed enough to give Yasuke a challenge. She shouldn’t be able to outright assassinate main bosses instead of engaging in open combat, but there’s plenty of room for ideas that split the difference.

Shadows Probably Won’t Change Bosses, But Future AC Games Could

There’s Always Room For Improvement

I ultimately don’t expect Assassin’s Creed Shadows to change its approach to boss fights at this point. If I ever do feel hell-bent on challenging myself in Yasuke’s duels, I can always drop down to terrible equipment or seek out some of Nobutsuna’s students. I find stealth to be the more interesting challenge anyway, so I’m content occupying myself with careful castle infiltrations instead.

If Assassin’s Creed uses a similar dual protagonist system in a future game, however, I’d like to see some boss fights that don’t feel quite as unbalanced across characters. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is proof that highlighting stealth with one character and strength with another can be cool, but the bosses never find the perfect fit in that equation.