Releasing later this year, Assassin’s Creed Shadows marks several firsts for the franchise, and Screen Rant spoke to Brooke Davies, the game’s associate narrative director during Summer Game Fest. It’s the first entry to explore the setting of Japan, and also the first to feature a protagonist based on a real historical figure. The game stars two protagonists, Yasuke and Naoe, the former of which is based on a 16th century warrior.

Historically, the real Yasuke fought alongside daimyo Oda Nobunaga in 1500s Japan, but it seems like the Shadows’ version of the famous samurai may be offering its own creative interpretation of his life. A recent trailer for the game seems to imply Naoe and Yasuke working together against Oda, perhaps after Yasuke has a change of heart regarding his leader. There’s still much to learn about the title, but it looks to be a blend of classic Assassin’s Creed stealth and newer RPG elements.

Screen Rant Interviews Associate Narrative Director Brooke Davies

Crafting The Story, Dual Protagonists, & Finally Taking Players To Feudal Japan

Screen Rant: This is the first playable historical figure that’s ever been in the Assassin’s Creed series. Were there any difficulties or special care that you guys had to take when you were writing Yasuke as a playable character versus just including a historical figure in the storyline elsewhere?

Brooke Davies: That’s a great question. I think from the narrative team, for the writing team, the choice of Yasuke’s character, he ties together many important figures in our era. The daimyo Oda Nobunaga, the first of Japan’s three great unifiers, the Jesuits, and because these people play an important role in the story that we’re telling, Yasuke actually was just sort of full of opportunities for the writing team because we had very few facts to work with, but what we had was such a terrific fit, and then there was this great opportunity to go in and start weaving those facts into the story that we then told.

This is also finally an Assassin’s Creed in feudal Japan, I feel like that’s been one of the most hotly requested fan locales that the series has had. What finally made this the right time? How did the team land on this time and place in the first place?

Brooke Davies: It’s really exciting, the amount of enthusiasm from the community, and then it’s been this great chemistry with the passion on the dev team as well. I think everybody’s so excited about the setting. I think we have a lot of progress in recent years that allowed us in 2020 to make the decision to take the deep dive into feudal Japan and get to know the setting. We also, with our game engine, Anvil, were able to bring this setting to life with this incredible amount of dynamism in light in the world, and photo-realism and attention to detail that really shows the setting, I think, to its fullest advantage.

Did the team feel any sort of special kind of pressure, because this setting has been so hotly requested for so long, to get it right, so to speak, for the fans?

Brooke Davies: It was really important to the team to really do our research, do the homework. I mean, that’s such a great fun as a developer, part of working in Assassins Creed is this ability to come to our work as students and to get to take the deep dive with the guidance of historians and experts and consultants. They played a critical role as well as our internal teams from Ubisoft Tokyo and Osaka who stepped in to help us to make sure that we were able to respectfully bring this setting to life.

And Shadows is set in 1579, which is actually overlapping a little bit with the time periods in a couple other Assassin’s Creed games like Rogue. Was this a conscious decision, or was it simply just a coincidence of serendipity that it happens to overlap with some other timelines in the series?

Brooke Davies: 1579 is a really pivotal moment in Japanese history and in the time period that we wanted to cover, so it really worked well as a starting point of our story.

Can you delve into how these two characters are helping each other and connected in this story, and how did you make decisions about where you wanted to divert Yasuke’s storyline from the historical facts that you did have on hand?

Brooke Davies: On the writing team, we had so much fun working on it, super fun to write the characters of Naoe and Yasuke, but then working on developing the space between them, their relationship, their friendship, the sort of home that they find and make in each other, and then how they use that bond and connection that they had to move forward from some difficult stuff to do some good together. I think the warmth between them and that sparkle of their relationship is something that the writing team put a lot of thought into consideration into, and we’re really excited for your people to see it.

Yeah, definitely. What have been your favorite things about working in this feudal Japan time period and location? Have you been able to do things that you maybe wouldn’t have been able to do with the settings of previous games?

Brooke Davies: We’re playing with the build a ton right now and just seeing the amount of detail in the setting. I mean, we know that this is a critical moment in Japan’s history. We’re at the start of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. The game takes place during this period and it’s a time of civil war, and it’s a very transformative period in history, and we also see historically in these periods of great transformation, they become catalysts for growth.

We see these sorts of green shoots of hope in our era for a future, which is an artistic renaissance that starts during our period and it’s going to bloom later on in the Edo period. But that was also a super fun to work with, because we have some fabulous historical characters, figures like Sen Rikyū, for example, a key master who players will get to meet. So there were lots of great opportunities there to explore the setting in terms of the conflict and the emotions there, and then take a step back and widen out and see all the beauty that’s there as well.

Can you talk a little bit more about what the research process was like behind this game? I know you said for Yasuke himself, there’s sort of a lot of gaps in the history that we have available. What was that like for the team?

Brooke Davies: I think a really fun aspect of working with historical fiction is this ability to take a setting and take historical figures and learn about them with guidance. I love coming to work as a student to learn about these things with the guidance of historians and experts. Then as storytellers, the writing team to then come in and take these facts and take what’s known and then imagine and flesh out and develop these spaces between.

In terms of research, we have research at the beginning to explore the setting, to explore opportunities, and then more research to flesh them out and see where we want to go. But we actually do research and validation all the way through the process. We’re still checking things to just keep everything aligned and make sure that the story and the history have a certain harmony.

Did you have both of these protagonists in mind from the very beginning or did one come before the other?

Brooke Davies: From the moment the team decided to have the dual protagonists, for players to live the fantasy of a shinobi and a samurai, Naoe and Yasuke made a really dynamic duo in terms of they have very different perspectives. Yasuke coming from outside Japan and being connected to Oda Nobunaga in his very high seat of power and Jesuits, to Naoe who’s been in Iga, which is kind of a remote mountainous province, fiercely independent in the birthplace of the Shinobi. Between them, they really can help us explore the setting or overlapping perspectives too, and in the place where they overlap to shine light on so much of the nuance and intrigue of the era.

In the presentation they were mentioning how almost all parts of the story can be played by either character, and that because of that and also things like the dynamic weather and seasons, that no one play through will have to be the same for any player in several regards. What is it like narratively writing an experience like that where you are not sure the exact route a player is going to take and you’re sort of trying to predict ahead of time the different ways it can go?

Brooke Davies: I think it’s a lot of fun for the writing team. We really work very closely as well with our quest design teams and many teams on production to really get that sort of 360 degree view on what we’re writing. It’s such a collaborative process and I think it requires us also to know our characters really well, because what we’re writing for them is really aligned with who they are and we stay focused on this story. Then those in-between moments, I think, come together well because that consistency of the character and purpose is there.

They seem like really good foils for each other in a lot of different ways.

Brooke Davies: Yeah, they’re super complementary, and so much fun. Working on chemistry that makes them more than the sum of their parts was really fun.

Can you give fans any insight into how much the storylines may differ depending on who they’re playing as?

Brooke Davies: Sure. Both of our protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke, they do each have individual stories that players will play and experience. Then out in the open world, they can swap characters depending on how they want to play. But as we see in the demo, Yasuke has a certain reputation. He’s a samurai for Oda Nobunaga. Naoe, if she wants to be seen or observe, people will react to them both kind differently and that might open up opportunities for them both to connect with different types of people and to engage in different types of relationships too.

Do you have one protagonist that if you’re playing the game, you prefer to play as over the other?

Brooke Davies: Honestly, for me personally, it’s really the relationship between the two of them. I think the writing team has done a really beautiful and thoughtful job of building this incredible emotional core in the relationships in the game, so I think no matter who I’m playing with, I am just looking at that shared space between them and thinking about that and enjoying that little emotional journey.