Assassin's Creed Shadows Will Have a Battle Pass

Assassin's Creed Shadows, previously known as Assassin's Creed Red, will feature a Battle Pass post-launch, according to veteran industry insider Tom Henderson.

The latest Assassin's Creed game to be revealed, most recently with a cinematic trailer, elicited an excited response from fans of the series. It's been the talk of town over the past few days, and it seems that the hype for a brand-new Assassin's Creed game is back. However, there are concerns amongst the community with the direction the game will be taking, and here's one of the reasons why.

Assassin's Creed Shadows will be the first game in the Assassin's Creed Infinity ecosystem, the live service platform that will connect future Assassin's Creed games to each other. Although it's an entirely single-player game, the game will still feature a Battle Pass, says Henderson. On top of this, there will also be two post-launch story-focused DLC as part of the Season Pass.

The game's developer and publisher Ubisoft is already getting criticism for the pricing model that the game has, with a lot of content locked behind additional payments and pre-orders. This news about Battle Passes being part of a single-player game draws more of that ire from the fanbase.

The Standard Edition of the game will cost $69.99, which has become the new standard cost for video games. For the more expensive versions, the Gold Edition (comes with a Season Pass and a 3-day early access) costs $109.99, and the Ultimate Edition at $129.99 (with an additional Ultimate Pack.)

The Ultimate Pack will unlock additional content for the game, which includes:

• Sekiryu Character Pack
  • Naoe Gear & Weapon Set
  • Yasuke Gear & Weapon Set
  • Dragon Tooth Trinket
  • Sekiryu Beast Mount
• Sekiryu Hideout Pack
• Skill Points Pack
• Red Dragon Photo Mode Filter

Will the Battle Pass break the Assassin's Creed Shadows?

The Battle Pass, according to Henderson, will come in three seasonal waves, and will be called “Projects.” Each Project will have 20 levels that unlock cosmetics. Henderson says that these will be named “The Hidden Network,” “The Last Ronin,” and “In The Shadows.”

Of course, this isn't the first time Assassin's Creed will feature cosmetics in the game. One of the major concerns when Assassin's Creed Mirage came out was its blatant microtransactions that became available post-launch, evading reviews. The majority of the cosmetics that could be bought featured game-breaking abilities.

Granted, the game is a single-player experience, so gameplay balance be damned. However, if the game's design is made in such a way that the game will be a slog or hard to complete without these optional cosmetics, then it means the game was designed to force players to buy the cosmetics anyway, otherwise they won't get to progress in the game.

In other words, whether or not the Battle Pass will break Assassin's Creed Shadows will depend on how necessary these supposedly optional microtransactions will end up feeling in the game. As long as these don't end up intrusive, then there might be no good reason to sound the alarms yet. But as what we've already learned about video games in this day and age, we better wait and see.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is scheduled for release on November 15, 2024, on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, PC through the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games Store, as well as on the Amazon Luna.