Assassin's Creed Shadows Guide: How to unlock Yasuke and improve him

Assassin's Creed Shadows has two protagonists, the shinobi Naoe and the samurai Yasuke. While that is a well-known fact, what might surprise many is that Yasuke isn't immediately available to play as. While you do get a taste of the stranger from foreign shores at the beginning of the game, soon after he is locked away, leaving players to become familiar with Naoe and her unique playstyle. So, how do you unlock Yasuke?

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This is a challenge that could take you five hours or 25 hours depending on how you like to play Assassin's Creed games. If you enjoy exploring off the beaten path, you better become comfortable with playing as Naoe since Yasuke is tied to main story progression, and you will need to reach the end of the first act to unlock him.

Spoiler alert! Yasuke's unlocking comes after Naoe's fateful encounter with Oda Nobunaga, as following that moment Yasuke will hunt down the shinobi and locate her at a castle during a tempest as part of the Mibuno Showdown mission. Once this is done and in the books, you can freely flick over to the Inventory screen in the menu and hold down an input to reload the game world, replacing Naoe as Yasuke.

While this will lead to a massive shift in gameplay, as Yasuke lacks Naoe's stealth and agility, the fundamentals of Assassin's Creed Shadows remain. This means that all of your understanding and progression of Mastery and Knowledge Points transfers over, with each character having their own skill trees and designated points. This means that any points you spend during your time as Naoe will be preserved and made available for Yasuke, so you could have 50+ points to spend the first time you suit up as the samurai.

Gear is a different beast altogether. You won't actually unlock weapons and armour for Yasuke until you have access to the character. This means your first experience with Yasuke will be limited to his starting gear, and you will need to conquer castles, loot chests, or visit merchants to buy better and rarer items that can improve his actions in battle.

As per how you should build out Yasuke, this is entirely up to you. We would suggest putting some points into the Samurai tree any chance you get, as this will improve Yasuke as a whole, whereas the Long Katana, Naginata, Kanabo, Teppo, and Bow trees are all tailored to the respective weapon classes for the character.

So, when should you be using Yasuke? That's generally up to you. There are some occasions where the character must be used over Naoe, typically for a narrative reason, but in a gameplay sense, you can approach much of the wider experience as either character. You can take on castles, hunt down targets, reflect and pray at shrines, and much more. The main catch is that there are certain open world activities made for specifically Naoe or Yasuke, and likewise the samurai's poor parkour abilities generally make him a bad choice for synchronising at Viewpoints. But otherwise, Feudal Japan is your oyster as either character, so have it at and let us know below who you prefer to play as out of Naoe and Yasuke.