Can’t wait for Assassin’s Creed Shadows? Play these games instead

Ubisoft unveiled Assassin’s Creed Shadows last week, giving us our first real glimpse at the first Assassin’s Creed game to be set in Japan. Its Feudal Japan setting is something that fans of Assassin’s Creed have craved for a long time, and while it’s awesome that Ubisoft is finally delivering that concept, some other games did beat it to the punch. Many other developers have noticed how fruitful a historical Japan setting can be, from its feudal era all the way until the West started to intervene in the Edo period. As a result, there are quite a few games that I can recommend you check out while you’re waiting for Assassin’s Creed Shadows‘ November 15 launch.

The five games I’m recommending all range in size. Three of them are AAA action games, all set in different eras of Japanese history that immerse players in different ways. Meanwhile, the other two games I’m spotlighting are more experimental titles that, while not directly comparable to Assassin’s Creed Shadows from a gameplay perspective, are still well worth your time if Japanese history and culture intrigue you.

Ghost of Tsushima

Getting the most obvious recommendation out of the way first, Ghost of Tsushima essentially beat Assassin’s Creed Shadows to the punch by being an open-world stealth-action game set in Japan. Sucker Punch Productions and Sony Interactive Entertainment’s game takes place hundreds of years before Assassin’s Creed Shadows will and follows a Samurai defending the titular island from a Mongol invasion. Like many of Sony’s single-player offerings, it’s a cinematic and story-driven action game with cutting-edge visuals and AAA polish.

Trek to Yomi

While Ghost of Tsushima is a more obvious pick, Flying Wild Hog and Devolver Digital’s Trek to Yomi is a title that you might not have heard of. It’s a side-scrolling action game telling a classic revenge tale as a samurai fights his way through the underworld in order to resurrect himself and avenge his burnt-down village and dead master and lover. Trek to Yomi’s story and combat isn’t the most polished out there, but this game more than makes up for it in terms of style.

Trek to Yomi doesn’t look like most side-scrollers; it goes for a very cinematic feel with black-and-white visuals and delicately crafted cinematography for certain gameplay moments. It’s a fairly short adventure you can beat within a few hours, so you can squeeze in a full playthrough over the course of the weekend. While it’s not a direct replacement for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, playing through Trek to Yomi could certainly be a good primer that will get you in the mood to play Ubisoft’s biggest release of the year.

Trek to Yomi is available for $20 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. A one-hour game trial of Trek to Yomi is also available for PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers.

Rise of the Ronin

Assassin’s Creed Shadows isn’t the only AAA game set in a historical era of Japan to come out this year. In March, Team Ninja and Sony Interactive Entertainment released Rise of the Ronin, an open-world Soulslike game set during the Bakumatsu period, which is the point in time when the West’s influence really started to be felt in Japan. Although it’s set a couple of centuries after Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it features a comprehensive encyclopedia that can give you a crash course on many relevant aspects of Japanese culture and history.

Rise of the Ronin lacks the visual polish of a Ghost of Tsushima or Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but its intense swordfight and RPG systems will present a meaningful challenge for you to overcome in the coming months. Rise of the Ronin is available now exclusively on PS5.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

While all the other titles on this list are action games, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a strategy game about samurai, ninja, and thieves fighting an evil warlord in feudal Japan. Stealth still plays a big part in Shadow Tactics, but rather than having direct control of a single character, players are commanding a group of fighters in real time from an isometric perspective. This game is by Mimimi Productions, so if you played some of its later works like Desperados 3 or last year’s underrated Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, then you’ll know what to expect here.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. If you like what you played, a standalone DLC called Aiko’s Choice is available as well.

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Finally, we have Like a Dragon: Ishin!, a 2023 remaster of a Like a Dragon spinoff that previously had only been released in Japan. It tells the story of real-life samurai Sakamoto Ryoma and is set in a similar era to Rise of the Ronin. That said, all of the characters in this game look like people from the mainline Like a Dragon games, which are all set in the modern day. As is the case with most Like a Dragon titles, Ishin’s narrative is an enthralling soap opera-like adventure full of political maneuvering and surprise twists that will keep you engaged through its whole runtime.