AC Shadows devs exploring “tougher” difficulty settings amid player complaints

The Assassin’s Creed Shadows director has said the team’s looking into adding more difficulty settings following player feedback.

AC Shadows‘ combat and stealth mechanics have received plenty of praise from long-time fans, lapsed players, and newcomers alike. However, one aspect dividing the community is the game’s difficulty.

Some find it too easy, given the overly simple parry system and the enemies’ telegraphed attack patterns. A contingent of players even argue that Yasuke’s brute force provides no challenge because of his attack power and health standings.

Of course, playing on Expert mode ups the ante on stealth when Naoe’s in the hot seat. But what about players who want Shadows to knock them down a peg during melee encounters? According to one developer, Ubisoft Quebec is looking into a solution.

AC Shadows may add “tougher setting” for difficulty

Creative Director Jonathon Dumont sat down with GamesRadar during GDC 2025 and addressed player feedback about Assassin’s Creed Shadows. He said the crew’s always “monitoring what players are doing” to target bug fixes and various tweaks.

This also means the developers are well aware of the conversation surrounding difficulty options. As such, Ubisoft Quebec is “actively looking at” the possibility of “making [an even] tougher setting for difficulty for some of our players.”

To the user base, Dumont questioned, “‘How challenging do you want it?’ But we’re looking at these things and monitoring what people say about the game.”

Ubisoft

When the team may deploy these potential changes is anyone’s guess. For the time being, Dumont and Co. remain focused on tackling “constructive feedback.”

The director explained, “Obviously, we can’t do everything, but there are things that we’re going to be actioning on, and just for the next updates, there are quite a bit of bug fixes and little feature enhancement stuff that is coming in.”

Similar to Odyssey and Valhalla, the goal with AC Shadows’ improvements is to ensure players can feel the difference between its launch state and how it feels in the coming months.