Assassin's Creed Shadows guided exploration explained

Take away the guesswork when tracking your targets.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows throws a heap of important choices at you right at the beginning of the game, some even with permanent changes. Before you decide whether you’re going to play in canon mode and immersive mode, you’ll need to pick how much you want the game to hold your hand. That’s what guided exploration is for.

One of the best new additions in AC Shadows is its scouts and clues system for quest tracking. Almost every objective requires you to figure out its location using a handful of clues. It’s nothing too strenuous, but it’s fun to look at the map and piece together where you need to go. You can even use scouts to help out if you get stuck. Shadows’ guided exploration mode throws that all away.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows guided exploration explained

Image 1 of 2

Assassin's Creed Shadows guided exploration - A large blue search area on a partially obscured map. — Instead of these large search areas and clues, you’ll simply be given the exact location. (Image credit: Ubisoft)

Image 2 of 2

Assassin's Creed Shadows guided exploration - The setting to enable this mode in the options menu. — You can turn guided exploration on at any time. (Image credit: Ubisoft)

Guided exploration mode automatically reveals quest objectives and target locations on your map. With it enabled, you won’t need to investigate or use scouts to narrow down objective locations. Instead, you’ll be guided right to where you need to go. This can result in instances where it’s possible to skip objectives that would otherwise give you clues as to your target’s exact spot.

The good news is that guided exploration can be enabled and disabled at any time during your playthrough via the gameplay tab of the settings menu.

As the in-game description notes: guided exploration does circumvent many of the new additions in Shadows in the name of streamlining quests and exploration. For example, you can’t use scouts to scan the map (but they can still be used for their other purposes, like smuggling). Because of this, you won’t be able to get all of the achievements, though they’re not technically disabled either.

Specifically, you won’t be able to get the Scouting Mission achievement since this requires you to gather information using a scout. However, since this mode can be turned on or off whenever you want, you could simply disable it, grab this achievement, and then turn guided exploration back on.

Guided exploration undoubtedly takes away one of the best new additions to Shadows, though streamlining the quest-tracking system does make it a more relaxing experience. It’s up to you how much investigating you’d like to do before stabbing the next bad guy on your hit list.