Assassin’s Creed Shadows sneakily tones down the mess players can make across Japan’s religious sites in its day one patch

Even the rowdiest of samurai knows when and where to not make a mess, it seems. Accompanying its launch today, Ubisoft have rolled out a small initial patch for the hotly debated sneaky sandbox Assassin’s Creed Shadows. While some of the changes are obvious and important fixes (such as players no longer getting stuck inside movable objects), the full patch notes—provided to IGN—and not included in any other public facing fashion thus far include some unusual tweaks to limit the amount of havoc players can wreak on Japan’s historical sites of worship.

Specifically, the unique tables and racks used in the game’s temples and shrines have been rendered invulnerable. Some stuff within shrines can still be broken, but only generic objects like drums or bowls that appear elsewhere. Unarmed citizens also no longer bleed when hit, preventing potentially pot-stirring players from drenching those locations with gore and sharing the aftermath through the game’s photo mode. The full patch notes (as provided to IGN) are as follows:

• Players no longer getting stuck inside movable objects after dodging forward and interacting with them in kofuns
• Fix for procedural weapons being removed incorrectly when selling items
• Adjustments to prevent players from going out of bounds when proning against objects
• Improved horse navigation, reducing issues with turning and blocked paths
• Lighting adjustments for cave, kofun, and architectural entrances/exits
• Fixes for cloth clipping on Yasuke’s outfits (while riding) and Naoe’s outfits (while crouching)
• Citizens without weapons no longer bleed when attacked, reducing unintended blood spill in temples/shrines
• Tables and racks in temples/shrines are now indestructible (Some objects like drums or bowls can still be broken as they are generic ones present everywhere in the world) (Tables are still dynamic objects, so players can still move/push them).

Complaints about destructible shrines have been floating around on social media for a while now, but returned to the spotlight during a government conference meeting just yesterday, detailed here on BlueSky by Jeffrey J. Hall, PhD, a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies and Japanese Political researcher. In short, Hiroyuki Kada (a minor, embattled political figure seeking re-election) brought up the game and his fear that seeing shrines busted up in a videogame could encourage people to mess them up in real life. Prime Minister Ishiba responded with a broad statement about how defacing religious sites in the real world is unconscionable, but did not seem to be speaking about the game itself.

It does seem like a bit of a stretch that someone (even the most troublesome Logan Paul-esque tourist) would ever be inspired by a videogame act of vandalism and seek to replicate it in the real world, but seemingly this brief exchange was enough for Ubisoft to take notice and take hurried steps to ensure that nobody would be messing these locations up in-game.

We contacted Ubisoft to ask their reasoning behind the shrine changes, but they responded that they had nothing more to share on the changes, leaving us only able to speculate. Given that the patch rolled out within 24 hours of the Prime Minister’s statement, it appears to be a pre-emptive move to avoid further controversy over a game that has dominated far too many inches of news reporting already. Unfortunately for all involved, it might have had the opposite reaction, considering the number of headlines (including this one) dedicated to the story.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is out now, with our man in medieval Japan, Morgan Park, giving it a positive review, criticising a dull and potentially overly safe story but praising Assassin’s Creed’s mechanical return to form through ninja-focused stealth and improved combat.