How Anime Inspired Flashback Sequences in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

The game Assassin’s Creed Shadows continues to generate buzz. In a recent interview, the creative director of the game, Jonathan Dumont, revealed that the flashback scenes, which unveil the characters’ backgrounds, were inspired by anime.

These flashbacks provide players with deeper insights into the motivations of the two main characters—shinobi Naoe and samurai Yasuke. When Dumont was asked why Ubisoft chose to reveal much of their story through this artistic technique, he stated, “I think it comes from watching a lot of anime.” He explained that anime titles “masterfully unveil character backstories through flashbacks, filling in the gaps in their motivations.”

Moreover, this glimpse into the characters’ pasts allegedly aids in maintaining the game’s pace, according to Dumont: “They [the flashbacks] allow us to sustain dynamic action, and then slow down at key moments to better develop the characters.”

How effective this approach will be is up to the players to decide. It’s worth noting that Shadows gained over 3 million players within a week. On its first day, the project saw a million users, which doubled in two days and reached three million in just seven days. Additionally, the game achieved second place in sales revenue on its first day among all titles in the Assassin’s Creed series, set a record for first-day revenue in the PlayStation Digital Store for Ubisoft games, and formed a community that racked up over 40 million hours of gameplay by the end of March.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is available on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and the Amazon Luna cloud service. The localization for Russian is currently in a testing phase.