If you were hesitant about picking up Ubisoft’s newest outing in their longest-running franchise, then allow us to help you take that Leap of Faith by saying that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is, in our opinion, one of the best in the franchise’s history—and we say this as ones who have a penchant for disliking Ubisoft. Before you set off into the turbulent lands of Feudal Japan, however, there are a few things you should take heed of. Here are our top five tips for Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

1. Loot Gear, Don’t Buy ‘Em

Like any fantasy action-RPG, looting and buying gear is a staple for Naoe and Yasuke’s customization and upgrade path. However, for Shadows, we suggest foregoing tossing coins to local merchants for gear and instead seeking out special chests littered across the world. In addition to the legendary chests that can be found in castles and palaces, most guarded compounds have one or two not-legendary-but-still-awesome chests (official name) that you can find. These chests often have either rare or uncommon gear for either of our protagonists—the same tiers often available to buy at local merchants.

2. Loot Materials (and don’t stop lootin’ em)

One of the biggest parts of Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the ability to upgrade and customize your Hideout. But customizing doesn’t just mean planting a few Sakura trees and placing way too many cats around them. The Hideout can be incredibly useful as you progress through the game, from building a forge to upgrade your gear, to increasing the number of scouts you have at your disposal and upgrading their abilities to get rid of character alerts (an invaluable perk). However, to build and upgrade these facilities, you need upgrade materials—and a boatload of them, at that. 

Materials are littered around the map, both randomly in houses and beyond locked doors in heavily guarded compounds. The latter of which also has stockpiles that you can use scouts to retrieve for greater amounts collected. So, the next time you come across some wood or a couple of bags of minerals, don’t skirt past them as you’ll need every bit of material if you want to make the most out of your Hideout. 

3. Switch Up Playstyles Between Naoe & Yasuke 

For the first time in AC history, Ubisoft allow you to switch between protagonists throughout your journey. While Naoe plays as a light-footed, stealthy shinobi, Yasuke fulfills that samurai power fantasy as his brute strength allows you to plow through enemies like a freight train. You may be inclined to choose one character over the other for the majority of your playthrough, but we suggest switching things up often, as doing so could prove useful in certain sequences. 

You want that legendary headgear in a highly guarded castle, but don’t want to deal with each and every enemy as Yasuke? Switch over to Naoe and sneak your way through the compound, stealthily take down all the bigger baddies and alarm bells, then, wait—oh no! The main tower is filled with pretty strong enemies? No worries, with the alarm bells taken care of and the infantry sized down a peg, hop onto a viewpoint and switch to Yasuke, with whom you can take care of the rest.  

4. Play In ‘Immersion Mode’  

This one might be the most crucial tip of them all. Shadows allows you to play the entire game in “Immersion Mode,” which switches to full Japanese/Portuguese voice-overs, including all NPC chatter. With all respect to the English voice cast, they don’t hold a candle to the Japanese VAs. Some of the English line deliveries have been (rightfully) criticized as being outright terrible, which, though unfortunate, is easily fixed when switching to “Immersion Mode.” Doing so brings so much more depth and realism to the characters and world, and we can’t imagine playing any other way.   

5. Take It Slow         

With so much to see and do in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it’s easy to step on the gas pedal and sprint from mission to mission. However, doing so would be doing a massive disservice to this gorgeous world Ubisoft Quebec has re-imagined. And so, we implore you to stop and truly take in the sights and sounds of 16th-century Japan. Read the scriptures in your codex and learn about this moment in history. Take your time exploring the map, not just as a means to tick it off from your checklist, but to genuinely breathe in these environments.