Assassin's Creed Shadows is so gorgeous players are refusing to fast travel

Ubisoft’s latest stealth murder simulator Assassin’s Creed Shadows has barely been out for a week, but fans are seemingly in no rush to get to its end– mostly because the game is so pretty that nobody wants to bother fast travelling anywhere.

The Venn diagram of who enjoy playing Assassin’s Creed games and people who like doing paint-by-numbers art is probably a flat circle, because at their core Assassin’s Creed games feel as if they were designed to appeal to those who love unlocking icons on a map.

Climb a tower, unlock a bunch of locations to visit, clear all the locations, find another tower– rinse and repeat until the game is over.

Alright maybe that’s a little reductive but you can’t deny there’s some truth to it. However, it seems the latest title, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, has managed to inspire players to actually take a minute and smell the roses for once.

Over in a thread on the r/assassinscreed subreddit, players have been sharing their tales of fast travel avoidance in favour of taking in the sights.

“I haven't used the fast travel once. Matter of fact, I barely use the horse either,” commented user villainized.

“Although, that's because the horse riding still has the same issues as Odyssey where it gets stuck on things or can't go through foliage, so I just prefer sprinting. With the added bonus of the cool parkour animations & Naoe's speed I don't even mind the extra time.”

“I had one of the animus projects it was 5500 clicks away in iga 10 levels above me, i thought im gonna do this,” replied user latro666.

“I set off, I rode up hills, sailed down rivers, climbed and navigated rock faces, swam. It took nearly 25m and in that time I barely saw an npc. (Was avoiding trouble)... It really felt like a make your own story immersive moment.”

Perhaps this is unsurprising to some, considering how beautiful the more rural areas of Japan are, but I think Ubisoft deserve a bit of credit regardless.

Now, set an Assassin’s Creed game in Scunthorpe and let’s see if you get the same outcome.