Strategies to Overcome Oda Nobunaga in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Our girl Naoe’s slit a whole lotta throats to get to this point, but it’s finally time to slit the one throat that matters: Oda Nobunaga. Warlord. Bastard. Tea enthusiast, apparently. But also, he’s NEXT.

That said, as the capper to Act I of the game, things go a little different here. And this is more about getting you in the right place than anything else, which is a little difficult considering Nobunaga’s got Taylor Swift levels of security. But, it’s not impossible, long as you’ve got a plan. And we’ve got one for you.

Preparation

How much gear you need really depends on how dedicated you are to robbing this place blind, which isn’t the worst thing. Nobunaga’s palace is pretty lousy with riches. But you can get more and better elsewhere, and trust me, you wanna get through the stealthy busywork part of this quest as fast as possible.

The mission (Temple of the Horseman)

Once you agree to go with Mitsuhide, and you’re out of the rice cart, you’re basically back at where the game started at Nobunaga’s palace. This time you’re keeping off the streets as much as humanly possible. If you plan to loot the place, more power to you, but for those of you who like to work smarter not harder, the move here is to cut over to your right until you hit the Animus glitch wall, and hug that thing all the way until you reach the big house with the wide open area at the end of the main street.

You’ll be elevated, so you’ll be very much out of sight, but you’ll run out of wall when you reach there. Just underneath you will see a farmer and a couple of guards. Below you will be a well with a guard in front of it. Slip into the well, drag the guard in, and start luring the other two nimrods in with whistles at your leisure. Once they’re out of the equation, you can sneak to the other side of this courtyard until you hit the Animus wall on the other side again. Stay up in the grassy area here and keep moving north.

You’ll be at the entrance of the part of the temple Nobunaga’s holed up in which is, as expected, guarded by a small army. Stick to the grass on the left, but once you pass the samurai convention down below, you’ll want to go prone. There’s two guards standing watch on the side door and you’ll be right in their line of sight as you pass, but the grass is just high enough to hide you. Sneak past them until you’re in the northwestern-most corner of the temple. Use the grass below to take out the one guard wandering on the ground, then head to the back door. There’s another guard up the stairs leading to the back door, take him out nice and quiet before heading in for a fight.

Nobunaga himself isn’t exactly a pushover, but if you’re one of those folks who struggles with parrying, you’re gonna have a bad time mostly in terms of time spent than actual difficulty, because yes, you can dodge his strikes pretty easily–though the timing on his blue combo is just staggered enough to throw everybody off– but not being able to make him vulnerable is a real problem when we’re talking about doing real damage to him. That lifebar is hefty. Sekiro/Nioh sickos will have a blast, though.

Either way, right before Naoe gets some big bloody revenge, Yasuke enters the chat, and a pretty extensive bit of expository business goes down, which flows right into a mission where Yasuke is basically Darth Vader in Rogue One and everybody’s favorite little brother Junjiro will make you cry. Have fun with that.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PC.