Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed Shadows Gaming PC

Photographer’s Side-By-Side Photos Show Off Just How Realistic Assassin’s Creed Shadows Truly Is

adminMarch 22, 2025

0 10 2 minutes read

There are many iconic Japanese locations to be found and explored in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and a fan has taken photographs at one of the real-life locations, and the comparison is beautifully realistic. Osaka Castle contains some legendary loot in the game, as well as a Samurai Daisho to defeat, and while there aren’t any stashes of valuable loot there in modern Japan, Ubisoft clearly went to great lengths to make the locations in the game as realistic and detailed as possible, which definitely contributed to Assassin’s Creed Shadows having the biggest launch in franchise history.

User GenericReditUserName over on Reddit photographed Osaka Castle, located in Osaka, Japan, and it is one of the most famous landmarks in the country. The user put up some screenshots from Assassin’s Creed Shadows for a side-by-side comparison, and the resemblance is uncanny, even with the game being set in the 16th century.

How Realistic Is Assassin’s Creed Shadows?

Very, Very Realistic

The photos shared by GenericReditUserName are all around Osaka Castle, featuring the moat, the main castle structure, and even the top of the castle facing west towards the modern city. Side-by-side with the modern, real-life locations, the game truly resembles a 16th-century version of Osaka Castle. While not an exact one-to-one recreation, like the visible hill in the distance from the viewpoint at the top of Osaka Castle being much further away in real life, Assassin’s Creed Shadows might be the most realistic video game depiction of Osaka Castle ever.

AC Shadows image showing Yasuke and another samurai on horses in the middle, in between two characters sitting having tea.

“You Want People To Be Looking At The World, Instead Of Just Following A Marker”: Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Creative Director On Its World, Characters & Sidequests

Jonathan Dumont, creative director of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, discusses lessons learned from Odyssey, finally going to Japan, and dual protagonists.

Earlier this year, ScreenRant explored Kyoto and also echoed how realistic Himeji Castle is in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, saying, “Although my time with the game was brief, it’s clear from seeing Himeji Castle in person just how much time and effort the developers have poured into getting the game as realistic as possible.”

Our Take: Assassin’s Creed Shadows Is A Hyper-Realistic Japan

Assassin’s Creed Worlds Are Rich With Detail

Naoe in Assassin's Creed Shadows is look at distant islands across the water.

Assassin’s Creed is a series rooted in rich, complex, often violent time periods. Fans have asked for a game to be set in Japan for a long time, and the result is a hyper-realistic setting that truly feels like what Osaka would’ve felt like in Feudal Japan. A recent Assassin’s Creed Shadows patch made temples and shrines indestructible, in response to concerns from Japanese politician Hiroyuki Kada that the game’s locations were so realistic that they could inspire players to damage sacred places.

From Ancient Egypt to Feudal Japan to the Italian Reinassance, Assassin’s Creed has a long history of providing players with realistic locations to climb, explore, and interact with historical figures, and Assassin’s Creed Shadows might have the most realistic setting yet.

Source: GenericReditUserName/Reddit