Assassin’s Creed Shadows update makes it much easier to remember who all those side characters are

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a big game with a lot of side characters and you can traverse its world relatively freely – so freely that, 40 hours since you last saw someone, it can often be difficult to remember who they were, and why they wanted you to go kill that dude.

Well, today’s 1.0.4 update for Assassin’s Creed Shadows addresses this by adding in Codex entries for the game’s main cast of characters, sidekicks, antagonists and supporting antagonists, which will unlock as you meet them.

It’s something that previous Assassin’s Creed games had previously but which Shadows eschewed, keeping its Codex more for historical and cultural details. Now it’s back, following feedback from fans.

Today’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows update is set to go live at 2pm UK time (10am Eastern, 7am Pacific) and weigh in at around 4.6GB on PS5, 8.5GB on Steam or 20GB on Xbox Series X/S.

As previously announced, today also brings the first of Shadows’ free post-launch story missions that add more moments with some of the game’s secondary characters.

The Works of Luis Frois centres on Yasuke’s Jesuit friend who you meet a couple of times during Shadows’ existing runtime. Today’s new quest can be played by either Yasuke or Naoe, and also features Lady Satoko. Who is she? Well, you can now go remind yourself in the Codex.

Ubisoft’s post-launch roadmap for Assassin’s Creed Shadows looks set to offer another of these free story quests on a monthly basis – similar to the Lost Tales of Greece offered for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey back in the day. Shadows’ first paid expansion, meanwhile, will launch later in 2025.

The rest of the changes in today’s patch are mostly minor bug fixes, though it’s interesting to see Ubisoft further tweak the ability for environmental destruction around religious buildings in the game. “All props near an altar or a religion building will now be static, preventing any destruction,” Ubisoft notes, after previously locking down larger items at these in-game sites.

Last month, a website leak suggested Assassin’s Creed Shadows would launch on Nintendo Switch 2. Last week, Eurogamer published an interview with a historical researcher who worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and braved the game’s cultural backlash.