Take an extensive look at the Hideout in Assassin's Creed Shadows

A new Ubisoft blog post dives into extensive detail regarding The Hideout, a fully customizable sandbox available to players in Assassin's Creed Shadows. The Hideout functions as the player's home as well as a base of operations and allows players to build and decorate to their heart's content. You can check out the full blog here, or you can read below for a few highlights of the blog from Dany, Shadow's systems associate director.

The Hideout is set in a secluded valley tucked away in the Izumi Settsu province. Surrounded by steep hills on all sides and accessible only through a narrow path in the rocks, its location is either unknown or has been forgotten by most, making it an ideal staging ground and base of operations for your burgeoning league.

"It's pretty ambitious," says Dany. "After fortresses, villas, homesteads, pirate coves, café-theatres, moving trains, ships, settlements, assassin bureaus... We knew that if we wanted to make anything new on that front, we had to take a bold step forward. That meant giving players the option to build their homebase with complete freedom."

There is more than an acre of fully customizable land upon which to build your hideout and resource-based gameplay that ties into the changing of seasons:

With some infrastructure already in place, Tomiko's valley offers a little over one acre of fully customizable land on which players are able to place buildings, pavilions, pathways, bushes, trees, ponds, mossy rocks, local flora & fauna, and countless other Japanese cosmetic elements found or acquired throughout their journey.

"We really want players to make the Hideout their own" says Dany. "Throughout your adventure, most of the content for customization keeps unlocking as you progress, so your customization options will truly reflect your journey." The building tools are simple enough for everyone to draw up a quick and easy layout, but there's enough depth to sink hours into crafting your vision."

To start adding new buildings and pavilions to their Hideouts, players will need to gather three different resources that can be found throughout Japan: wood, minerals, and crops. Each new building or upgrade has a set cost of these resources, as well as cost in in-game currency (called "mons").

As highlighted in the Exploration article, players will find small resource bundles that can be directly looted in the Open World, as well as large resource stockpiles they can "tag" for their scouts to smuggle out over the course of a season.

"It was important for us that players would feel the passage of time with seasons" says Dany. "Linking smuggling with seasons was a natural choice: it gives players a rhythm to return to the Hideout, review all they gathered and catch up with the inhabitants."

Players will also be able to update their hideout with various decor, making the place their own:

Various decorative elements can be obtained as rewards for completing quests, contracts, or activities. Other elements can be purchased in local merchants' stalls or directly looted while skulking the halls of enemy territory. There is also a wide range of animals you can bring to your Hideout by performing the sumi-e painting activity in the world.

Not only can you decorate the interior, but you can also customize the exterior areas of your hideout, including paths, fences, light sources, and more:

Exterior elements - that is, objects that can only be placed outside buildings - are organized in sub-categories like Paths, Light sources, Fences, and more. Each object or building comes with a specific tile footprint, which can be placed and rotated anywhere on the grid - as long as tiles are free.

"There are many cosmetics to find" says Dany. "From humble garden rocks to large and complex set pieces. Seeing these pop up always gets me wondering how I'll use them in my next visit - you never know what might inspire your next renovation."

All elements placed by players can be moved and/or removed. At any point in time, it is possible to completely overhaul the Hideout layout to better fit a particular vibe, or just to try some things out.

Inside your hideout you can place multiple different room types, including a gathering hall, stable, forge, study, dojo, and even themed rooms:

Tomiko's Hiroma
Tomiko's main house and gathering hall is already built when players first get their hands on the Hideout. This building is the cornerstone of the Hideout, granting quick access to most of the important functions of the Hideout. It can be changed cosmetically, but the Hiroma cannot be moved or removed.

Stables
An important pillar of your Hideout, the stables unlock the ability to use your scouts for smuggling stockpiles in enemy camps or castles; doing this will allow you to receive extra resources at the end of a season.

Forge
The Forge unlocks the ability to upgrade your weapons and gear to higher tiers, which is crucial for staying strong as you level up. It also allows you to dismantle unwanted armor and weapons into raw materials, engrave new perks on existing gear, and unlock the transmog feature for customizing your look and weapons, accessible in the inventory menu.

Kakurega
This unlocks the ability to purchase and claim safehouses around Japan. These safehouses extend the Hideout's functions to distant areas, as well as unlock safe fast travel points well outside enemy territory. Some features, like the regional contract boards, can be accessed from here as well. As mentioned in our exploration article, kakurega are also great to refill your tools, replenish your scouts, or manage the allies you want to bring on your next missions.

Study
The Study increases the maximum number of scouts and refines the search zone when scouts locate an objective on the World Map, optimizing objective investigations.

Dojo
The Dojo unlocks the ability to train Naoe and Yasuke's allies that can be recruited and called in combat, elevating their ranks and increasing the power of each of their unique skills.

Themed Rooms

Other than offering a degree of flair and personalization, themed rooms augment a few important systems and statistics players won't want to miss out on:

Tera
Adding a Tera (altar) in the Hideout boosts the amount of XP players can gain while venturing out in the world, effectively acting as a 10% XP booster.

Jinja
Shinto shrines around the world allow players to pray and earn a small stat boost - called a boon - for a few minutes. The Jinja's presence in the Hideout magnifies the effects of any shrine's boon encountered in Japan.

Nando
The Nando - a kind of barracks for sleeping and storing personal items - makes recalling scouts that have been used less costly - a function that extends to all Kakurega safehouses.

Zashiki
Apart from the cool factor of owning your very own sake room, the Zashiki increases ration efficiency (health restoration) for both Naoe and Yasuke.

Tea Room
This Tea Room also increases ration efficiency - an effect that can be compounded with the Zashiki bonus.

Gallery
A place where players can display armor sets and weapons they've acquired, which unlocks the possibility of creating equipment loadouts.

Generic Rooms
Players have access to a variety of rooms with varied layouts for showing off their earned cosmetics such as outfits, wall art and more.

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