Assassin’s Creed Shadows is an action role-playing game for PlayStation 4, developed by Ubisoft Quebec and published by Ubisoft, that is scheduled for release in 2025. It’s the fourteenth installment in the Assassin’s Creed series and the sequel to Assassin’s Creed Mirage (2023). It will be released for macOS, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on March 20, 2025, and for Nintendo Switch 2 on December 2, 2025.
The Assassin’s Creed Shadows artwork covers from early blue-sky concept sketches created in 2022, to final promotional key art, character design sheets, environment illustrations, and the official fine art print collection. It’s one of the biggest public releases of game concept art in 2025 and is a testament to the size of the production, which was developed at seven or more Ubisoft studios around the world and is the long-awaited entry to the franchise’s feudal Japan realm.
The first game in the series to be set in feudal Japan, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has players experience action in one of the locations they’ve been hoping for the longest time. The art blast showcases the passionate efforts of dozens of Ubisoft teams throughout the world, all of whom helped bring the game’s world and characters to life.
Key Takeaways
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the fourthteenth game in the series, set for a March 20, 2025, launch across PlayStation 5, Windows, macOS, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2, with a December 2, 2025, release for the latter. This is the first AC game to take place in feudal Japan.
- Thierry Dansereau (Ubisoft Québec), Nikola Stoyanov (Ubisoft Sofia), Gabriel Tan (Ubisoft Chengdu) and Franco Perez (Ubisoft Singapore) were all involved in the production of the game’s artwork, with Thierry Dansereau heading up the art direction.
- Some of the key concept artists that helped develop the game’s visual world include Sina Hayati, Jing Zhong Tang, Xiao LuoLe, Darek Zabrocki, Kate Cruz, Fred Rambaud, Tyler Ryan, Joshua Pedron, Junhong Long, and Jillian Young.
- On March 25, 2025, Dark Horse Books published the official art book, The Art of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, in collaboration with Ubisoft. The standard hardcover version is $49.99 (256 pages, 9 × 12 inches). The Deluxe Edition is $99.99 and comes with a slipcase and a gallery quality lithograph print.
- Official fine art prints can be found on art4fans.com, Ubisoft Store and Art of the Game. Prints feature characters of Naoe and Yasuke, environment pieces (Azuchi Vista, Kyoto, Kumano Nachi) and ink-style interpretations.
- Released on March 27th, 2025, the ArtStation Art Blast is the largest single public release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows concept art, showcasing the work of dozens of Ubisoft artists from various studios worldwide.
- As seen in the concept art and character design, the two protagonists, Naoe, a shinobi from Iga Province and Yasuke, the historical African samurai, have their own unique visual style.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Visual World was created by the Art Team
Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ artwork was developed around a global production process, with multiple Ubisoft studios working on the game concurrently and in line with a unified art direction system.
Art Directors
The art directors who worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows were: Thierry Dansereau (Art Director, Ubisoft Québec), Nikola Stoyanov (Art Director, Ubisoft Sofia), Gabriel Tan (Art Director, Ubisoft Chengdu), Franco Perez (Art Director, Ubisoft Singapore), Kévin Macio (Associate Art Director, Ubisoft Montréal), Samuil Munis (Technical Art Director, Ubisoft Sofia), and Dominic G-Despatis (Team Lead Art, Ubisoft Québec).
Thierry Dansereau, the Art Director of the lead studio Ubisoft Québec, was the one with the overall vision for the game’s look. The work of other studios had to fit in with Ubisoft Québec’s direction and showcase both teams’ strengths.
Key Concept Artists
The concept artists that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows are: Sina Hayati (Senior Concept Artist, Ubisoft Chengdu), Jing Zhong Tang (Senior Concept Artist, Ubisoft Chengdu), Junhong Long (Concept Artist, Ubisoft Singapore), Zahir (Concept Artist, Ubisoft Chengdu), Joshua Pedron (Concept Artist, Ubisoft Philippines), Xiao LuoLe (Senior Concept Artist, Ubisoft Chengdu), Kate Cruz (Concept Artist, Ubisoft Philippines), KONI (Freelance Concept Artist), Fred Rambaud (Freelance Concept Artist), and Tyler Ryan (Freelance Concept Artist).
Individual Artist Highlights
Sina Hayati created some of the most acclaimed environment concept art for the game, such as the Mountain Castle which garnered a lot of attention on ArtStation. The Mountain Castle is one of the early blue sky concept art pieces I did on the project, with a warm late afternoon light and atmospheric clouds, capturing the specific topography of the Japanese highlands in a way that’s been done in the first Assassin’s Creed game. It is a “blue sky” concept piece, exploratory, not tied to the gameplay of a particular game, and a hallmark of the early visual style of a big game.
Cinematic concept art for the game was done by Polish freelance artist Darek Zabrocki from an early stage. Zabrocki described his involvement: “Back in 2022 I was approached by David Nibbelin to help fleshing out the look and feel for cinematic experience of the next AC game. I was involved in two phases of exploration for the cinematic experience.” His contribution to the game’s cinematic visual language the compositions and lighting approaches used in cutscenes and trailers was part of the earliest conceptual work done on the project.
Kate Cruz from Ubisoft Philippines worked on a wide variety of NPC (non-playable character) designs for the game. NPC design of an open-world RPG that takes place in a particular historical era is a vast undertaking, with hundreds of characters to be designed, from farmers and merchants to samurai retainers and court officials, each character’s appearance is defined by a complex and detailed look for clothing, accessories, and other social indicators, to make sure everything looks period-appropriate.
The Visual Language of Assassin’s Creed Shadows
The Feudal Japan Setting
The feudal Japan setting, which was set in the Sengoku period (circa 1579), provided the Ubisoft art team with one of the most visually rich settings in the franchise’s history. During the Sengoku period, there were almost constant civil wars, territorial conflicts amongst many powerful daimyo (feudal lords), building and destruction of castle towns, and the blending of traditional Japanese cultural practice with the introduction of European traders and Christian missionaries.
The concept art from Assassin’s Creed Shadows reveals the vibrant beauty of the entry, as well as its reverence for history and culture. Some of the concept art portrays villages and cities indicative of the time and place, leaning into Assassin’s Creed’s dedication to providing a strong sense of historicity. One piece in particular ties it all together, with samurai watching a river valley full of settlements, a mountain fortress and a great fire on the other side, establishing a good sense of time and place in the Sengoku period of Japan.
The setting of the game was inspired by a set of Japanese landscape conventions: the formal garden, the mountain castle, the cherry blossom avenue, the misty river valley, but set in the specific topography and architectural language of the time. The environment concept artists had to be able to tell the various regions of Japan (Iga, Kyoto, Azuchi, Kumano) and various seasons apart from each other, as the game’s open world changes seasonally, with both gameplay and appearance changing.
The Two Protagonists: Naoe and Yasuke
Each of the two characters in the game is visually distinct, reflecting their different roles and backgrounds.
Naoe is a shinobi from the historical home of the ninjas, Iga Province. Her character design is typical for the shinobi style, with dark, multi-layered clothing that is ideal for hiding, light armour that allows her to move about, and a wide variety of weapons, including the signature weapon of the series, the hidden blade. She has a standard shinobi appearance, a hidden blade configuration, as well as several named armour sets, such as Kaen Armor, Noh Robes, and Onryo Robes.Naoe concept art)
Yasuke is based on a real, historical African samurai, who served under the warlord Oda Nobunaga in the late sixteenth century, one of the first documented Africans to become a samurai. His character design not only conveys his physical stature (he was described in historical records as being unusually tall and strong by Japanese observers), but also his place in the samurai hierarchy. The design team had to deal with the difficulty of representing a historical character whose physical and biographical record is incomplete and is a compromise between what is known and what will work for the game’s story and visuals.
The Seasonal Visual System
The seasonal cycle is one of the most technically advanced features of the game’s visuals, as it alters the look of the open world. In the winter season, ponds will freeze and landscapes will be blanketed with snow. Fall colors the leaves on the maple trees. Cherry blossoms are the hallmark of Japanese landscape art since the Heian period and are a feature of the spring season.
Every season had to have its own lighting system, colour palette, and environment art set, as the same village that’s warm and golden in autumn looks cold and muted in winter, and the artists had to make sure that both looks were true to the period setting while also being consistent in the game’s visual identity. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is one of the most technically complex environment art projects in the franchise’s history, thanks to this seasonal system.
The Official Art Book: The Art of Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Standard Edition
The Art of Assassin’s Creed Shadows (standard hardcover edition) was designed by Dark Horse Books in collaboration with Ubisoft and written by Ubisoft Québec and Rick Barba. It was published March 25, 2025. It is in a 256-page format, hard cover, 9″ x 12″. The price is $49.99. ISBN-13: 9781506746043.
The standard edition is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Indigo, Bookshop.org and independent bookstores via IndieBound. Dark Horse Books has a proven history of Ubisoft art books, and the standard 256-page edition is the most complete single source for the development art of the Assassin’s Creed series.
Deluxe Edition
The Art of Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Deluxe Edition) was released March 25, 2025 for $99.99. This is a full-color deluxe hardcover set of 240 pages in 9″ x 12″ format. The Deluxe Edition features exclusive cover treatment featuring the striking profile of Naoe and Yasuke, a decorative slipcase and a portfolio enclosing a gallery-quality print. ISBN-13: 978-1-50674-514-5.
The Deluxe Edition honors the series’ first exploration into the world of feudal Japan, with two compelling new characters Naoe, a shinobi assassin from Iga Province, and Yasuke, an African samurai of historical renown coming out of the shadows of fifteenth century Japan to discover their shared fate.
The lithograph print included in the Deluxe Edition is an important extra value for the collector it is the only officially licensed gallery-grade print that this art book comes with at this price point and makes the Deluxe Edition a display piece in addition to a reference book.
Where to Buy
| Edition | Price | Format | Availability |
| Standard Hardcover | $49.99 | 256 pages, 9 × 12 in | Amazon, B&N, Dark Horse, BAM, Bookshop.org |
| eBook | $29.99 | Digital | Amazon Kindle, Dark Horse Digital |
| Deluxe Edition | $99.99 | 240 pages + slipcase + lithograph | Dark Horse Direct, Amazon, Sideshow Collectibles |
The official Fine Art Prints are available for purchase at the Assassin’s Creed Shadows Art store
In addition to the art book, there are also a number of official fine art prints available via licensed sources of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
Art4Fans
At least 27 Assassin’s Creed Shadows prints are included in the Art4fans.com official art collection, which features Naoe Leap of Death (Ink Style), Naoe and Yasuke, Hidden Blade, Iga Waterfall, Naoe Posing (Black version), Yasuke Portrait (Ink Style), Kyoto, Azuchi Vista, Kumano Nachi, Kumano Hongu, Cradle of Shinobi and Iga Akama.
Art4fans is an officially licensed fine art print publisher for Ubisoft properties. Their prints are printed on top quality fine art paper and come in a variety of sizes. The Ink Style character portraits of Naoe and Yasuke have received a lot of attention, with the style of the graphic character designs echoing the Japanese woodblock print tradition.
Ubisoft Store
Assassin’s Creed Shadows licensed merchandise is available at the official Ubisoft Store, such as prints and posters. Products may be different depending on the region and are subject to change, please verify the availability directly on store.ubisoft.com.
Displate
Displate has licensed Assassin’s Creed Shadows metal posters. Metal posters are printed on steel and magnetically attached to the wall a popular method for game art collectors, thanks to the durability and unique look of metal-based prints over paper-based prints.
ArtStation
ArtStation isn’t a print shop, but many of the concept artists featured in the Art Blast are print shops themselves or have a Print On Demand service available on their profile.
ArtStation Art Blast: The Definitive Public Release
Art Blasts are coordinated releases in which a development studio releases work from several artists at the same time, usually around the time of a game’s release or the week after. The ArtStation Art Blast of March 27, 2025, is one week after the game’s release, and it is the most extensive public release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows concept art.
The Assassin’s Creed Shadows Art Blast was the main way to see the passion of dozens of Ubisoft teams from around the world, who made the creation of the game’s world and characters possible, whether it be in environment paintings, character design sheets or even in cinematic key frames. It is still the most extensive free public resource on the visual development of the game, adding to the detailed treatment of the art in the official Dark Horse art book.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Art in the context of Game Art Collecting
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a major event in the game art market. The franchise is the longest-running art publishing effort in the action-adventure genre – Dark Horse has created art books for previous titles – and the series’ visual scope has always been great enough to create concept art of a quality to be collected outside of the game context.
The 2025 release came at a time when game concept art was becoming more popular in the mainstream collectibles market. The art market surrounding titles such as The Last of Us in which Cook & Becker’s official limited-edition prints of original Naughty Dog concept art fetch $100 to $600 is a good indicator of where the Assassin’s Creed Shadows art market can go as the game solidifies its legacy in the franchise. Both franchises used fine art editions signed by the artists and Certificates of Authenticity; both were based on photorealistic visual traditions; and both had their story placed in a specific, carefully researched historical or environmental context.
The visual research that is at the core of Assassin’s Creed Shadows also brings it into line with the longer tradition of art created for specific historical eras and locations. The Japan of the Sengoku period that the game portrays is also rich in visual arts, including scroll paintings from the Muromachi period, and later, woodblock prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige. The game’s environment artists were inspired by and reacting to centuries of Japanese visual tradition; the conventions of landscape painting in western art are often mirrored by the conventions of game environments.
The difference between the Sengoku Japanese aesthetic used in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which emphasizes seasonal landscapes, precision architecture and natural and man-made environments, and the tradition of Italian Renaissance painting is illustrative. In both traditions, landscape is a psychological space, the quality of light at certain times of day is significant, and both traditions are interested in the relationship between human figures and the natural world they inhabit. Assassin’s Creed Shadows concept artists were working in a style of landscape art that has no single national or period origin, but is a global visual language that was developed by the Renaissance and Japanese traditions equally.
The Naoe and Yasuke Character Design: Two Visual Philosophies
The character design team at Ubisoft had a unique challenge with Assassin’s Creed Shadows: two main characters that had to be easily distinguishable from each other, in order to make their different roles, cultural backgrounds and gameplay styles clear, while also working together in the same visual universe.
The aesthetics of Naoe’s shinobi design focus on negative space, layered darkness and concealment. She is a figure without substance, with no presence to impose on the environment that she traverses. Her most defining visual identifier is the hidden blade, which in her case, is integrated into the kusarigama style.
Yasuke’s samurai design is quite the opposite. It is a structure that’s based on presence, on the visual weight of full armour, on the width of the shoulders and the mass of the cuirass. His silhouette is imposing and legible from afar: the visual grammar of command and martial authority, not of concealment.
Creative director Jonathan Dumont commented on the importance of the game’s sheer beauty, while pushing Ubisoft’s technology to its very limits.The technology push was necessary precisely because the dual-protagonist design demanded two complete and internally consistent visual systems Naoe’s world of shadows and negative space, Yasuke’s world of visible force and historical weight existing within the same visual engine.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Artwork: Price Guide
| Type | Source | Price Range | Notes |
| Digital wallpaper / fan art | Free / Etsy from $5 | — | Unlicensed fan art widely available |
| Standard poster reproduction | Amazon, eBay | $10 to $25 | Licensed and unlicensed available |
| Displate metal poster | displate.com | $25 to $75 | Officially licensed |
| Art4fans fine art print | art4fans.com | $30 to $80+ | Officially licensed, multiple sizes |
| The Art of Assassin’s Creed Shadows (standard) | Amazon, B&N, Dark Horse | $49.99 | 256 pages, hardcover |
| The Art of Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Deluxe Edition) | Dark Horse Direct, Amazon | $99.99 | + slipcase + gallery lithograph print |
Conclusion
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is one of the most ambitious concept art productions in the franchise’s history, a visual project that involved dozens of artists working in seven or more studios worldwide, and the chance to create a historically accurate, visually unique world that players had asked for years, and that the art team had the opportunity to bring to life for the first time.
The results will be seen all over the ArtStation Art Blast, in the Dark Horse art book and the official fine art print collection at Art4fans and Ubisoft Store. Whether it’s Sina Hayati’s early blue-sky Mountain Castle pieces, Darek Zabrocki’s keyframes for the film or Kate Cruz’s extensive NPC designs, the concept art for Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a testament to video game visual development as a real and collectible art practice.
The official art book (which comes in standard (49.99) and Deluxe (99.99) editions from Dark Horse) is the most complete single source for the game’s creative process. If you are a collector or fan looking to display the artwork on your wall, the Art4fans print collection is the most authentic choice, while the gallery lithograph of the Deluxe Edition is the most popular.
For more guides on game concept art, visual culture, and the art print market, explore the full library at Shani Levni.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who did the concept art for Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
The idea art was developed by Ubisoft artists from around the world in various studios. Some of the key concept artists are Sina Hayati (Ubisoft Chengdu), Darek Zabrocki (freelance), Kate Cruz (Ubisoft Philippines), Xiao LuoLe (Ubisoft Chengdu), Fred Rambaud (freelance), Tyler Ryan (freelance), Junhong Long (Ubisoft Singapore), and Jillian Young (Ubisoft Philippines). Thierry Dansereau of Ubisoft Québec handled the art direction.
Is there a book for Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Yes. The Art of Assassin’s Creed Shadows was released by Dark Horse Books on March 25, 2025 in partnership with Ubisoft. The standard hardcover book is 256 pages, 9″ x 12″ and priced at 49.99.TheDeluxeEdition(99.99) comes with a decorative slip case and a gallery quality lithograph print. These are both available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Dark Horse Direct.
Where do I find official Assassin’s Creed Shadows Art Prints?
Official fine art prints are offered by Art4fans (art4fans.com), the Ubisoft Store (store.ubisoft.com) and Displate for metal posters. The Official Art Book Deluxe Edition also features a gallery quality lithograph. Unofficial and fan-made prints can be purchased on Etsy, Redbubble and other sites.
What is the release date of Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be released on PlayStation 5, Windows, macOS and Xbox Series X/S on March 20, 2025. The Nintendo Switch 2 version will be released on December 2, 2025. The game is the 14th game in the Assassin’s Creed series and the first game in feudal Japan.
The two playable characters in Assassin’s Creed Shadows are?
How do their artworks differ? Naoe is a shinobi assassin of Iga Province, and Yasuke is a samurai based on a historical African person who served under Oda Nobunaga. The visual language of a shinobi is concealment, layered darkness, and minimal silhouette, which are key elements in Naoe’s design. The design of Yasuke emphasizes the sense of presence, the mass of armor and the imposing silhouette of full samurai armor. They have different visual identities, which correspond to their different playstyles and cultural background.
So what is ArtStation Art Blast for Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
The ArtStation Art Blast, released on March 27th, 2025, is an organized publishing of concept art from dozens of Ubisoft artists from all of the studios that are involved. It’s the most complete free public collection of game art from the development of the game and connects to the individual artists’ portfolios for more art. It was released in ArtStation Magazine magazine.artstation.com.