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How to play as Yasuke - Assassin's Creed Shadows

One of the main characters in Assassin's Creed Shadows, Yasuke, is not available right from the start of the game.

Aidan O'Brien

March 19, 2025 10:40 AM

Shacknews

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Yasuke is one of the main characters in Assassin's Creed Shadows. A former slave, he was taken in by Oda Nobunaga and shown the ways of both Japanese and samurai culture. As such, you might think he would be available right from the start of the game. Well, think again. This is how you get access to Yasuke.

How to play as Yasuke in Assassin's Creed Shadows

To play as Yasuke, you will need to first play as Naoe and get about 10 to 12 hours into the game. Take out the first two assassination targets that are part of the main league of villains in the game. You can find these on the Objectives board. They are called Golden Teppo and Wada Koretake and are part of the Shinbakufu. 

This will lead you to a quest called Temple of the Horseman, where you will launch your attack on Oda Nobunaga himself. Once this mission is wrapped up, you will be able to play as Yasuke if you wish. Naoe and Yasuke both offer very different playstyles. Naoes is the stealthy assassin character, while Yasuke is a more straightforward warrior who lacks access to very stealthy techniques but is immense fun in massive, sprawling fights that Naoe simply cannot survive in.

You will be able to change characters from the main loadout screen or when you fast-travel to vantage points or Kakurega hideouts that you will find all over the map.

For more Assassin's Creed guides and news, be sure to check out our Assassin's Creed Shadows page.

Aidan O'Brien

Contributing Guides Editor

Hailing from Ireland, Aidan has been conditioned by local weather conditions to survive hours at his PC grinding through whatever game is offering the lowest possible drop rates for loot. He thinks the easiest way to figure out what fans of games want to read is to just be a fan of games. You can normally find him logged into Warframe, Destiny, or a gacha game. You can reach out to him on X @scannerbarkly.