Assassin’s Creed Shadows has “unclimbable surfaces” that force you to find physical handholds because Ubisoft wants to be “more thoughtful” about parkour

With Assassin’s Creed Shadows out in a matter of weeks, Ubisoft is starting to drip feed us a whole bunch of info on the game’s mechanics. Now the devs have provided an in-depth explanation of how parkour works, and maybe the most notable detail is that – in contrast to many Assassin’s Creed games – you won’t be able to climb over literally everything.

Shadows will feature some number of “unclimbable surfaces” without physical handholds to grab onto. “This is a pretty big deal for us,” according to associate game director Simon Lemay-Comtois in a new blog post. “This means we had to be more thoughtful about creating interesting parkour highways and afforded us more control about where Naoe can go, and where Yasuke can’t, making our two playstyles even more contrasted.”