PSA: Assassin’s Creed Shadows would now not show veil how precious its hideout upgrades are

The day prior to the launch, I wanted to highlight that Assassin’s Creed Shadows does not require any previous knowledge of the series – narrative-wise, it is essentially a standalone experience. Now that the game is out, there’s just one more point I wanted to bring up, ensuring your gameplay goes as smoothly as you might hope.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows‘ hideout is an enjoyable feature to personalize, but it wasn’t until midway through the game that I genuinely explored its upgrades – which are quite valuable. Maybe I was just being inattentive, but you are not often compelled back to the hideout – unlike in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – thus these features are easily overlooked.

Initially, I thought that enhancing the hideout only meant unlocking some more aesthetically pleasing buildings. However, it turns out that doing so also grants you significant benefits to enhance your in-game experience.

What are the best hideout structures to upgrade? First up is the Thought, which provides benefits related to your Scouts. As mentioned in our Assassin’s Creed Shadows review, one of the significant alterations to the series’ formula is how players must navigate the environment based on hints and a search area revealed through map pings.

Want more map pings? You can recruit additional Scouts – and upgrading your Thought grants you an extra Scout member. Additional Scouts are added to your team as you enhance the Thought to levels two and three. Even better, upgrades also reduce the search radius your Scouts provide you – allowing you to pinpoint locations much more quickly.

Other valuable hideout structures? The Stables are a worthwhile upgrade to ensure you gather resources for any remaining Scouts as the season ends. The Dojo, on the other hand, allows you to level up your ally characters – those you can summon in battle.

Eventually, you’ll want to complete all of your hideout’s upgrades – and Eurogamer has an extensive guide to every Assassin’s Creed Shadows hideout upgrade – but these are the ones I would recommend pursuing initially. They are all beneficial, but since nearly every task in the game requires exploration first, this is an easy way to save yourself some aimless wandering (though exploring in Shadows often leads to some awe-inspiring locations).

Setting up and upgrading structures necessitates resources – crops, wood, and minerals (not rocks) – which