Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Claws of Awaji DLC – The Ending We Deserved… For a Price

The story picks up right where we left off, with Naoe and Yasuke hot on the trail of Naoe’s long-lost mother. They find her on the island of Awaji, but—surprise!—she’s been a prisoner for over a decade, tortured by the daughter of a Templar Yasuke offed in the main game. This new baddie has taken over her dad’s title and is desperate to find that third MacGuffin.

To get to her, you have to dismantle her iron grip on Awaji by taking out her three top lieutenants: a spymaster, a samurai, and a shinobi. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same open-ended structure as the main game’s second act. But here’s the awesome part: this time, it’s done so much better.

Each lieutenant actively makes your life a living hell. The spymaster has agents hiding in plain sight, ready to shank you when you least expect it. The samurai patrols the main roads with his goon squad, setting up roadblocks. The shinobi, my personal favorite, has ambushers lurking in the wilderness, armed with poison and smoke bombs. It’s a genuine cat-and-mouse game where you are simultaneously the hunter and the hunted.

You can feel your impact as you take them down, kill the samurai, and the roads clear up. It’s a tangible, rewarding progression that was sorely missing from the main campaign. Honestly, it’s a little frustrating that this brilliant system was saved for a shorter, paid DLC.

Boss Fights: A Mixed Bag of Frustration and Sheer Brilliance

Unfortunately, the momentum stalls when it comes to the boss fights. Two of them are just boring, drawn-out duels where you’re encouraged (or forced) to play as Yasuke. Get ready to dodge, dodge, dodge, land one measly hit, and repeat for what feels like an eternity. They have ridiculously huge health bars and unblockable combos that just aren’t fun. Even on Normal difficulty, it was a slog. The spymaster fight is more creative, focusing on stealth and information gathering, but it’s so easy it’s almost laughable.

But then there’s the shinobi boss fight. Oh, my goodness, the shinobi boss fight. It’s Naoe versus her equal in a misty, treacherous swamp. Your rival taunts you while taking shots with a rifle. You have to use your senses, the environment, and even her own traps against her to figure out where she’s hiding. It’s a tense, strategic, and deeply satisfying stealth battle—easily the highlight of the entire DLC and one of the best boss encounters the franchise has ever produced.

Naoe also gets a fun new toy: the bo staff. It’s fast, fluid, and delivers a deeply satisfying thwack with every hit. It’s my new favorite weapon, period. Yasuke? He gets nothing. And that brings me to my next point.

Why This Should Have Been Naoe’s Story All Along

Once again, this DLC proves that Shadows should have been Naoe’s game from the start. Yasuke’s presence continues to feel forced, and here, it actively sabotages the emotional core of the story. The reunion between Naoe and her mother is shockingly wooden. They talk like acquaintances catching up after a few years, not a daughter seeing her mother, who was presumed dead for 14 years.

There’s no raw emotion, no grappling with the consequences of her mother’s choices, no real connection. It’s all so sterile, and you can feel the writers pulling their punches to make sure the scenes work, whether you’re playing as Naoe or Yasuke. The result is a conclusion to Naoe’s arc that feels hollow and unearned.

So, do I recommend Claws of Awaji? Grudgingly, yes. It provides a much-needed (if emotionally flat) conclusion to the story and introduces a fantastic “hunter becomes the hunted” gameplay loop. The shinobi fantasy as Naoe is still top-tier, and that one boss fight is worth the price of admission alone.

But the whole experience is dragged down by the same problems as the base game, most notably the narrative handicap of having two protagonists when one would have been so much stronger. It’s a good DLC, but it could have been legendary.

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