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Assassin’s Creed Shadowsmarks the return of many features from previous Assassin’s Creed games. From a canon story mode to a reworking of stealth mechanics, Shadow brings back quite a few staples. Seasons, which were first introduced inAssassin’s Creed III, are back in Shadows, but heavily expanded.
In the third game, seasons were determined by the current playable character and would often alter how Connor could traverse through the environment. In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, seasons come and go based on in-game time. While an in-game tutorial covers some basics, Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ seasons are a lot more intricate than presented.
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Why do you want to change the seasons?
Aside from the aesthetic changes, you’ll want the seasons to change for a few reasons. One, certain missions only take place during certain seasons. Secondly, different seasons affect gameplay in distinct ways. Higher grass in spring and summer creates additional stealth opportunities. Meanwhile, deep snow in winter slows down your running speeds.
The largest impact, though, comes from various in-game mechanics. A season change opens up new quests, refreshes your scouts, clears your ‘Wanted’ status, and nets you valuables you tagged for collection. Essentially, you want the season to change if you want to see all the content the game has to offer.
Can I change the season at will?
No. There is, unfortunately, no way to change the season at will, nor is there any way to skip to whatever season you want. If you’re in winter and a mission’s requirement is that it can only be done in the summer, you’ll need to play a set amount of time to get to summer.
You change the season manually, but only at certain intervals. When looking at the World map, look at the top right compass. This compass tracks the progression of the seasons. Once halfway, you’ll get a mid-season refresh, which refreshes alerts, locations, and local factions. You can manually change the season at the 50% and 100% mark, but not any time before.
The seasons do change automatically as well, should you forget to do it manually. A season change automatically triggers at 50% and 100% when fast traveling or completing a mission.
How long is a season?
Unfortunately, this is something Assassin’s Creed Shadows doesn’t tell you. However, by our estimate, seasons can take anywhere between 2–3 hours to complete. Spring, summer, and fall appear to finish in around 2 hours, but winter appears to take a bit more time.
You can always check the progression of the season in the World tab in the top right. If half or the full circle is lit up, you can change the season. Alternatively, underneath it, the ‘Change Season’ will be grayed out if changing the season isn’t available.
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows
