In the expansive world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, mastering the art of stealth is paramount. One feature that significantly enhances this experience is the ability to perform guaranteed one-hit assassinations, ensuring that your stealth attacks are always lethal, regardless of an enemy’s strength or level. This option allows players to emulate the classic feel of earlier Assassin’s Creed titles, where a well-placed hidden blade was the end of any adversary.

In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, not all enemies can be taken down instantly with a standard assassination attempt, especially those with higher health or armor. This mechanic adds a layer of challenge, requiring players to upgrade their skills or equipment to deal with tougher foes. However, for those who prefer a more traditional approach to stealth gameplay, the game offers an option to enable guaranteed assassinations. When activated, this feature ensures that any successful stealth attack results in an immediate kill, mirroring the decisive lethality of earlier series entries.
How to Enable Guaranteed Assassinations
Activating this feature is straightforward and can be done at any point during your gameplay. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
- Access the Options Menu: Pause the game and navigate to the main menu.
- Navigate to Gameplay Settings: Within the main menu, select the ‘Options’ tab, then proceed to the ‘Gameplay’ section.
- Enter Difficulty Tuning: In the ‘Gameplay’ settings, locate and select the ‘Difficulty Tuning’ option.
- Enable Guaranteed Assassinations: Within the ‘Difficulty Tuning’ menu, find the ‘Guaranteed Assassinations’ setting and toggle it on.
After enabling this feature, the game may prompt you to reload your last checkpoint to apply the changes. Ensure your progress is saved before making this adjustment to avoid any potential loss of data.
Considerations When Using Guaranteed Assassinations
While this feature simplifies stealth encounters, it’s essential to consider its impact on overall gameplay:
- Skill Tree Adjustments: With guaranteed assassinations enabled, certain skills that enhance assassination damage may become redundant. Players might choose to reallocate skill points to other abilities that complement their playstyle.
- Game Difficulty Balance: Instantly eliminating any enemy can reduce the challenge, potentially diminishing the satisfaction derived from overcoming tougher adversaries. Players seeking a balanced experience might consider adjusting other difficulty settings to maintain a desired level of challenge.
- Immersion and Realism: For some, the ability to one-hit assassinate all enemies, regardless of their stature or armor, might break immersion. Weighing the trade-off between gameplay convenience and realism is a personal choice.
Alternative Approaches to Enhancing Assassination Efficiency
If you prefer to keep the default settings but still wish to improve your assassination capabilities, consider the following strategies:
- Upgrade the Hidden Blade: Invest resources into enhancing your hidden blade’s effectiveness, allowing it to deal more damage and take down stronger enemies.
- Develop Stealth Skills: Allocate skill points to abilities that increase assassination damage or improve stealth tactics, making it easier to approach and eliminate targets undetected.
- Utilize Environmental Advantages: Leverage the environment to your advantage by using distractions, blending into crowds, or attacking from elevated positions to increase the success rate of your assassinations.