Assassin’s Creed Shadows: All Difficulty Settings Explained

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Difficulty Levels Explained

There are four difficulty settings available in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, allowing you to customize your experience. The options are:

• Story
• Forgiving
• Normal
• Expert

Story Mode

As the name suggests, Story mode prioritizes narrative flow. Enemies react slowly, rarely attack simultaneously, and you can easily evade or bypass them. This setting is ideal for players who want to focus on the story without combat pressure.

Forgiving Mode

A slight upgrade from Story mode, Forgiving still prevents enemies from overwhelming you. Naoe’s combat effectiveness improves, making it easier to handle open engagements while maintaining a relaxed pace.

Normal Mode

The default setting, Normal mode requires tactical awareness. Naoe excels in stealth, while Yasuke performs best when facing opponents of similar size. This balance challenges your approach to both stealth and direct combat.

Expert Mode

Enemies deal more damage and act with greater aggression. Success depends on precision, timing, and consistent gear upgrades. This mode rewards deep strategy and careful planning.

Difficulty Tuning

Beyond the four main settings, you can fine-tune your experience. In the Gameplay menu, select Difficulty Tuning to adjust combat and stealth difficulty independently. This lets you increase combat challenge while reducing stealth pressure—or vice versa.

You can also enable Guaranteed Assassination, which ensures Naoe can eliminate enemies with a single hit. Normally, this ability requires progression in her Assassin Mastery tree, but this option removes that requirement.

How to Change Difficulty

You can modify the difficulty at any time. Open the main menu, navigate to Settings, then select Gameplay. Adjust the settings to your preference, then return to the game.