In my write-up about the progression system in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, I noted that they wanted their next blog post to be about the hideout system. Today, we got that blog post on their website. It’s time to look and break it down!
The Hideout is set in a secluded valley tucked away in the Izumi Settsu province. Surrounded by steep hills on all sides and accessible only through a narrow path in the rocks, its location is either unknown or has been forgotten by most, making it an ideal staging ground and base of operations for your burgeoning league.
Early in the story, you will get acquainted with its caretaker, Miss Tomiko – a friend and ally of Iga. Resourceful and hard-working, Tomiko has done her best to keep things running, and now with Naoe and Yasuke’s help – and with the cornucopia of resources they’ll smuggle back during their adventures – this secret valley can finally become the coolest, most intricate Hideout in the history of the Brotherhood.
“It’s pretty ambitious,” says Dany. “After fortresses, villas, homesteads, pirate coves, café-theatres, moving trains, ships, settlements, assassin bureaus… We knew that if we wanted to make anything new on that front, we had to take a bold step forward. That meant giving players the option to build their homebase with complete freedom.”
The hideout will be available once you finish the Prologue of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. There is a lot you can do to make the Hideout your own.
Building Your Hideout
Each new building and upgrade requires three resources you can find in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. These resources include Wood, Crops, and Minerals. You can gather these resources yourself, or you can utilize the scouts that are available to you to gather these resources for you.
Doing side quests and story quests can unlock decorations you can add to your hideout. If you perform sumi-e painting activities, you can unlock animals to add to your hideout.
Sumi-e painting has you painting animals around the world of Japan, and you then can put that painting up around your hideout. You can customize the interior or exterior of your hideout.
Exterior elements – that is, objects that can only be placed outside buildings – are organized in sub-categories like Paths, Light sources, Fences, and more. Each object or building comes with a specific tile footprint, which can be placed and rotated anywhere on the grid – as long as tiles are free.
“There are many cosmetics to find” says Dany. “From humble garden rocks to large and complex set pieces. Seeing these pop up always gets me wondering how I’ll use them in my next visit – you never know what might inspire your next renovation.”
The Rooms In The Hideout
There are main rooms and themed rooms in the hideout. The first main room is the one that is built from the beginning. It is Timoka’s Hiroma. Timoka’s Hiroma is her main house. This Hiroma can be customized, but the location can’t be moved from its place in the hideout.
Other main buildings are the forge, stable, study, and the dojo. One that might be hard to figure out based on its name is the Kakurega. The Kakurega gives you access to the bounty boards and safehouses.
Other than offering a degree of flair and personalization, themed rooms augment a few important systems and statistics players won’t want to miss out on:
Tera
Adding a Tera (altar) in the Hideout boosts the amount of XP players can gain while venturing out in the world, effectively acting as a 10% XP booster.Jinja
Shinto shrines around the world allow players to pray and earn a small stat boost – called a boon – for a few minutes. The Jinja’s presence in the Hideout magnifies the effects of any shrine’s boon encountered in Japan.Nando
The Nando – a kind of barracks for sleeping and storing personal items – makes recalling scouts that have been used less costly – a function that extends to all Kakurega safehouses.Zashiki
Apart from the cool factor of owning your very own sake room, the Zashiki increases ration efficiency (health restoration) for both Naoe and Yasuke.Tea Room
This Tea Room also increases ration efficiency – an effect that can be compounded with the Zashiki bonus.Gallery
A place where players can display armor sets and weapons they’ve acquired, which unlocks the possibility of creating equipment loadouts.Generic Rooms
Players have access to a variety of rooms with varied layouts for showing off their earned cosmetics such as outfits, wall art and more. -Blog Post
You can join main rooms and theme rooms together with walkways that have overhead shelter. This will make it look more like connected pavilions.
The best part of petting cats and dogs in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is having them become domesticated and available to be in your hideout afterward.
Making The Hideout Your Own
The longer you play Assassin’s Creed Shadows and get further into the story, you will get more and more characters you meet in the story. As you unlock more scouts and gain more allies, they will start to appear in the hideout. You can see them show up in your main and themed rooms. It will give your hideout a more lived-in feel. It also makes the cast feel more like a found family and have their place to stay.
It will be exciting to see the hideout in action! I always love having control over your main hub, and being able to construct it from the ground up is gonna be awesome!
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be released for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC on March 20th, 2025.
