Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a game with pretty extreme expectations. It’s the first mainline series entry since 2020’s AC Valhalla, the first AC game built exclusively for current-gen consoles, and it’s a game that probably needs to be a big commercial success for beleaguered publisher Ubisoft. We’ve seen how the game meets technical expectations on the original trio of current-gen consoles, but this is a title with some substantial Pro enhancements, highlighted by additional ray tracing. How does AC Shadows fare on Pro? Is this an iterative upgrade, or a revolutionary one?
As the title of this article has already hinted, Shadows has one of the largest PS5 Pro upgrades we’ve seen so far. The key difference here is that the performance mode gets the ray-traced global illumination (RTGI) that the PS5’s performance mode doesn’t.
Having this lavish pass of per-pixel RTGI, bouncing light through each space to capture a realistic indirect diffuse lighting response, totally transforms the game. Shadow detail is greatly improved, diffuse bounce lighting transfers colours from skies or surfaces, and the entire world feels more true-to-life.
The PS5, in contrast, looks overly flat and compressed during these scenes, with a more uniform lighting response. Foliage is a particular sore point, with the baked GI lighting solution on the base PS5’s performance mode failing to capture the subtle occlusion you get from bunches of leafy greenery, giving it a dull, artificial look. Running through forest areas, the difference is unbelievably vast, with a generational divide in lighting fidelity.