How to get Knowledge Points in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

The Knowledge system in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a key part of your character’s progression and development. It grants you access to improved and new abilities for Naoe and Yasuke.

What are Knowledge Points

There are three different types of Points in Assassin’s Creed Shadows – Experience Points, Mastery Points and Knowledge Points. Everyone know about Experience Points, so we skip this one.

Mastery Points are what most of us know in other games as skill points. You earn them after completing specific activities or when leveling up and then allocate them into any of the Mastery trees.

Knowledge Points unlock different ranks of Knowledge, new ranks unlock new or improved abilities. There is a total of six knowledge ranks. To unlock a new rank, you must earn a specific number of Knowledge Points.

Otherwise, you will be stuck in your current Knowledge Rank regardless of your progress with the main story or other side activities. In the next image, you can see that abilities from ranks five and six are blocked.

Your current Knowledge Rank and required Knowledge Points needed to hit the next Rank are displayed on the left lower corner in the Mastery menu.

Earning Knowledge Points can only be done by doing specific activities. Each of these grants only one Knowledge Point.

There are plenty of opportunities to earn Knowledge Points and if you complete everything, you will end up with well above the required number to unlock Mastery Tier 6. After you unlock it, you gain access to higher Mastery Tiers, which we have detailed in our Mastery and Abilities guide.

How to earn Knowledge Points

There are seven types of activities you can complete in the game to earn a Knowledge point. Some are accessible to both characters, others are specific for either Naoe or Yasuke. The game will tell you if an activity can only be completed by one character or the other.

Kuji-kiri

Kuji-kiri is a practice of using hand gestures, rooted in Japanese traditions. It involves making symbolic hand gestures (mudras) while chanting corresponding mantras to invoke spiritual protection, focus, or energy. It is believed to enhance mental clarity, strength, and even supernatural abilities

In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Kuji-kiri acts as a side activity as well as part of Naoe’s story progression.

Early on, you will have an objective to complete four of these events to learn more of Naoe’s past. They are part of Naoe’s Journey board and the “Before the Fall” quest. You unlock this one very early on.

When you do, you will play through one of Naoe’s memories. These are linear gameplay quests that take part in an isolated environment.

Temples

Each Temple has two or more Lost Pages scattered somewhere on the Temple grounds. They are often located in weird places like rooftops or middle of a lake.

To “complete” a temple’s objectives, you have to find the Lost Pages located within the temple’s territory. This will grant you a Knowledge Point. Knowledge Points are used to unlock higher tiers of your character’s Mastery.

Sometimes you may encounter aggressive behavior and guards in the territory of a Temple. And, as always, you are never safe from the roaming ronin. Never. Nowhere. If they see you, they will attack you immediately, regardless how sacred or peaceful an area you might be in.

Shrines

Shrines in Assassin’s Creed Shadows allow Naoe and Yasuke to take a moment and pray. Each location offers between 2 and 5 shrines you can honor by praying in front of them.

Completing these tasks will reward you a Knowledge Point. Knowledge Points are required to unlock higher Mastery Tiers.

Kata

Kata is a Japanese word that means “form”. It refers to the specific pattern of martial arts movements. This technique is practiced in Japanese martial arts as a way to memorize and perfect the movements of the technique that’s being studied.

Yasuke can find different teachers who will teach him a kata for a different type of weapon. This does not involve any combat. All you have to do is complete different sequences without making a mistake. If you get it wrong, you must repeat the sequence.

Horse Archery

To complete a Horse Archery challenge, you have to talk to the NPC and start the challenge. This is specifically an activity for Yasuke. Completing the Horse Archery will reward you with a Knowledge Point.

Your goal is to hit all targets, barrels or whatever the master archer puts on your path. To grab the rewards from each activity, you need to achieve Legends status, this means hit everything.

You have limited arrows and are not allowed to use abilities during these challenges. Just aim and shoot.

Kofun

Kofun are large, ancient burial mounds in Japan from the 3rd to 7th centuries. They were made for important people and are shaped in many ways. The keyhole shape is very common. And this is reflected in the game as well. The time they were built is also called the Kofun period.

In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, you will explore ten Kofun to find valuable treasure chests. At the end of these puzzle-like tombs, you will find a large legendary treasure chest, which yields a Legendary piece of gear for Naoe or Yasuke.

Kofun offer various types of challenges and the closest reference I can make are the Tombs in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Usually, either Naoe or Yasuke is meant to explore each Kofun as the mechanics for movement and traversal inside will require either brute force and muscles for lifting heavy things or parkour skills and agile movement using the grapple hook.

Hidden Trails

Hidden Trails are linear traversal challenges in the open world where Naoe has to parkour a difficult terrain from the starting point to the end, where a treasure chest awaits.

There are ten Hidden Trails. Their names always start with “Path of …”. Some of them are associated with a hidden Assassins Outpost that is part of The Assassins story arc for Naoe. Each one of the Hidden Trails also rewards you a Knowledge Point.

The Hidden Trails are strictly for Naoe. If you attempt to start one as Yasuke, he will tell you that this is not a part of his skill set and he will tell Naoe about it. This is a hint that you should switch characters and progress as Naoe.

You can sometimes reach the treasure chest without traversing the path from start to end by cleverly exploring the mountainous terrain, but the recommended and intended way is to start where the red marker is on the map.

The Hidden Trails do have a level associated with them when you mouse over the red marker on the map. There is no combat involved on the Paths, except for one where you have to fight a single level 40 NPC.