Assassin’s Creed Shadows 1.0.6 Changes Overview

Update 1.0.6 of Assassin’s Creed Shadows brings a few quality-of-life changes, another collaboration (new free story pack), and Nightmare difficulty.

Update Size and Availability

Update 1.0.6 for Assassin’s Creed Shadows released on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Its size varies on each platform where the game is available:

• PS5: 3.31 GB 
• XBS: 19 GB 
• MAC: 9 GB 
• PC: 13 GB 
• Steam: 4.3 GB 

Everything in this update is free, and every owner of every game edition and platform can install and play it.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is up for sale

Before getting into the patch notes, we should mention that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is on sale for the first time since its launch. You can get 25% off the Standard and Deluxe Editions on the Ubisoft Store. This offer is available until July 24, 2025.

A Critical Encounter Quest unlocked

A Critical Encounter is a new quest made in collaboration with Critical Role. Completing it will grant you a new ally called Rufino, a unique banner, gold, mastery points, and XP.

This quest is free, but first you need to complete “Way of the Blacksmith” and unlock Yasuke as a playable character. You can start the questline in the Hideout.

Nightmare Difficulty Setting

This new setting impacts combat and stealth. You will need to have better planning and be more aware of your surroundings, especially when entering fortified places like castles and fortresses.

These are some of the things you can expect:

• Fewer defensive options. All enemies deal more damage.
• Imperfect parries only partially block damage.
• Enemy NPCs are smarter and faster. In both combat and detection.
• Naoe generates sound even when hiding in the shadows,
• Enemies won’t become vulnerable after dodging or parrying their attacks, only with abilities.
• Adrenaline, rations, and shinobi tools are harder to find.

I played on this difficulty for a little over three hours, and it is definitely a completely new experience. Here are my biggest takeaways from it:

• Everything that was fairly important before is now mandatory.
• One good hit from a standard enemy can deplete 80% of your health.
• Sneaking inside a castle is almost impossible if you play without care (like I usually do).
• If the alarm is raised, you will soon be chased by a small army made of Samurai and Guardians.

This new difficulty is aimed at players who are fans of very challenging experiences, especially combatwise. If you don’t fit into this category, it might make your gameplay quite miserable. Still, I suggest that you give it a try at least once. You can always change the difficulty from the menu.

Headgear in cutscenes

Before this patch, headgear would now show in cutscenes. While this doesn’t affect gameplay, it certainly disrupts the immersion of the game. The new option is available in the in-game settings.

There are a few cases where headgear still won’t be displayed due to the game overriding this option, but don’t worry. It’s only on romance-specific cutscenes.

VFX Toggles

We can now disable/enable specific VFX for a more customized experience. A few examples are showing/hiding the loot on dead bodies, the last known position of the player, parry indicator, and special attacks indicators (enemies).

These visual queues are key when fighting multiple enemies. So keep in mind that while removing these will increase the immersion, the same is going to happen to the difficulty.

Open World Alarm

Enemies in castles can raise the alarm when they spot you. This causes Guardians to come look for you. Normally, they would limit the search to the inner walls of the castle, but for better or worse, that is no longer the case. Instead, they will hunt you down in the entire Province.

To test this, I caused mayhem in a castle and then fled the scene. Some time later, I returned to the province and encountered a single guardian in the middle of a field next to the road. I expected to find at least two, but it’s not the first time I’ve witnessed them splitting up.

Horse Camera Presets

We can now toggle between three different camera presets while riding our horse. This has no impact on the gameplay itself; it’s mainly for a more cinematic experience.

To change presets simply press the down button on controller and the “X” key on keyboard. or the corresponding buttons on your controller.

The following images show what the full screen looks like with each newly available preset.

Ultra Low Specs for PC

This new visual quality level allows PC players with less powerful GPUs to play the game under better conditions.

List of Bug Fixes

You can’t expect a patch without a healthy amount of bug fixes and Assassin’s Creed Shadows 1.0.6 features plenty of them.