Ubisoft’s historic Action Adventure Stealth series, Assassin’s Creed, has primarily garnered its hype by advertising, “where in history are we going next?”

It's finally happened: Assassin's Creed Shadows is going full meta. Naoe and Yasuke's journey is still a story within a story, but this time, it's framed through the Animus Hub. You, the player, are using the Animus – not Layla, Loki, or anyone else – and that means our perception of the past could well be manipulated.

Shadows pulls back on the modern-day storyline of Assassin's Creed, but this gives the opportunity for Ubisoft to make a plot fans could love.

Shadows is Ubisoft's most successful game in the franchise by a Japanese country mile, ranking high in both sales and player counts.

Yes, Shadows revives the iconic assassination simulator of 2007. But the amenities of modern gaming — lifelike graphics, semi-permanent gore, an abundance of murder-ready gizmos — have twisted the game into something else too: a slasher movie in which you’re the killer.

French gaming company Ubisoft announced the establishment of a subsidiary focused on developing core gaming titles in partnership with Chinese game publisher Tencent. The deal, valued at around 1.16 billion euros ($1.