"Life Is Stranger Than Fiction": Assassin's Creed Shadows' Brooke Davies On Bringing Japanese History To Life

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has a lot of obvious opportunities as the franchise's first visit to Japan, and a lot of those come in the form of storytelling options. Set in the Sengoku period of Japanese history, a time of significant political upheaval and military conflict, the game has no shortage of dynamic characters and intense confrontations to choose from. It also, however, places itself among stiffer competition, as the game has to stack up against plenty of fantastic shinobi and samurai narratives of the past.

One key shepherd of this endeavor is Brooke Davies, the game's associate narrative director and, like many of ' creative forces, a veteran of the team. sat down with Brooke Davies at an preview event to discuss the game's complex cocktail of historical fact, emotional fiction, and giving the player some choices in the midst of that complicated world.

Screen Rant: While games have always had some elements of familiar historical narratives, shinobi and samurai stories have such extensive precedent in facts and fiction compared to say, an Italian Renaissance assassin. How did that influence the narrative process, having so many other works to look at in that regard?

Brooke Davies: I think it was really great for the team to have so much material to look at when we were preparing to make the game. I think everybody connects with different inspiration in different ways, so there was a lot to choose from when we were doing research.

For me personally, something that I really connected with early on after joining the team was a historical work by a former samurai who went on to become a scribe and wrote about the history during the era the game is set in. His name was Ōta Gyūichi, and it was a chronicle of Lord Nobunaga. And the way that he — just his descriptions, I mean, he he was a samurai, so I think that perspective of somebody who had taken part in battles and, and seen difficult things, or I imagine that he had — was really interesting to me, became sort of a thread or a little