Best Settings Guide for Assassin’s Creed Shadows – PC & Console

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has finally been released, and despite the positive reception for its gameplay and story so far, its performance can be a bit hit or miss depending on your hardware. If you are playing on PC, then here are some settings you can consider changing just to hopefully improve your overall experience. No guarantees that they will help you specifically, though!

Best Settings Guide – PC & Console

Before we get started, just know that this is purely for the visual and gameplay side of things. We will not be going over controls specifically, as this is completely subjective, especially if you are using a keyboard instead of a gamepad.

Needless to say, With all of that in mind, here is a list of settings that you can consider tweaking to improve your experience and even the game’s performance in some cases:

• FOV (Video) – This is typically a subjective matter, but consider maxing this out for this game in particular. This will give you a much better view of the action and possibly help you in combat sometimes.
• Upscaler Type (Video) – This is dependent on your graphics card, but AMD FSR seems to give good results even on Nvidia GPUs. Keep it at Quality so that the game does not occasionally look blurred at the cost of a bit more potential FPS.
• Frame Generation (Video) – FSR if you are using AMD FSR. If your graphics card that supports DLSS frame generation, then use that instead for potentially better results.
• Raytracing Quality (Video) – If your device is struggling with performance, consider setting this to the lowest possible value as anything higher can be a massive hit to your FPS.
• Shadow Quality (Video) – Put this at low if you are really struggling with FPS. It does not have a massive hit in performance on higher end systems, so you can keep this high if you are on the mid to upper end.
• Hair Strands (Video) – This has a significant impact on performance if there are multiple characters with hair being rendered. Consider turning it completely off if you want to squeeze out more FPS from your system.
• Motion Blur (Video) – Turn this off unless you really like having it on. Generally, it can just be a bit nauseating to have on.
• HUD Toggle (Controls) – If you love taking screenshots of the scenery or whatnot, turn this on you can switch your HUD off whenever you want.
• Auto Movement (Controls) – Set this to on as it will let you move automatically with a double tap of a button. This feature is great for when you need to run across a long stretch of land and would rather not hold the controls down.
• Immersive Mode (Audio) – This makes it so that voiced characters use their native languages when speaking, making for a more immersive experience. Turn it on if you want to be fully immersed, or just leave it off otherwise.
• Subtitle & Caption Size (Audio) – This is personal preference, but consider setting this to small for less clutter on the screen. Do not touch this if you have difficulty reading smaller text.

• Guided Exploration Mode (Gameplay) – Keep it off if you are a completionist, as there are achievements or trophies that you cannot get while it is turned on. If you are really struggling when it comes to finding objectives, though, this will be a massive help.
• Area Loot (Gameplay) – Keep this on as it is a huge quality of life setting that will make looting multiple stuff less tedious.
• Difficulty Tuning (Gameplay) – These are all based on your own preferences. Expert is the way to go if you want to be challenged, but obviously not everybody will be too keen on that.
• Guaranteed Assassination (Gameplay) – This can be good if you would rather not have enemies have health left over on an assassination, just like in the old Assassin’s Creed games. However, keep it off if you want to play the game as intended.

And those are some of the settings that you should consider tweaking to make your overall experience much better. A lot of the other stuff, even some of the options mentioned here, are basically just down to whatever your personal preferences may be.

As far as settings go, at least on PC, you will just have to experiment with the individual stuff on your own as it will depend a lot on your specific hardware. Some of the recommendations in the list above might be helpful, but those are more general things that will help with any system.

With all of that out of the way, you should now be ready to enjoy Assassin’s Creed Shadows in its entirety! As a closing tip, if you are playing the game on console, consider leaving the performance options setting at Performance if you want the smoothest gameplay possible. Quality looks way better if you are fine with roughly 30 FPS on average.