Written by Assassin’s Creed Shadows Update 1.0.2 brings with it a large array of changes, bug fixes, and quality-of-life adjustments meant to improve the player experience. Patched on April 8, 2025, this update responds to problems since the release of the game in March 2025 and brings with it new gameplay functionality.
One of the biggest additions is the return of the horse auto-follow feature. Players can now enable the pathfinder to enable their horse to follow marked paths automatically, which makes traveling through the game’s large and mountainous world much easier.
Horse speed in villages and towns has also been improved, so players no longer need to dismount as often when traveling through urban areas.
Another addition is the function to reset Mastery Nodes in skill trees. With this, players can try out various playstyles for both characters, Yasuke and Naoe.
A new tagging system for items has been added, allowing players to sell or disassemble multiple items at once at shops or the Hideout forge.
The patch resolves an overarching problem concerning frame rate falloffs inside the Hideout region by capping the frame rate for players on Performance Mode.
The improvement helps deliver smooth gaming within the core hub zone where players construct buildings and trade resources. To users on the PlayStation 5 Pro, the update introduces support for PSSR (Raytraced Specular) while enhancing visual integrity in Balanced Mode to get progressively nearer to that of Quality Mode.
The patch fixes many bugs related to abilities, combat mechanics, and progression. For instance:
- Abilities such as Staggering Blast and Dark Burst have been adjusted to provide balanced gameplay.
- Bugs regarding Yasuke’s Power Dash missing targets while enemy attack animations are occurring have been corrected.
- Issues with unpredictable perks and gear effects, such as those of “Throw a Kunai” or “Daybreak’s Fury,” have been fixed.
Combat balancing has also been enhanced. Boss battles are now better balanced, and double assassinations have been optimized for improved responsiveness. NPC responses to tools such as Shinobi Bells now work as they should.
The update adds a feature to access the Investigation Board directly from gameplay with the OPTION button held down. This addition streamlines transitions between different menus, such as the World Map and Inventory.
In addition, some visual bugs concerning clipping, texture, and lighting have been addressed to improve graphical consistency across platforms.
Top 5 Updates from Assassin’s Creed Shadows Update 1.0.2 Patch Notes
1. Horse Auto-Follow and Speed Improvements
Horse Auto-Follow Feature
Auto-follow feature provides the ability to enable the pathfinder, which makes their horse follow marked paths to destinations automatically. This feature is handy in Assassin’s Creed Shadows due to the game’s vast and mountainous terrain.
Players are now free to attend to other parts of the game, like enjoying scenery, strategy-making, or NPC interaction, as their horse steers through convoluted routes. This limits the need for constant manual inputs.
Previously, players might frequently have gotten stuck on obstacles or struggled to keep a consistent pace over rough terrain. The auto-follow option reduces these annoyances by enabling the horse to smartly navigate around obstacles while keeping a consistent speed.
With the capability of setting a trail and allowing the horse to follow it, the players are likely to venture off-the-beaten-path areas without fear of the inconvenience of manual control.
Increased Horse Speed in Urban Areas
Another improvement is the increase in horse speed within towns and villages. This change responds to a frequent complaint where players were forced to dismount constantly to move through congested urban spaces.
Players are now able to ride through towns without having to dismount so much, which makes it feel more natural and fluid to move through these spaces. This is crucial in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, where city spaces are full of activity and detail.
By enabling horses to travel faster within towns, Ubisoft has cut down on the amount of time that players spend remounting and dismounting. This time is saved, and the entire experience is more streamlined, which enables players to concentrate on communicating with NPCs, fulfilling quests, or traveling in urban environments without interference.
Increased horse speeds in cities add to the sense of immersion. The players can now ride through busy city streets, with a greater sense of belonging to the game world and its people. This also fits more into the game’s historical setting, where horses were a main form of transportation even in cities.
2. Uncapped Frame Rates in the Hideout
The second key update in Assassin’s Creed Shadows Update 1.0.2 is frame rate uncapping in the Hideout area for Performance Mode users. This code correction resolves an important problem which impacted gameplay and the player experience within this game center.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Performance Mode is intended to favor frame rate over visual realism. This mode should be favorable for those whose priority is responsiveness and quick reaction time over using high-resolution texture or complex light effects.
But before the update, the Hideout region had frame rate dips, even in Performance Mode. It was because of the environment and some activities going on in the Hideout, including constructing things, managing resources, and talking to NPCs.
Lower frame rates made navigation and interaction in the Hideout feel slow and unresponsive. This was frustrating for players who used fast actions to handle resources or construct buildings effectively.
The Hideout is a detailed environment with detailed animations and interactions. Frame rate drops caused choppy animations.
Constantly encountering frame rate problems in a hub like the Hideout may cause frustration among players. It broke the gameplay flow and made it more of a chore than a pleasure to manage resources or construct buildings.
With frame rates no longer being capped artificially, players can move around the Hideout smoother. It makes it feel more responsive to manage resources, construct buildings, and interact with NPCs.
Uncapping frame rates guarantees animations and interactions in the Hideout are more smooth and consistent. This boosts visual quality in the area, even when running Performance Mode, and enhances immersion.
Ubisoft has enhanced the player experience of the Hideout. Players can now concentrate on strategic choice, like resource distribution or building improvements, without being disrupted by technical problems.
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3. Mastery Node Reset in Skill Trees
In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Mastery Nodes exist as a developed skill tree system whereby the players are allowed to enhance and modify the capabilities of their characters.
Mastery Nodes refer to precise skills or modifications that are activated with experience points or other currency. With these nodes invested, players are allowed to adjust their characters according to their desired gameplay preferences, which can range from stealth to fighting to discovery.
But before the update, once an investment was made in a Mastery Node, it was irreversible. This left players stuck with their decisions, with less room to try out various strategies or change their build as they went along.
Players are also able to reset their Mastery Nodes to experiment with various builds or strategies without starting over on a new character. This promotes experimentation and enables players to discover the best build for their desired playstyle.
As the players advance in the game, they might find new challenges or learn new strategies that necessitate changes to their skill tree. The reset option allows them to adjust their build to suitably meet these evolving situations.
In the past, players may have felt committed to less-than-optimal decisions because Mastery Node investments were permanent. The reset feature eradicates this remorse since players can now set things right or change their approach without consequence.
Through enabling players to try various builds, the reset feature enhances the replay value of the game. Players are able to play the game again with new strategies.
The capability of resetting Mastery Nodes offers greater character customization possibilities. Players are able to adjust their characters to meet particular roles or situations, allowing for a stronger sense of ownership and personalization.
4. Item Tagging for Selling/Dismantling
The fourth update in Assassin’s Creed Shadows Update 1.0.2 is the addition of an item tagging system for selling or dismantling multiple items at once. This quality-of-life feature simplifies inventory management, solving one of the most time-consuming elements of gameplay.
In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, gamers collect a great deal of loot, resources, and equipment as they venture into Feudal Japan. Items can be sold to vendors for cash or scrapped at the Hideout forge to obtain crafting components.
Beforehand, players could only sell or scrap items one by one, which was tiresome and unproductive, particularly when dealing with large inventories.
The new system of tagging items eliminates this wastefulness because it enables the marking of many items for selling or dismantling with a single action. Both in shops and at the Hideout forge, the feature can be accessed and used, rendering it usable across the board everywhere in the game.
Multiple items in the player’s inventory may now be tagged at once, thus saving huge amounts of time from repetitive selling or dismantling actions on pieces of equipment.
The system is intuitive, with a clear tag and untaged option for items. This way, players are able to efficiently deal with their inventory without any confusion.
The tagging system can be accessed at any merchant as well as in the Hideout forge, meaning that players are able to access this feature anywhere they are in the game.
Players will no longer have to waste a lot of time browsing through their inventory. Being able to mark multiple items, they will easily sell unwanted equipment or disassemble it into valuable materials. This will benefit players who are always traveling and looting.
By cutting down time spent on activity such as selling or breaking down items individually, players can spend more time on essential gameplay features such as combat, exploration, and narrative progression.
With an improved system of inventory management, players would be less likely to skip gathering loot for fear of clutter in their inventory.
The feature to disassemble items in bulk ensures that players are able to gather crafting materials used for upgrades without much hassle. This allows players to make effective use of their resources without causing unnecessary delays.
5. PSSR Support for PS5 Pro
The fifth update in Assassin’s Creed Shadows Update 1.0.2 includes graphical improvements for PlayStation 5 Pro players, namely by introducing PSSR (Raytraced Specular) support.
This feature improves the graphical definition of the gameon Balanced Mode, such that the graphics become somewhat closer to the quality provided by Quality Mode but with better performance.
PSSR, or Raytraced Specular Reflection, is a graphics rendering technology that adds realism to reflections and lighting in a game.
It employs ray tracing methods to mimic the way light interacts with surfaces, producing more realistic and detailed reflections and highlights.
In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, this technology enhances the graphics quality by making light behave more realistically on different textures, including water, metal, and shiny surfaces.
Prior to Update 1.0.2, PS5 Pro Balanced Mode provided a balance between PS5 Pro Performance Mode (opting for smooth performance with better frame rates) and PS5 Pro Quality Mode (prioritizing highest image quality).
Without access to advanced graphics features such as ray tracing, Balanced Mode failed to fully appeal to the interest of those looking for smoother play and extra graphics.
Ways Players Can Enable PSSR:
- Gamers who have already been playing with PS5 Pro before Update 1.0.2 must manually toggle PSSR on from the video settings within the pause menu.
- With Balanced Mode turned on, ray-traced reflections will be automatically included in its graphical output.
By manually activating this, players are given control over their graphics settings according to their performance vs. visual fidelity preference.
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