The Wind: Assassin's Creed and Its Historical Burden
Viento in Assassin's Creed is not an isolated decorative element or a simple next-gen graphical upgrade. This text explores how a specific technical decision shapes the narrative, pacing, and historical interpretation of the world, with implications that are not apparent at first glance.
Prácticamente puedes sentir el viento en la espalda de Naoe mientras se desliza por un sinuoso valle. Fuertes ráfagas fluyen entre las crestas que la rodean, levantando hojas anaranjadas que caen y giran en espiral. En las llanuras, el pasto se agita como olas; en las montañas, la nieve danza antes de convertirse en una tormenta diagonal. El viento influye en tanto del mundo de Assassin's Creed Shadows, incluso en el afilado y corto corte de pelo de Naoe, que ondea en las notoriamente ventosas tierras del juego. 🍃
There are good reasons why Ubisoft decided to make the latest installment in its flagship franchise so windswept. It certainly lends audiovisual drama to this open-world interpretation of central Japan: trees swaying thunderously; the wind whistling pleasantly; you feel like you're at the center of a multidirectional symphony of movement. But the breezes in Shadows are more than just an environmental gimmick for this long-running open-world series. They subtly speak to the tumultuous changes in 16th-century Japan, reminding players that the world must have felt unstable with the arrival of Portuguese traders and missionaries. The wind also imbues the game with an irrepressible sense of momentum, carrying Naoe and the samurai Yasuke from shrine to dojo, from teahouse to fortified castle. "All my life I've been caught in a wind," says the former slave Yasuke. "Blowing across the world." Clinging to what I could. 🌪️
Ubisoft has made a lot of noise about the wind in Shadows, promoting it, as well as other weather conditions (such as brilliantly capricious storms), as a set of next-generation enhancements (dubbed the Atmos system) for its Anvil engine. In a blog post, el director de tecnología Pierre F habló sobre cómo toda la vegetación, desde el pino hasta el cerezo, está animada físicamente en la GPU, extrayendo datos del sistema de viento, que a su vez se basa en una simulación de fluidos que se mueve a través del espacio 3D. ¡Vaya! En otro lugar, el director de arte Thierry Dansereau recordó el momento en que él y su equipo se detuvieron a admirar partículas llevadas por el viento sobre un campo. «Wow, esto es real,» dijo algo sin aliento. «Esto es lo que el [sistema] de viento nos está dando.» 🌬️
In this way, Shadows seems like a definitive technological step forward for wind in video games, building upon what the open-world epic, also set in Japan, Ghost of Tsushima from 2020, offered. The wind in this Sucker Punch epic was incredibly beautiful (who can forget those? pampa fields!) while also serving a practical function, elegantly guiding the player diegetically toward their next objective. It was, ultimately, a more "playful" form of wind, adjusting the player's view rather than redirecting it as the dynamic and naturalistic currents of Shadows often do.
In this ninth generation of consoles, which is mostly focused on incremental technological improvements (shorter load times, 4K textures, 60 frames per second), wind and shimmering particle effects are perhaps the most conspicuous and striking graphical offerings. Consider Horizon Forbidden West, whose majestic wind visually united its diverse ecosystems while speaking poetically about the fragility of its post-apocalyptic biosphere. Or the tornadoes of Battlefield 2042, which have the power to lift players up and spit them out onto the futuristic battlefields of Shanghai and Doha. 🌪️
These triple-A, typhoon-like conditions began in 2015 with The Witcher 3. A couple of years later, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild delivered a more restrained breeze through shimmering, gently swaying grass. The painterly visuals of Nintendo's open-world adventure evoke perhaps an underrated influence on these video game worlds: the bright, billowing films of Hayao Miyazaki like Kiki's Delivery Service. In the opening scene In that 1989 film, we see Kiki lying on the grass, enveloped by the wind. The cheerful radio announcer delivers the weather forecast: "Gentle winds" and a "beautiful full moon," he says. "If you've been planning something special, tonight could be the night." Thus, the wind sets Kiki's adventure in motion, the underlying force that makes her journey possible, as it implicitly does in Shadows. 🌬️
You can't see the wind, only its effects swaying and blowing through the vegetation and particles. In Shadows, this raises a question: why, beyond the sheer spectacle of the open world, is there so much debris floating in the air? There are many trees in feudal Japan, with towering conifers and shorter but equally beautiful varieties of deciduous trees, their leaves shifting between the vivid greens of spring and the burnt hues of autumn. But many trees lie felled on the ground, destroyed by ruthless warlords eager to demonstrate and protect their power with gigantic fortifications and opulent palaces. If you happen upon one of these sites, such as Osaka Castle, you'll find, not far from it, the vast natural resources that went into its construction. 🏯
This compelling 3D tapestry speaks volumes: certainly, the mastery with which Ubisoft has imbued the world of Shadows with geographical and socioeconomic cohesion (and how fun it is to see this world and then read an in-game codex about, say, land ownership in feudal Japan!). It also hints at an answer as to why exactly there is so much material floating in the air. Leaves, dirt, disturbed pollen, bark chips, and splintered wood visually evoke the game's turbulent political climate. The wind in Shadows underscores this reality in every place Naoe and Yasuke go, even in ostensibly bucolic spots that should be protected from such turmoil, yet carry traces of it in their air. 🌄
Shadows is, to date, the most dynamic of all AAA titles. Its air currents seem to plunge and rise with force and vivid movement in a way that borders on oppressive. However, this makes its moments of stillness all the more impactful. Naoe can meditate, entering a trance as you press buttons at a leisurely pace, slowly dissolving into the landscape. Sometimes, she can paint wildlife, like a heron grazing silently in shallow water. Or perhaps she spends a few quiet minutes in the presence of the perfectly serene lake you've just discovered. 🧘♀️
Apart from moments of peace, Shadows is undoubtedly a game of hurricane-force drama, sweeping players away and leaving them amazed. Its size and reach are impressive, though often overwhelming and disorienting, like one of its brutal weather fronts.
But the wind is also the messenger of a metaphor of impeccable elegance, almost haiku. Naoe's relationship with her father is a crucial part of her story: they are often shown in flashbacks playing a wind instrument together, a clay flute called a tsuchibue. "As long as we are breathing, there is always hope," Naoe reflects. It is his breath that makes the instrument emit a delicate sound in the air, a memory of which, for Naoe, is caught on a breeze through time and space. 🍂
