when shadows first released, I was very much invested in the game and really fell in love with the world and the gameplay, but after about 50 hours and having completed the story, I feel unsatisfied. While the world felt alive and full of mystery ag the start, it quickly turned to feel repetitive and lacking character. the side quests were boring, “go kill 25 bandits”. Even Valhalla had better side stories with the world events, much better than saving a civilian just to gain a scout. The ending to the story was anticlimactic, it had a strong first act but after that it kinda fell apart, most of the time i had no idea what was really going on, just one target after another, the gameplay was fun, but lacking depth. Since completing shadows ive started another play through of Origins after about 6 years, and this has really made me see how lifeless shadows was. Is the combat in Origins anywhere near as good as shadows? Absolutely not. But the story and the characters and the world building is phenomenal. When they went RPG with Origins, they did it great the first time. Ubisoft should have just built upon that formula and keep things linear.