Dark Souls Easter Egg Found in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Summary

Assassin's Creed Shadows features a Dark Souls Easter egg, adding to the trend of soulslike nods in recent games.
Players can find the bonfire tribute in the Wakasa region, but the katana cannot be collected.
Shadows' Dark Souls tribute is a subtle, yet popular nod to gaming culture, reminiscent of cinema's Seven Samurai influence.

The newly-released Assassin’s Creed Shadows is hiding a Dark Souls Easter egg in its thrilling gameplay, which was recently discovered by a well-versed gamer. It’s become a fairly common occurrence for players to spot soulslike nods in current projects, including STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and Hogwarts Legacy, or stretching back as far as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Blood and Wine DLC, and Assassin's Creed Shadows' effort has become a popular discovery to seek out.

Shadows exists as the 14th main installment in Ubisoft’s greater Assassin’s Creed series, succeeding the more linear Assassin’s Creed Mirage entry released in 2023. Players control shinobi Naoe and samurai Yasuke caught in a battle between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order. Assassin’s Creed Shadows held its place at the top of the UK physical game sales chart for two weeks in a row, adding to its list of accolades since launch, with the entry’s popularity stemming from top-tier immersion into Japan’s Sengoku period and Naoe’s stealth mechanics.

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By Joshua Murphy

Posted on Reddit by alcridio, a screenshot from Shadows was shared on the Assassin’s Creed subreddit, presenting a bonfire with a katana sticking up through the flames, similar to another Dark Souls Easter egg found in the first-person shooter Overwatch (of all places). The Easter egg is located within the Wakasa region in Shadows, nestled within a cave, and unlike The Witcher 3’s interactive bonfire, players can only rest by this one.

Assassin's Creed Shadows Player Discovers Dark Souls Bonfire Easter Egg

Assassin’s Creed Shadows boasts several new weapons for Naoe and Yasuke to conquer Japan with. Still, Redditors were disappointed to learn the katana from the Dark Souls Easter egg could not be picked up as a collectible. Other Shadows and soulslike fans alike were adamant the bonfire nod would never die in video game culture, and some even went as far as to say the homage was “undead.”

In the Dark Souls series, bonfires are used as checkpoints for The Chosen Undead. The fire must be lit when encountered or rested around to create a new spawn point should the player die later on in the game. Dark Souls’ bonfires harbor many interesting facts in their lore, and players would be forgiven for thinking it’s a sword sticking out of the flames. However, it’s a fancy fire poker. Many games' Dark Souls Easter eggs have gone with the sword instead, and Shadows' tribute eerily echoes a scene from Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 cinematic masterpiece Seven Samurai, which, in turn, is thought to have inspired Dark Souls’ bonfire imagery.