Assassin's Creed Shadows Hideout Tour - Overgrown Wisteria Forest
Too many games to play, never enough time.
I finished Death Stranding 2
Finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Spent some time on Tales of the Shire
Currently revisiting my obsession that is Cyberpunk 2077
Also diving into Borderlands 4
Amongst all the other things still in my gaming backlog that grows faster than I can clear it.
Despite all that AC Shadows finally released the Claws of Awaji DLC and I dove back in hoping for some fresh inspiration - and I was partly correct and partly disappointed.
Disappointingly Claws of Awaji offered nothing new for the Hideout. I had hoped the vendors on Awaji might offer some new cosmetics for the hideout but I was disappointed. The DLC as a whole was great (and opened with what I thought was one of the best and most creative missions in the series thus far), dragged down by an insanely tedious quest hunting and killing enemy captains, buy finally delivered an ending to Naoe's story that in my opinion should never have been a DLC. This should've simply been part of the base game. And to my chagrin despite being Naoe's story the game still forces a focus on Yasuke playing a big part - I find it bothersome that Yasuke got the final boss fight against an enemy that should've been Naoe's fight as she had a much more personal connection and reason. Despite Naoe being the Assassin, it's always Yasuke taking on the Templars.
Mini review over- the real focus here though is that a new Hideout Pack was released in the Animus store and despite the disappointment of nothing new coming from the DLC I at least had some new cosmetics to play with.
Seeing that the theme of the new pack was "Overgrown" I immediately wanted to revisit my previous "Lost In The Woods" build. Inspired by one of the set pieces in the pack, an overgrown mound with a pond and wisteria tree, I decided on doing an overgrown Wisteria Forest hideout that would make the Demon Slayers Corp jealous.
Using the new Overgrown skin on all my buildings I put together what I wanted to feel like a more rundown and has been hidden away for years kind of hideout.
Knowing that the Long Garden Bridge had a Wisteria tree as part of the decoration I immediately envisioned that as soon as you step out of the Hiroma you cross over one of these bridges to a small crossroads with the new Mossy Wisteria decoration as the centerpiece of this crossroads, with additional bridges branching off in each direction. Straight ahead would be the Dojo and Forge, to the right the Study, Shrines, and Zashiki (which would also serve as the side entrance), and to the left the Nando, Kakurega and a small market area. Down in the isolated bottom corner would be the Tea Room and some small and medium buildings.
I kept decorations to a minimum and focused on decorations that appeared moss-covered, old, etc. and then filled in every inch of unused space with Beech bushes, Birch bushes, and of course the Big and Large variations of Wisteria trees. I also used the Beech trees for the small section in the bottom corner of the hideout.
The most tiring part of this build was time - unfortunately by deciding I wanted my hideout to be drenched in Wisteria I was presently in the first half of Autumn / Fall when I did the actual build. I then had to spend hours of time waiting to get back to the second half of Spring for the Wisteria to bloom. It's times like this I wish we had the ability to freely change seasons in the endgame.
For anyone wanting to replicate this idea the main thing you should focus on is simplicity. Once you strip away all the trees and bushes the actual layout is actually rather simplistic with minimal decorations - the final effect of this kind of build is to simply leave no empty space anywhere. Fill every available spot with trees and bushes.
The foliage, in my opinion, is the best tool for decorating your hideouts. Whenever you're stuck or don't know how to fill an empty space, the easiest answer is always going to be foliage and as long as you mix it up a little and not just place the same plant over and over it can easily create something that looks great.
Overall I'm really happy with the final outcome - I do wish they'd add some sort of "Save Design" function. I have multiple save games so I still have all my previous builds, but loading an old build means losing progress. It would be nice to have Save / Load / Share functionality. It would make it quick and easy if I wanted to revert back to a previous design without having to load an older save.
That's enough rambling. Please enjoy, like and comment or share your own ideas and builds.
0:00 Tour Starts
15:06 Build Menu
18:45 Night Walk and Thunder Storm
31:15 Night-to-Day Meditation