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The best hideout upgrades in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

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Yasuke trains outside in Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Ubisoft

There have been various forms of upgradable bases in Assassin’s Creed games before, but none as deep as in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Besides being a relaxing location where Naoe and Yasuke can hang out with their various allies, you will also be building entire structures that add new functions to the game. You’re tutorialized on them only to get access to Scouts, but the rest of the buildings and upgrades are up to you. Since resources are so precious, investing in the wrong structures can set you back hours. Instead, we best hideout upgrades you should get in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Best hideout upgrades

The hideout upgrade menu in Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Ubisoft

The most obvious tip to start with should go without saying, but don’t bother purchasing any of the decorative buildings until you have built and upgraded all the ones that provide benefits. Unless you’re mainly interested in playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows as a mini Animal Crossing game, leave that until the end.

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Stables

Your first order of business should be to upgrade your stables. This building is a little misleading since it has nothing to do with your mount but actually relates to those stockpiles you will come across in various camps and castles. These are packed with resources, but you are required to mark them for Scouts to collect and bring back to your hideout. The Stables first allow you to even use this feature, and upgrading it increases how many supplies you get from each pile. This will help fund all future upgrades so should be done as early as possible.

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Study

Speaking of Scouts, you will need them quite often throughout the game for revealing quest locations and gathering supplies. Unless you pay, you can only use a scout once per season, and you only start with three. Building and upgrading your Study not only gives you more scouts to work with but also increases their scouting range on the map.

Tera

Don’t overlook this smaller building in the lower sections if you’re trying to earn XP. This building can’t be upgraded so all you need to do is get it once and you’re done, but it increases all your XP gain, no matter what source it comes from, by 10%. That is massive if you’re trying to power level your characters.

Forge

Finally, the Forge can be left for last in our opinion. You will have a quest to build one, but that’s all you should do with it until late into the game, if at all. Each upgrade increases the maximum level you can upgrade your gear in, which is great, but completely unnecessary for most of the game. You are always finding new gear at your current level while completing quests and looting chests so spending your resources to buff a weapon or piece of armor tends to be a waste when you find something better right away. The later upgrades do allow for better engraving, but again, this is best saved for the end game when you know what gear you want to stick with.

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Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over five years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…
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