The assassins have almost always been a guild of scrappy underdogs attempting to thwart the machinations of the Templars in the Assassin’s Creed series, even if the nature of this organization has evolved throughout the games. The survivors of Iga and other assorted allies aligned against Nobunga form much of the early core of this group in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and from their Hideout in Izumi Settsu they provide assistance in various ways. Some of their few field agents serve as Scouts, providing intel and the odd bit of smuggling… even if the bloody business is largely left to the protagonists. This page will cover how Scouts work in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, including how to use scouts to locate objectives, how to smuggle smuggle materials, how to replenish and increase your maximum number of Scouts!

Page Breakdown¶

Unlocking Scouts¶

Complete the series of main quests at the start of the game, ending with From Spark to Flame and after you’re done building the Kakurega at the Hideout you’ll find yourself gifted with the services of a scout. No sooner than you have access to this scout, however, you’ll be tasked with directing your lone scout to find intel on one of the game’s first two main quests, The Fatherless Monk and Searching Sakai. See below for more information, but for now it’s not terribly important - searching just south of Sakai on your map will update your objectives for both quests, but if you pick the wrong location you’ll get more cracks at it later. You probably want to spend some time exploring, anyways, and your scouts are only a season away… another topic for later. In any event, from this point on (essentially from the start of the game!), scouts will play a significant role in your ability to advance the main questline and gather the materials and resources you need to succeed.

Acquiring New Scouts¶

After leaving the Hideout for the first time, you’ll have one measly scout to deploy, and this one will have been used scouting the aforementioned main quest objectives. You got your first scout by building the Kakurega, and unsurprisingly you can unlock more by building new structures, namely the Study. This will unlock you an additional scout, and you’ll get another scout every time you upgrade the Study, for a total of three extra scouts. Alas, you can only build one Study, so you’ll have to settle for merely tripling your initial scout total via this structure.

Of course, to build a Study you’re going to need Hideout Resources, and one of the better ways to get more building materials is to have your scouts smuggle them. Bit of a conundrum, eh? Fortunately there are ways around both problems (see the linked page for more information on gathering materials), but for your starting scout shortage, check your map to find the quest Finding New Allies, which is just outside of the Hideout. Convenient! Head there and you’ll meet two Iga survivors, who will join your cause and even better, insist on earning their keep by serving as scouts. Two more right out the gate! With a bit of farming you can find yourself with six scouts in fairly short order.

Replenishing Scouts¶

When you use the services of scouts - by gathering intel or smuggling materials, etc., - they’ll become unavailable for a time. When you’re in the “World” (read: map) tab of the menu you’ll see your scouts listed to the bottom left of the screen. White dots indicate scouts that are ready while empty circles indicate a scout that has been deployed. Your scouts will be replenished every time the season changes, which seems to be a simple timer. If your scouts have been assigned to smuggle materials, they will return with said materials when the season changes, while if any scouts were left idle they will take it upon themselves to gather Mon and materials for you on their own volition, placing these goodies in a chest at the Hideout. The amount of Mon and materials your scouts forage on their own is generally much less than they’d bring in if you assigned them to smuggle, but it’s better than nothing, and no matter how you slice it, the more scouts you have, the sooner you have them, the richer and more well-provisioned you will become.

If you just can’t wait, good news!: you have more options. Across the map you’ll find more Kakurega that you can buy, and these serve several useful functions… all the functions of the Kakurega at the Hideout, in fact! You can stash loot, replenish supplies (tools and rations), pick up new [Contracts] and most relevant to this page, replenish your scouts. This initially costs 200 Mon per scout replenished, but the price can be lowered by upgrading the Kakurega at the Hindeout to Lv3. Scouts replenished this way are available for us immediately. Finally, if you rescue people from bandits, thugs or soldiers (random events you’ll stumble across as you explore) you can ask for either intel or help scouting the area, and the latter choice will replenish a scout.

Scouting Objectives and Smuggling Materials¶

Your scouts have two main jobs, especially in the early-game: gathering intel and smuggling. In the former case, all you need is a quest that requires intel - these will usually list multiple objectives, “He is south of Sakai”, “He is west of Izumi Coast”, “He is at Gansenji Temple”. These clues will help you pinpoint where to deploy your scout(s), and to do so all you need to do is open up your “World” (map) tab in the menu and press / . This will bring up a white reticle showing the area where your scout will search, and if an objective for a quest is in the searched area it’ll be marked on your map, allowing you to head there with your protagonist and properly advance said quest. You can assign several scouts to search the same area, increasing the size of the search radius for each additional scout added. The results of scouting are immediate, but scouts used to gather intel will be unavailable until the season changes.

The second major purpose of scouts is smuggling materials. You can find materials readily enough by raiding enemy camps and castles - just about anywhere that’s restricted and full of enemies will usually have some materials lying around. While the quantity you’ll get each pickup isn’t great, if you raid a few camps this can really add up… but it doesn’t hold a candle to the resources you can get from smuggling. To do this you’ll need to raid a camp or castle and find a locked storehouse - search the area and/or kill guards to get the key (its location will be marked by a golden key icon if you’re close and looking in the right direction) and when you have the key open the storehouse. You’ll usually find a pallet or two of resources, and if you interact with them you can assign two scouts to smuggle the resource for you. You can - and should - reduce the scout cost to one by upgrading the Stables to Lv2, which will double the amount of smuggling you can do each season. Scouts assigned to smuggle resources will be used immediately, but you won’t get a return-on-investment from them until the season changes.