Can you change the time of day in Assassin’s Creed Shadows? Night and day cycles explained

We feel like Assassin’s Creed Shadows spends a little more time in the dark than other games in the series, as you can read in our review. In fact, you’ll spend about half of your gameplay exploring the world during the evening or night. If you’re wondering if there’s any way to change the time of day in the game, we’re here to explain how it works. This guide should help you understand how time works in AC Shadows and whether you can manually change the time of day.

Can you manually change the time of day in AC Shadows?

Unfortunately, unlike other Assassin’s Creed games like Odyssey, Valhalla, or Mirage, you can’t directly change the time of day in AC Shadows. However, there are still some important aspects you should know about how the game’s time system works. Getting to know this will help you plan your missions and have a better time executing your carefully laid out plans. Here’s how time progresses in Assassin’s Creed Shadows:

• A full day and night cycle takes around 48 real-life minutes. This means that every in-game hour passes in 2 minutes of real-time.
• Daytime lasts for about 24 real-life minutes, and nighttime also lasts around 24 real-life minutes.

✓ How the time works when you’re idle

If you’re thinking of leaving your character standing idle to pass the time, you should know that time will move very slowly when you’re not actively playing. The sun and moon will crawl across the sky, so if you’re hoping to speed up the day-night cycle by standing still, you might be in for a longer wait than expected.

Can you influence the time of day in any way?

While there isn’t an official way to change the time of day, there are some tricks that can make a difference. For example, season cycling and fast travelling can sometimes shift the time of day or bring you closer to the desired time. So while you can’t manually change the time, these little tricks can potentially help you plan around the time cycle to suit your needs.

Why can’t you change the time cycle?

You might be wondering why the game doesn’t let you skip to night or day whenever you want. While we don’t know the official reason, we can surmise that Assassin’s Creed Shadows was designed to encourage you to use your surroundings and tools based on the time of day. For example, Naoe benefits from the cover of night when sneaking around enemies, making it harder for her to be seen. If you could change the time at will, you’d likely skip straight to nighttime to make stealth easier, which would impact the game’s challenge.

The game also uses the time of day to create a more immersive world. Different animals, merchants, villagers, and enemies appear depending on whether it’s day or night. Changing the time manually would disrupt this natural flow and exploration. So, the day-night cycle isn’t just about lighting – it’s designed to make the world feel more dynamic.