The official release of Assassin's Creed Shadows is only a few hours away, but information about the sequel to the feudal Japanese set is still leaking through the armor gap. 2 days ago, the game's official YouTube channel accidentally leaked the release date - 11/15 this year, yesterday we saw the price of the game and DLC slip down on the Internet.

Well, another leak reveals what looks like box art in the game, and this probably shows what the protagonist of the game is.

Ubisoft has been frantically deleting leaked images on reddit and various social media sites, but if you want to reveal completely cleanly tonight than publishers can get rid of them, don't read any more.

Leaked box art for Shadows depicts two characters, suggesting that the game will have dual protagonists a-la Odyssey and Valhalla. One of them is believed to be Yasuke, a historical figure. Yasuke, known as the first black warrior, traveled to Japan during the Sengoku period and stayed for three years as a vassal of Shingen ODA from 1581 to 1582.

The second character appears to be a female shinobi, wielding a weapon hooked on a rope with a metal ball at the far end. Another leak is that this character's name is Naoe, and her backstory is more directly tied to the series' existing Assassin/Templar fiction.

The first trailer for Assassin's Creed Shadows falls at 5pm UK time tonight, so you don't have to wait to see if this latest leak is accurate. Either way, I'd like to see what Ubisoft has for this latest Assassin's Creed. Shadows is the first full-fat Assassin's Creed game since Valhalla in 2019, and feudal Japan has long been a dream arena for series fans. It was a perfectly pleasant throwback to the early years of the series, of course, not to throw shade at last year's mirage.