Rendering 'Assassin's Creed Shadows'

This GDC talk details the GPU-driven rendering pipeline, lighting improvements, and weather systems used in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is a large systemic open world game with dynamic time of day cycles, a systemic weather system, and seasons. Such a large world and dynamic setting poses many rendering challenges. This GDC 2025 talk focuses on a typical frame and walks the audience through the various steps required to produce the final render, focusing on gpu driven pipeline, lighting improvements and other new developments. GDC returns to San Francisco in March 2026! For more information, be sure to visit our website and subscribe to the GDC mailing list: gdconf.com/subscribe. GDC talks cover a range of developmental topics including game design, programming, audio, visual arts, business management, production, online games, and much more. We post a fresh GDC video every day. Subscribe to the channel to stay on top of regular updates, and check out GDC Vault for thousands of more in-depth talks from our archives.