Assassin’s Creed Shadows Patch 1.1.10: Tech Showcase, Quiet Apology

Assassin’s Creed Shadows just became a better tech demo for Sony and a small mea culpa from Ubisoft, all in a single patch.

Key Takeaways

• PS5 Pro gets PSSR 2, turning Shadows into one of Sony’s headline showcases for its AI upscaling push.
• Switch 2 adds full mouse and keyboard support, quietly nudging Nintendo’s hybrid closer to “handheld PC” territory.
• The Bo staff, once effectively paywalled behind the Claws of Awaji expansion, now drops as regular loot for everyone.
• A long list of gameplay, UI, weapon, quest, and localisation fixes underlines how much this game is still being stabilised post-launch.

PSSR 2 Makes PS5 Pro Feel Less Like a Sidegrade

The headline move is clear: on PS5 Pro, Title Update 1.1.10 enables PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution 2 (PSSR 2), Sony’s in-house AI upscaling tech. Ubisoft promises a cleaner, more stable 4K image in all graphics modes, sharper ray-traced reflections on wet streets and armour, and denser foliage across feudal Japan’s landscapes.

On paper, this is Sony doing exactly what it needs to with PS5 Pro. The console lives and dies on smarter image reconstruction, not raw brute-force 4K. We’ve already seen PSSR 2 tested in games like Cyberpunk 2077’s PS5 Pro patch, where it cleaned up shimmer and foliage noise compared to first-gen upscalers. The trade-off, then and now, is simple: you get more clarity and stability, but you’re still at the mercy of streaming systems and asset quality. Don’t expect this to suddenly erase pop-in or fix every performance dip.

What’s interesting is how directly Ubisoft is talking up PSSR 2 here. Assassin’s Creed Shadows patch 1.1.10 doesn’t bump frame rate targets or add new modes on PS5 Pro, it leans into better upscaling as the big differentiator. That tells you how Sony wants this mid-gen story told: the Pro is for people who can spot the difference between temporal mush and a crisp 4K reconstruction, not for those chasing 120fps in a giant open world.

There’s still a question the patch notes don’t answer: what exactly are the internal resolutions and frame-rate stability now? Until someone does the frame-time graphs, we’re taking Ubisoft’s “cleaner image” on faith. If I had a PR rep in front of me, the question would be blunt: are we talking visibly fewer drops and less shimmer, or is this mainly a marketing bullet for Sony’s slide deck?

Switch 2 Is Quietly Becoming a Tiny PC

On the other side of the hardware war, Switch 2 gets something Nintendo hardware almost never gets: native mouse and keyboard support for a big third‑party game. Plug in your peripherals and you can play Shadows with PC-style controls on the handheld hybrid.

For a stealth-heavy Assassin’s Creed, that’s not just a gimmick. Fine-grain camera control, precise archery and thrown weapons, faster menu navigation – all of that benefits from mouse input. It nudges Shadows’ Switch 2 version away from “portable compromise” and toward “just another platform,” especially for players already used to PC bindings.

It also says a lot about where Nintendo and Ubisoft think this generation is headed. Mouse and keyboard on a Nintendo console used to be meme material; now it’s a bullet point in a normal patch. Ubisoft clearly wants its engine and UI behaving the same way across PC and Switch 2, and Nintendo is apparently fine with its box being treated more like a small PC than a sealed toy. If future Ubisoft releases land with day-one mouse and keyboard on Switch 2, this patch will look like the quiet line in the sand where that started.

The Bo Staff U-Turn Says More Than Ubisoft Wants To

The other big headline is less technical and more political. Until now, the Bo staff was effectively tied to the Claws of Awaji expansion. If you wanted to live your Donatello fantasy in feudal Japan, you were nudged toward DLC. With patch 1.1.10, non-legendary Bo variants can drop as regular loot for all players, expansion or not.

That’s being spun as a “bonus” in most coverage. In reality, it’s a quiet course correction. Locking entire weapon archetypes behind paid content in a series that sells itself on historical sandbox freedom has always felt off. This change doesn’t completely erase the problem – the flashiest Bo might still be tied to the expansion – but it at least acknowledges that the original decision pushed too hard.

This is the part of the patch no one in marketing will dwell on, but players notice. One minute a weapon is a DLC selling point, the next it’s suddenly “available to everyone” after backlash and a few months of meta discussion. Assassin’s Creed Shadows patch 1.1.10 adds PS5 Pro PSSR 2, Switch 2 input support, and Bo staff unlock in one go, but the Bo change is the only one that really speaks to Ubisoft’s priorities shifting under pressure.

If you’re still on the fence about expansions, this is also a reminder of a pattern we’ve seen across the industry: wait long enough, and some of the most anti-consumer bits of DLC design get walked back for goodwill. Not out of generosity, but because it keeps the live service narrative from curdling completely.

The Laundry List of Fixes Tells Its Own Story

Beyond the flashy stuff, 1.1.10 is thick with the usual post-launch triage: gameplay tweaks, UI adjustments, weapon and perk fixes, localization corrections, and quest/progression repairs both in the base game and the Claws of Awaji content. Fast travel, specific mission triggers, stat displays – all the little paper cuts that turn into Reddit megathreads are getting patched over.

This is where the modern AAA pattern shows up again. Shadows launched ambitious but rough around the edges; now we’re deep into the “months of cleanup” phase where feature upgrades (PSSR 2, mouse and keyboard) have to share patch notes with “you can now actually finish this quest.” It’s not unique to Ubisoft – CDPR, Bethesda, Rockstar, everyone plays this game – but it does mean that if you waited for the “finished” version of Shadows, this patch is another step toward that point.

It’s also why the PSSR 2 story matters beyond pixel counting. Better reconstruction on PS5 Pro and proper mouse and keyboard on Switch 2 are the kinds of upgrades that make revisiting the game a year from now feel different than launch week. You’re not just getting bug fixes; you’re getting a slightly different technical experience across the platforms most likely to still be alive in your living room in three years.

What to Watch Next

The next checkpoints are pretty clear. First, independent testing of PSSR 2 in Shadows on PS5 Pro – frame-rate captures, pixel counts, side-by-sides. If the gains are obvious, this becomes one of Sony’s better arguments for the Pro outside of first-party games. If they’re marginal, PSSR 2 slides closer to buzzword than killer feature.

Second, watch how many future Switch 2 releases ship with mouse and keyboard support baked in. If Shadows is a one-off, it’s a novelty. If Ubisoft (and others) adopt it as standard, Switch 2’s identity inches even closer to “portable PC library” and less to “quirky Nintendo side machine.”

Finally, keep an eye on what else quietly moves from “expansion exclusive” to “base game loot” over the next few title updates. The Bo staff probably isn’t the last piece of content to be thrown back to the masses once the initial DLC sales window closes. The more that happens, the clearer the line becomes between launch-window monetisation tactics and the long-term health of the game.

TL;DR

Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ 1.1.10 patch turns the game into a PS5 Pro PSSR 2 showcase, promising a sharper, more stable 4K presentation, while giving Switch 2 native mouse and keyboard controls. Ubisoft also walks back its decision to keep the Bo staff effectively locked to the Claws of Awaji expansion, letting non-legendary versions drop for everyone, and ships a thick stack of bug fixes across platforms. The real story is a publisher quietly fixing launch-era overreach while Sony and Nintendo use the same patch to sell you on very different futures for their hardware.