Kotaku reviewed Assassin's Creed Shadows like a travel brochure with a controller attached.

First of all, this review opens by counting Assassin's Creed entries like someone auditing a CVS receipt in a wind tunnel, then immediately announces that Ubisoft has 'shaken things up' with the confidence of a man calling a hotel breakfast buffet revolutionary because the eggs moved six inches left. Kotaku does the classic blog-review shuffle: half travel brochure, half diary entry, half 'trust me, I played 50 hours' — yes, that's three halves, because the structure is already doing math with a pool noodle.

Then, right after explaining the premise, the review drops an 'Order Assassin's Creed Shadows: Amazon | CDKeys | Best Buy' line like a cash register falling through the ceiling during a museum tour. I am not saying affiliate commerce automatically poisons criticism, but placing shopping links in the middle of your judgment is like a judge pausing sentencing to say, 'This gavel is available in mahogany with promo code JUSTICE.' But does it actually WORK as criticism when the reader is being escorted from analysis to checkout with a little branded shopping cart wearing a press badge?

The funniest part is the embargo ballet. The review praises Yasuke's story, says the details are under embargo, then teases 'truly exciting lore connections' that superfans will enjoy, which is not criticism — that's a fortune cookie written by Ubisoft legal. If you cannot discuss the evidence, maybe don't sell the conclusion like a magician asking us to applaud the rabbit while the hat is still in arbitration. A review under those conditions should come with a warning label: 'Contains opinions processed in a facility that also handles NDAs.'

To be fair, Zwiezen does include real complaints: samey quests, weak base building, and not enough use of the dual protagonists. But the piece keeps wrapping those criticisms in warm towels until they stop looking like problems and start looking like spa amenities. Kotaku has produced a perfectly readable launch-window comfort blanket: useful if you already wanted reassurance, less useful if you wanted someone to interrogate the game like a professional instead of narrating a pleasant 50-hour guided tour through embargo-safe foliage. But does it actually WORK? Barely. It informs, it wanders, it sells, it shrugs.