In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, The Tournament is a great source of XP, awards an achievement, and is an absolute blast. Here’s how to beat The Tournament and get the “Test Your Might” trophy in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, The Tournament quest is given by Gyoji, one of the people of Yamato. Likely after you’ve assassinated several of The Shinbakufu, Gyoji will camp out outside the hideout, waiting to speak with you about the tournament. This secret fighting arena in Southeastern Yamato is located at Ominesanji Temple. There is a viewpoint called the Ominesanji OVerlookthe west of the area where you can synchronize to create a fast travel point. We strongly recommend doing this, so you return to the location and/or switch characters if necessary with ease.
Once you get to the Ominesanji Temple, speak with Gyoji once again. He instructs you that you will have to complete four one on one duels here, then face the ultimate champion. After this cutscene, you can ring the bell to begin the first fight.
The Tournament consists of a guantlet of high-intensity, life-or-death fights. Thankfully, between each one, you can take a break for as little or as long as you need, as you’ll need to ring the bell to trigger the next fight. Between fights, you should definitely be sure to heal with rations, and swap out upgrade your weapons and armor if need be.
In order to beat each character in The Tournament, we recommend using a long katana as Yasuke and making use of dodge and parry as much as you can to make the fighters enter the vulnerable state. Also be sure to use abilities like Power Dash and Payback whenever you have enough adrenaline to do so.
Beating The Tournament is also easiest if you know which weapons each fighter uses, if you have a preferred weapon to counter them. Here’s every fighter you’ll encounter in the tournament.
After you complete the first tournament, speak with Gyoji once more atop the hill. He will thank you for his freedom, and promises to reach out when there are more challengers to fight in tournaments. The Test Your Might trophy should unlock at some point during this dialogue exchange.
As stated before, the Long Katana is the most effective weapon for The Tournament in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. We recommend using the highest rarity Long Katana you have, and being sure to take it to your hideout’s blacksmith and upgrade it to the highest level you can. Giving it an engraving that increases Armor Damage or Armor Piercing is also a massive help. Perhaps the most important choice in your loadout however is your armor. Not only does this boost your health, it also can provide abilities from engravings that completely change combat.
Before you head to The Tournament, you’ll want to make sure you unlock the Samurai Daimyo Armor of Legend from defeating the Shinbakufu known as The Ox. You’ll also want the Protector’s Armor, which is earned from completing one of the Castles. The former gives you an engraving which provides a 75% increase to damage, but limits your health to 25%. The latter allows you to parry unblockable attacks. Combining both of these engravings into one armor gives you the ability to slay The Tournament’s enemies is under a minute, as long as you are parrying effectively and often.
For skills, invest as many Mastery points into the Long Katana and Samurai trees as you possibly can. Especially make sure to max out Combat Expert to improve your damage with melee weapons, and unlock Power Dash and Payback.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S from March 20th.
