Assassin's Creed Shadows: Guardian Spirit Quest Walkthrough

With great power comes great responsibility, and in Assassin's Creed Shadows, you can use your powers to help get revenge on a group of Ronin who have carried out one of the worst acts of evil you could imagine. AC Shadows has a huge world to explore and many fascinating characters to interact with, and there are few better examples of this than the Guardian Spirit side quest.

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During this side quest, you'll need to track down Ronin warriors in the distant provinces of AC Shadows' world and this is a mission that is easily missable in your playthrough. This guide will show how to find the Guardian Spirit side quest and how to easily complete its objectives.

How To Start Guardian Spirit

Before being able to start Guardian Spirit, you'll have to complete the story mission "The Horseman" and by extension, the First Act of the game. If you've done this, head west to the Harima region, and you'll be able to find the starting location of Guardian Spirit, which is inside the Itatehyzou Shrine. The quest is given by a young girl who is crying and is found in the south-east corner of the shrine.

Speak to her, and she'll reveal that she's an orphan whose mother was killed by Ronin. You promise to help her by killing the Ronin who have turned to violence in the absence of Oda Obunaga.

Guardian Spirit will appear on your Objectives menu in three parts, all under the orphaned girl in the People of Harima board. After killing five Ronin in Harima, you'll be awarded 500 EXP and 750 Mon. Killing ten Ronin will earn you a further 500 EXP as well as 225 oakwood wood and 270 silk. The final of the three parts requires you to kill a total of 25 Ronin, with the reward being 750 EXP as well as 300 ironsand and 300 tamahagane.

Ronin Locations Guide

Unlike most quests in AC Shadows, you're not given any hints as to where to look for Ronin in the Harima region to complete this mission. Never fear, though, there are a few locations that are reliable in spawning Ronin. They're marked on the above map, but there are a few things to keep in mind when going to these locations to find Ronin.

For locations one and three, you're only likely to encounter one Ronin in these areas, if any at all. This does make them easier to defeat, as there's very much strength in numbers when it comes to these enemies, but it does make the process of achieving 25 defeated enemies longer. However, if you do a loop around all three areas, this should give the Ronin time to respawn after you've killed the previous batch.

Only Ronin located and killed in the Harima region will count towards the 25 required to complete this side quest.

The location in Harima that has the most Ronin, though, is without doubt the Habayama Camp (location two). Not only will there usually be around five or six in the camp itself, there are usually a few roaming the dirt paths in and around it. Taking on all of these isn't for the faint of heart, but successfully doing so will make the process of completing this mission even faster.

How To Defeat Ronin In Combat

Ronin are some of the toughest enemies to face in combat in AC Shadows. They have a lot of health and deal a devastating amount of damage, so much so that one hit is usually fatal if you're not a high level and/ or don't possess strong armour. One mistimed block or dodge can often end in desynchronisation, so facing a group of them can be frustrating, even on lower difficulty levels.

If you're playing as Naoe, assassinating them isn't usually an option as they're too high of a level to be defeating in this manner. Head-to-head combat is therefore your only option, but there are few tricks you can use to make your life easier.

The first is to play as Yasuke if you're struggling to defeat Ronin, as he's more likely to survive a strike by one and deals more damage than Naoe. Yasuke also possesses a Mastery Ability that makes killing Ronin in the Habayama Camp. If you have the War Kick Samurai ability equipped, you can kick Ronin off the cliff face and into the forest if they're in a gap in the walls. The fall damage usually kills them in one and this will also pop the "This is Japan, Actually" trophy/achievement if you haven't gotten this before.

Make sure you save regularly too, as you can easily lose progress between taking on Ronin if the game doesn't autosave in between.

Returning To The Orphan

Once you've defeated the 25th and final Ronin, head back to the orphaned girl in the Itatehyzou Shrine. Speak to her and she'll thank you for defeating the Ronin, rewarding you with gold and 2,000 Mon.

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