Best hideout buildings and upgrades in Assassin's Creed Shadows

I'll admit it, I underestimated Assassin's Creed Shadows' hideout base-building system. It's much more intricate and entertaining than I thought it would be. From constructing a forge to building a zoo of cute creatures, you've got a lot of options at your fingertips. You won't have enough materials to build it all at first, though, so what should you prioritise?

Once you unlock the hideout after meeting Tomiko, you'll be thrown right into base-building. You can construct various rooms, upgrade them, place decorations, paths, animals, and more by interacting with the desk in your hiroma, or by entering build mode when walking around your base. You'll earn most of the more decorative items by completing quests and looting chests in castles, so explore the map and get decorating.

After spending hours exploring feudal Japan to collect fluffy animals and decorations, and then tinkering with my hideout, here's my advice for how it all works. I'll go over all the buildings and their upgrades, and what you should prioritise.

Best hideout buildings in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Even if you're not all that interested in building the perfect assassin headquarters, you'll still need to dip your toes in because key mechanics are locked behind certain rooms. If you're only after function and not form, these are the best hideout buildings that you should get first:

• Forge: The forge is required to upgrade weapons and armour, as well as apply engravings. It's essential to keep your favourite gear powerful as you level up, so you should upgrade this building to level three as soon as you can.
• Study: Gives you an additional scout with each upgrade and improves their efficiency.
• Stable: Upgrade the stables to reduce the cost of smuggling stockpiles.
• Nando: This reduces the cost of refreshing scouts at kakurega by 30%.
• Zashiki or Tea Room: Both of these buildings increase ration healing by 20%, which is a must-have early on.

Assassin's Creed Shadows hideout: All buildings and upgrades

To build new buildings, you'll need various hideout resources, which you can get by smuggling resources from castles, though it'll quickly eat away at your scout charges until you get more scouts and increase their efficiency.

Here are all the structures you can build at your hideout and the services they provide:

There are also themed rooms, which can't be upgraded. Only some of these rooms actually provide gameplay benefits:

Other than these buildings, you can also edit the path style, place interior, and exterior decorations, as well as plant trees, and place your collected animals.

Once you've constructed a building, you can select it again in build mode to move, upgrade, and customise it further.

All hideout level upgrades in Assassin's Creed Shadows

As you construct new buildings and upgrade them, you'll slowly increase your hideout level. At each milestone, you'll gain a permanent buff:

Most of these buffs tie into the scouts system (which includes smuggling more hideout resources), so you'll find that building up your hideout actually speeds up as you progress, despite upgrades costing more and more to purchase.