Scouts are an interesting addition to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, representing the wide network of agents and spies Naoe and Yasuke recruit as they take on the mysterious and nefarious Shinbakufu.
Scouts have a number of key uses, both for story missions and building up the hideout you call home. This means their number will easily get stretched as you try to balance story progress and building up your storeroom.
Here’s how to make the most of your Scouts, recruit more of them and refill their charges once they’re all gone.
What are Scouts used for in Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Scouts have two main uses in Assassin’s Creed Shadows:
To maximise the amount of building materials you’re bringing in, you want to mainly use your Scouts to smuggle resources, while using them as sparingly as often to look for quest markers.
But, that’s not always as easy as it sounds – plus you need two Scouts to mark a cache of resources, which often means you’re one short of grabbing another.
How do you refill Scouts in Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
There are three easy ways to refill your Scouts in Assassin’s Creed Shadows:
- Wait until the in-game season changes naturally with time, or skip it manually by holding the d-pad in the map menu
- Pay 200 mon per Scout at a Kakurega either out in the field or at your hideout home base
- Rescue a civilian from bandits, or give money to the poor when they ask for it
Your Scouts are refilled whenever the in-game season changes. These seasons last for just over an hour of play time and when they’re ready to change, you can either go into the map and press right on the d-pad, or fast travel somewhere to trigger the switch.
However, if you don’t want to wait, there’s actually a quick and cost-effective way to refill your scouts that’s easy to miss.
Go to one of the Kakurega which serve as your fast-travel points across Japan. There’s also one at your main hideout which you build at the start of your adventure.
Inside the Kakurega, you should find some brightly colored bundles strung up on the wall. Interact with this station and you can pay 200 mon to refill one use of your Scouts. This is a simple and no-strings-attached way to grab more Scouts when you’re in a pinch.
Obviously this can get expensive when overused, however, it’s invaluable when you need just one extra charge to get you over the line – and it’s so easy to walk straight past.
Finally, when you see a civilian on their knees surrounded by bandits or soldiers, or hear someone lamenting their bad luck, you can step in to help – either by defeating the aggressors or supplying them with money or a pep talk.
As a thank you for being a good samaritan, the person will give you two options: “world rumor” or “scout intel”.
The latter will instantly refresh one usage of your Scouts, letting you pick up more resources or seek out your next quest marker.
However, since the other two methods are so quick and cost effective, I’d always recommend picking the “world rumor” option. These point you in the right direction of quests, legendary chests and other amazing points of interest that you’d otherwise miss and are worth a lot more than the 200 mon you’d save at the Kakurega.
How to get more Scouts in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
To get more Scouts, you need to build and upgrade the “Study” room at your hideout.
This is the room which controls the day-to-day runnings of the League and where the information your allies gather is stored. When you build a Study, you’re granted one more Scout to use as you wish.
To upgrade the Study, open the build menu at your hideout and hover over the building. Press X on PlayStation or A on Xbox to interact with it, then press up to highlight the “Upgrade” option.
The first Scout upgrade costs 350 crops, 260 wood, 90 minerals and grants you an additional Scout. Then the final upgrade costs another 810 crops, 610 wood and 200 minerals in exchange for one more Scout.