Two Characters, One Map, and the Questions That Follow

Yes, and that is the design rather than a compromise. Naoe is a shinobi built for stealth, verticality and getting out; Yasuke is a samurai built for standing in the open and winning. They are not two skins on one moveset.

Outside of story moments that call for one of them, yes. The map is the same for both but it does not open the same way: a wall Naoe climbs is a wall Yasuke walks around, and a gate Yasuke breaks is a gate Naoe would have to find a window past.

Naoe for anything with a roof, a guard rotation or a reason not to be seen. Yasuke for anything the game has already told you is a fight. Trying to stealth a castle as Yasuke is the single most common way to have a bad evening with this game.

The story runs 50 to 60 hours. With the side content around it, comfortably 80. A completion run — which is what the trophy tracker on this guide is for — is north of 100.

Yes. He arrived in Japan in 1579 as a retainer of the Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano, entered Oda Nobunaga's service, and is generally described as the first foreign-born samurai. The game builds a character on that record; the record itself is thin, which is why the game has room.

From 1579, in the Azuchi-Momoyama period — the stretch where warlords were trying to unify Japan and Nobunaga was winning. The game opens around his victory over the Takeda.

The Tenshō Iga War — Oda Nobukatsu's failed invasion of Iga province in 1579, then Nobunaga's conquest of it in 1581. It matters because Naoe is from there, and because Yasuke is on the other side of it. The game starts them as enemies and does not pretend otherwise.

The nine provinces are tracked on their own page here, with what each is for. The game is not strict about order, but the provinces have level expectations and ignoring them is how a stealth game turns into a bad action game.

Yes, and more than in any previous game in this series. Weather and season change what cover exists and how far sound and sight carry. If a hideout infiltration feels impossible, coming back in a different season is a legitimate answer.

Not comfortably. The tracker on this guide exists because the list spans both characters, all nine provinces and the collectibles behind them.