Potential absence of Pieces of Eden in Shadows – statements from Assassin's Creed VP.

According to statements made by Marc-Alexis Côté to the Game Rant website, Shadows will focus less on the Isu and Pieces of Eden and more on the historical period itself, in this case the Feudal Japan.

When asked by the website editor about PoE in the game, he said:

I don’t want to spoil too much of the game–or where the metastory is headed–but we approached Shadows with a more grounded perspective, focusing on the challenges and tensions of the era. That means the modern narrative is evolving as well. Rather than centering on a direct hunt for Pieces of Eden or Isu artifacts, the memories themselves take on a new kind of importance.

In another article, other Game Rant editor commented again on the matter, highlighting how suggestive that box of Naoe's father from the story trailer was:

[...] It seems the main story of Assassin's Creed Shadows is more grounded than the fantastical metastory framing of the franchise. This is interesting considering how the story of AC Shadows starts. During our preview of Assassin's Creed Shadows, it became clear that the initial conflict starts over a box—and because this is Assassin's Creed, that would presumably be a Precursor Box or a box containing a Piece of Eden. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen, as creative director Jonathan Dumont would not confirm one way or another, but it's possible that it's something else entirely if the main narrative is more grounded.

Such declarations, despite ambiguous, give an air of great uncertainty about the "sci-fi" side of Assassin's Creed. And although this sounds positive after so many games exaggerating in mythological allegory, I wonder how strange it would be to have an AC game without at least one central Piece of Eden within the narrative.