How To Level Up Fast In Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Fastest Ways To Level Up In Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Leveling quickly in Assassin’s Creed Shadows comes down to combining XP boosts, efficient activity farming, and constant exploration.

The best XP sources include:

• Contracts
• Castles
• Target eliminations
• Sumi-e
• Shrines
• Lost Pages
• Scout activities
• Main story progression

The key is stacking activities together instead of grinding only one thing repeatedly.

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Build The Terra Immediately

The single best early progression upgrade is the Terra building inside your Hideout.

It provides a permanent:

• 10% XP boost to all earned experience

This bonus applies to everything you do afterward, making it one of the strongest long-term upgrades in the game.

The earlier you build it, the more value you get from every activity afterward.

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Upgrade The Stables And Study

The Stables and Study massively improve progression speed.

Stables

At higher levels, the Stables reduce scout smuggling costs.

This lets you:

• Gather more resources
• Upgrade the Hideout faster
• Improve gear progression
• Spend fewer scouts per run

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Study

The Study increases your total scout count and reduces search areas for objectives.

More scouts means:

• Faster target tracking
• Easier contract clearing
• Better stockpile farming
• Faster overall progression

These upgrades do not directly give XP, but they make everything around leveling significantly faster.

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Farm Contracts

Contracts are one of the best repeatable XP sources in the game.

Every safe house usually offers several contracts worth roughly:

• 1,000 to 2,400 XP each

Once you clear the contracts in one region, move to another safe house and continue farming.

Contracts are great because they also reward:

• Resources
• Money
• Gear
• Scout opportunities

This creates a steady progression loop instead of pure XP grinding.

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Turn On Guided Exploration

If you want faster leveling and less wandering around giant search circles, enable:

Guided Exploration

This automatically reveals objective locations instead of making you manually investigate clues.

Benefits include:

• Faster target eliminations
• Faster contracts
• Faster side quest completion
• Faster assassination chains

Eliminating major targets often rewards around:

• 2,000 XP per target
• Up to 5,000 XP for full target groups

If your goal is efficient leveling, Guided Exploration saves an enormous amount of time.

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Raid Castles For Massive XP

Castles are some of the best XP sources in the game.

When clearing castles, you earn XP from:

• Enemy kills
• Samurai Daisho
• Legendary chests
• Exploration
• Objective completion

Large castle clears can easily reward several thousand XP in a single run.

They also provide:

• Mastery Points
• Legendary gear
• Crafting resources
• Fast travel locations
• Scout stockpiles

If you enjoy combat and stealth equally, castle raids are probably the best overall activity in the game.

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Complete Sumi-e Activities

Sumi-e painting spots are quick activities that reward solid XP for almost no effort.

Most only take about a minute and reward:

• Roughly 500 to 550 XP

Always complete them when passing nearby because they are basically free experience.

Also they are considerably more relaxing than getting chased through a burning castle by six angry samurai.

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Farm Shrines And Lost Pages

Shrines and temple activities reward both:

• XP
• Knowledge Points

These are extremely valuable because Knowledge Rank unlocks stronger skills in mastery trees.

Activities to prioritize include:

• Lost Pages
• Kuji-Kiri
• Horse Archery
• Kata
• Temple exploration

You are leveling both your character and your skill progression at the same time.

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Eliminate Targets Efficiently

Assassination target chains provide some of the best progression rewards in the game.

Each target usually grants:

• XP
• Gear
• Resources
• Story progression

Finishing an entire target board often gives large completion bonuses on top of individual rewards.

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Best Early XP Farming Loop

A strong early-game loop looks like this:

1. Unlock synchronization points
2. Pick up nearby contracts
3. Clear small camps and castles
4. Tag stockpiles with scouts
5. Complete nearby Sumi-e and shrine activities
6. Assassinate regional targets
7. Repeat in the next province

This keeps XP, gear, mastery points, and resources flowing at the same time.

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Should You Grind XP?

Not really.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows levels naturally if you constantly explore and complete side content while progressing the story.

Grinding only becomes necessary if you ignore most side activities and rush main objectives.

The game heavily rewards players who clear regions thoroughly instead of sprinting straight through the campaign.