Ubisoft’s first major Assassin’s Creed Shadows expansion hits Nintendo’s handheld hybrid in March. Here’s what’s in the 10+ hour Claws of Awaji DLC, how it fits into the winter roadmap, and what Switch 2 players can expect in terms of technical and content parity with other platforms.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows launched on Switch 2 in December as a surprisingly complete package, arriving with the same patches and free content drops that other platforms had already received. The one big omission was Claws of Awaji, the game’s first paid story expansion, which debuted on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S back in September.
That gap is about to close. Ubisoft has now confirmed that Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Claws of Awaji hits Nintendo Switch 2 on 10 March 2026, the same day the new Premium Edition bundles the base game and expansion together. It lands as part of the wider winter roadmap that is currently rolling out across all platforms, and for the first time puts Switch owners in lockstep with the rest of the player base.
What is Claws of Awaji and what’s in the 10+ hours?
Claws of Awaji is a traditional Assassin’s Creed story expansion structured around a single, self‑contained region: the island of Awaji. Rather than being a loose collection of contracts or side stories, it is pitched as a full chapter that continues Naoe and Yasuke’s journey beyond the main campaign.
Ubisoft pegs the expansion at more than ten hours of content, and that figure makes sense once you break down what’s actually included. The island itself is a new, bespoke landmass with its own settlements, shrines and wilderness, which means fresh viewpoints to synchronize, side activities to clear and a new slice of late‑game stealth sandboxes to infiltrate. Story missions are built to show off this geography, with a mix of tightly choreographed stealth infiltrations and open‑field clashes that lean into Yasuke’s heavier combat toolkit.
On top of the new map, Claws of Awaji folds in an entirely new enemy faction with its own elite units and bosses. These encounters are intended to be a step up in difficulty from the base game’s main quest, aimed at players who have already unlocked a solid spread of skills. Boss fights in particular are built to push both playstyles, with arenas that allow Naoe to leverage verticality and cover, and phases that reward Yasuke’s timing‑based parries and stance breaks.
Progression is extended too. The DLC introduces a new weapon type alongside additional abilities and skill upgrades, giving both protagonists more options for tackling encounters. Legendary‑tier gear and unique outfits are scattered across Awaji, so exploration feeds directly back into builds rather than just ticking off icons. If you are already running a min‑maxed endgame save, Claws of Awaji is designed to give you reason to reshuffle perks and experiment again.
Crucially, nothing about the content has been scaled down for Switch 2. All of the missions, systems, enemy types and rewards that shipped on PS5, Xbox and PC are present here; the expansion’s design has not been altered for the handheld version.
How it fits into Shadows’ winter roadmap
Claws of Awaji’s Switch 2 release is not happening in isolation. It is slotted into a busy winter roadmap that Ubisoft has laid out for Assassin’s Creed Shadows on all platforms.
The first beat is a February update that introduces a community parkour challenge, a new manual jump option for freerunning and a detailed stats page aimed at players who like to dive deep into builds and performance numbers. These features arrive on Switch 2 at the same time as on other platforms, and crucially they land before the Claws of Awaji launch.
That timing matters. The new manual jump setting, tucked into Advanced Parkour Options, gives long‑time series fans a more granular feel to traversal just as they are about to head into a dense new region packed with rooftops and cliff paths. Likewise, the expanded stats page arrives before the DLC drops a fresh wave of gear and abilities into the loot pool, so you can track how new legendary finds and weapon upgrades actually change your numbers.
Claws of Awaji itself is the centrepiece of the March beat on the roadmap for Switch 2. While other platforms received the expansion months earlier, the winter schedule has effectively been arranged so that the handheld version uses it as a kind of soft anniversary milestone, followed by global celebrations later in March. For Switch players who picked Shadows up at launch in December, that creates a neat arc: original campaign through the holidays, systemic refresh and parkour tweaks in February and then a substantial story expansion at the start of spring.
Technical expectations on Switch 2
Whenever a big Assassin’s Creed release hits Nintendo hardware, the first question is always about performance and visual compromises. With Claws of Awaji, Ubisoft’s message is that Switch 2 owners should expect full content parity with only platform‑appropriate technical scaling.
The expansion runs on the same Switch 2 version of the Anvil engine that powers the base Shadows release. Expect the familiar mix of dynamic resolution scaling and a capped frame rate, targeting stability over spectacle. Visual settings like foliage density, shadow quality and distant detail are tuned a notch below what you see on PS5 and high‑end PCs, but the layout of Awaji, its stealth routes and combat arenas are identical.
Loading times are a particular concern for open‑world DLC on handheld hardware. Here, Switch 2’s SSD helps keep island traversal and fast travel between Awaji and the main map snappy enough that the extra region feels naturally integrated rather than quarantined behind long waits. Interior transitions still take a beat longer than on other consoles, yet the cadence of stealth infiltration and retreat holds up well in portable play.
Image quality is where the differences are most obvious. Resolution in handheld mode takes a hit compared to docked, and post‑processing such as ambient occlusion is dialed back to keep performance solid when the screen is jammed with foliage or multi‑enemy combat encounters. The flipside is that Ubisoft has been conservative with crowd density and particle spam in Awaji’s busiest hubs, which helps the frame rate stay consistent during the expansion’s more chaotic sequences.
Importantly, none of these technical concessions alter how the DLC plays. Stealth visibility thresholds, detection cones, enemy counts in key missions and parkour routes are all in line with other versions, so guides, builds and route videos created on PC or PS5 still apply to Switch 2 players.
Content parity and cross‑progression
On the feature side, Switch 2 now cleanly matches the rest of the ecosystem. The Claws of Awaji expansion arrives with the same narrative beats, side activities, weapon type and gear pools that other platforms received at launch. There are no missing contracts, cut scenes or region‑specific quests, and time‑limited events tied into the winter roadmap, such as the community parkour challenge, are live on Nintendo’s handheld as well.
Cross‑progression plays a big role in making the delay feel less punitive. If you started Shadows on another platform when Claws of Awaji first dropped, you can bring that save across to Switch 2 and pick up exactly where you left off, with every DLC unlock and story flag preserved. That makes the handheld version a genuine second home for your main Assassin’s Creed Shadows file rather than a side branch you have to grind up separately.
This parity also extends to monetisation and edition structure. The Premium Edition arriving alongside the standalone DLC on Switch 2 mirrors what is already available elsewhere, bundling the base game with Claws of Awaji at a discount. Season pass entitlements and pre‑order bonuses that included access to the expansion on other platforms translate over, provided your Ubisoft account is linked.
Does Claws of Awaji finally make Switch 2 feel caught up?
The short answer is that yes, this expansion is the missing piece that brings Switch 2 fully into step with Assassin’s Creed Shadows on other systems.
At launch, the handheld version already had all post‑release patches, core systems updates and free story drops that had trickled out over the previous months. What it lacked was the single biggest slab of paid content in the game’s first year. With Claws of Awaji arriving in March alongside the same winter‑update quality‑of‑life tweaks and events that are live everywhere else, that gap closes.
There is still an unavoidable time lag: Switch 2 players are coming to Awaji months after the community on PC and other consoles has picked it clean of secrets. If you care about being first through the door, that sting cannot be entirely removed. But as a long‑term platform, Switch 2 now sits on equal footing. Every major feature and story beat on the public roadmap is either already present or scheduled within the same seasonal window.
Taken together, the winter update and Claws of Awaji’s arrival turn Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Switch 2 from a strong port that was slightly behind the curve into a fully current version of Ubisoft’s latest historical epic. The island of Awaji offers a meaningful ten‑plus‑hour reason to return, and this time, handheld players are no longer looking over the fence at what they are missing.