Black Tides is the post-launch story added in Assassin’s Creed Shadows Update 1.1.11, and it pits Naoe and Yasuke against a pair of elite Templars known as the Black Cross. Before the quest even appears on your map, you have to clear a short chain of earlier missions. Skip any one of them and the objective simply will not show up.
Quick answer: Finish Naoe’s and Yasuke’s personal stories, complete “A Critical Encounter,” and complete “A Puzzlement.” Then travel to Yuasa in southwest Kii and approach the bearded man wearing a black Templar cross to trigger Eamon’s introduction cutscene and unlock the Black Cross objective.
Requirements to unlock Black Tides
The Black Cross hunt is gated behind three separate pieces of progress. You need all three done before Eamon will appear in the world.
| Requirement | What it involves |
|---|---|
| Naoe’s and Yasuke’s stories | Play through the main hunt for the Shinbakufu, which hands out unique missions for both characters. Finishing their personal arcs is the first step. |
| “A Critical Encounter” | A post-launch quest where you meet Rufino, a friend of Tomiko and Heiji who is investigating a group murdering civilians and replacing them with strangers. |
| “A Puzzlement” | A comedic side quest about helping two would-be criminals find a better path. Along the way you learn about the mysterious glyphs tied to ancient secrets. |
“A Puzzlement” matters beyond the laugh, because the glyph thread it introduces feeds directly into what the Black Cross is after in Japan. Keep your glyph keystone in mind, since it becomes important once the storyline advances.
How to start Black Tides in Kii
How to confirm Black Tides is active
The clean signal that everything worked is the Black Cross objective circle showing up in the Objectives menu right after Eamon’s cutscene. If it does not appear, the cause is almost always a missing prerequisite. Check that Naoe and Yasuke have both wrapped their personal stories, and that “A Critical Encounter” and “A Puzzlement” are marked complete in your quest log.
What comes after Black Tides
During Black Tides, you come face to face with the Black Cross Templars, and that encounter sets up the follow-up quest, Double-Crossed. The next mission sends you to the eastern part of Kii to hunt down the Templar ship wreckage, which ties the Black Cross directly to the Kassandra vault keystone you collected through the glyph puzzle. So treat Black Tides as the gateway, since clearing it is what opens the rest of this Templar arc.
