Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the latest entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Set in feudal Japan during the reign of Oda Nobunaga, protagonists Fujibayashi Naoe and Yasuke must work together, and players will get different gameplay styles, allowing them to complete missions in a variety of ways.

Nerd Reactor had the chance to chat with MASUMI, who voices Naoe, about her experience transitioning from film and TV to voice acting for Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

“It was kind of perfect timing when I got the audition because I also had to show my sword skills,” MASUMI tells Nerd Reactor. “I thought that I was going to be a samurai, because I have to show my sword skills, and that’s part of the self-tape. I didn’t know that I was a Shinobi until the first meeting I had with the producers and directors after I booked it. And I was like, ‘So just a question, am I a Shinobi?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Wow, that is really cool.’ I had no idea.”

The character of Naoe spoke to MASUMI, who understood the character right away.

“When you get an audition, and it’s a few pages of an audition, and you read it, and you just understand the character right away,” MASUMI explained. “For me, it’s really rare. I felt like I understood her quite immediately. And I think because we share a lot of similarities, she’s a straight shooter, she doesn’t B.S. too much, she’s sometimes way too honest, and she has this strong conviction about herself, and sometimes blindly. So when she gets into all kinds of stuff, she’s also very reflective because her father teaches her how to be with a ritual, right? So those practices, all of that really resonated with me.

“So when I got that audition and when I taped it, I felt like it was mine, although I didn’t even get a call back for this audition. At that moment, I felt like, this is my story. This is my character. I know her. And I think that initial impact of feeling that way was the biggest attraction because you just don’t get to feel that way all the time and that makes it so easy to to act when you feel like you really know a character.”

Doing the voice-over sessions in the booth can be an isolating feeling, and MASUMI relishes in getting to work with more of the Ubisoft team during the cinematic sequences.

“Through all of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, my favorite part is the cinematic shooting, because I don’t get to see everybody when I’m doing voiceover,” she said. “But when I was doing the cinematic shoots, I was seeing every, I mean not everybody because there are 1000s of people involved in this project, but I got to see a lot of people, and it really felt like we were working together.”

Assassin’s Creed Shadows was released on consoles and PC on March 20, 2025.