After learning that the group has survived, Noboru blames them for murdering Ryunosuke and furtively devises a plan to assassinate the shogun. The group kidnaps Masaru and delivers him to the Shogun, to whom he confesses everything about his involvement in his father's plot. The shogun executes his nephew Masaru and sends his agents on their final mission to kill Noboru in his castle. Having avenged Mugen, the four comrades part ways. Aiko later gives birth to Mugen's son, whom the Shogun adopts, allowing his legacy to endure.
Gameplay
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a real-time strategy (RTS) game with an emphasis on stealth, patterned after the Commandos and Desperados game series. The player commands a team of assassins and performs various acts of espionage, sabotage and assassination, such as infiltrating heavily guarded fortresses and eliminating enemies from within, killing/capturing special targets, stealing important documents, overhearing conversations to collect information, rescuing other characters, etc.
Difficulty levels
There are three levels of difficulty for all missions: Beginner, Medium, and Hardcore. Each mission has several badges (achievements) to make the game more challenging (for example: complete the mission without Aiko using disguises, complete the mission without Takuma shooting anyone, complete the mission without swimming, etc.). Badges cannot be acquired on Beginner difficulty, and all available badges for a mission will only be displayed after completing it at least once.
Gameplay
Vision cone
Each enemy (guards and civilian) has a vision cone, which has two parts: a solid section and a banded section. In the solid section, characters will always be spotted whether they are crouching or standing. In the banded section, characters who are crouching will not be spotted. While the solid section gives way to the banded one based on distance, low cover, such as barrels or bushes, will also create banded sections behind the obstacle. High cover and buildings block vision entirely.
An enemy's normal vision cone is green. If an enemy is alerted (as by spotting footprints or hearing a noise), it will turn yellow. It will also gradually become yellow if a character enters his vision cone; when the yellow section reaches the character, he will become hostile and raise an alarm. A purple vision cone indicates a distracted guard.
Alarms
If an enemy spots a corpse or the player's characters, he will raise the alarm, and additional soldiers will spawn from nearby buildings and begin patrolling the area. Bodies can be disposed of permanently by throwing them into rivers, wells, bushes, buildings, barrels, etc.
The usual approach of the game involves studying the patrol routes of the guards and their vision cones, luring a guard into an ambush or isolating him by distracting his comrades, killing him stealthily and hiding the body. In this way, the player can pick off enemies one by one in order to work out the objectives. Another approach is to lure/distract multiple enemies and kill them at the same time using Shadow Mode (allowing player characters to act simultaneously), or an ability that kills multiple enemies simultaneously.
Environment
The environment presents both challenge and opportunity for the player. The camera can be rotated freely.
Objects
Some objects such as vases, icicles, heavy cargo, wooden block, rocks, etc. can be knocked down from above to either create a distracting noise or kill enemies beneath (or both). If enemies are killed by objects, other enemies won't raise an alarm, thinking it's an accident. Other opportunities to create "accidents" may also present themselves; Hayato, for example, may provoke an ox to kick and kill an enemy standing behind it by throwing a rock at it.
Hiding
Characters can hide in some areas, becoming mostly invisible. Bushes are very common, although not completely safe. Alerted enemies will enter and search bushes, but they can be killed. Buildings can be entered and hidden within as well. Enemies may enter buildings, and any characters inside - except for Aiko in disguise - will be defenseless; buildings already occupied by enemies cannot be entered at all. Some missions have wagons, which can be entered when they stop. Wagons can be used to evade enemies, but if an enemy samurai checks the wagon, they will spot any characters hidden within and attack. Hiding underwater is completely safe; enemies will never enter it or fire into it.
Snow
Characters will leave footprints after moving on the snow. If the enemies see the footprints before they fade away, they will follow them, which can be used to the player's advantage to set up an ambush.
Night missions
In night missions, the enemies' vision cones are weakened, but light sources create spots in their vision cone where characters can be spotted even when crouched. Some light sources can be extinguished, and if an enemy spots this, he will come and light it up again. This can be used to lure enemies into an ambush.
Loud surfaces
Some missions have loud surfaces, which makes noises when walked upon (for example, puddles of water).
Shadow Mode
This is similar to Quick Action in the Desperados game series. By using this tool, characters can be assigned to perform an assigned task simultaneously.
