Aiko's Choice is a sneaky new standalone expansion for Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

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Let's get stealthy.

We loved tactical stealth game Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, awarding it 92% in our review and calling it "complex without being too complicated" and "characterful and user-friendly enough that even the stealth-averse might find something to tempt them into the shadows."

The next chapter, named Aiko's Choice, is not a sequel, but a standalone expansion, meaning you don't need to own the original game to play it. The expansion focuses on one of the original game's main characters, Aiko, a master of camouflage and distraction who can disguise herself as a geisha.

(Image credit: Daedalic)

"While Aiko was certain that she left her old life behind, a new enemy deeply connected to her past reappears from the shadows to challenge her," says developer Mimimi Games. "Together with her friends, a group of deadly assassins, she sets out to hunt the ghosts of her past."

Publisher Daedalic says you don't need to have played Blades of the Shogun to enjoy Aiko's Choice, but recommends playing through its story for the best possible experience. The expansion is once again set in Japan in the Edo period and sees you infiltrating, sneaking, sabotaging, and all the other fun stuff a ninja gets to do, across three new main missions and some smaller interludes.

Mimimi says Aiko's Choice will be a chance to "rejoin your favourite characters for one final adventure set within the story of the main game." The game will let you "experience a previously untold tale centred around the kunoichi adept Aiko, who has to face a vicious enemy connected to her past."

So it definitely sounds like this will be more of the same, just telling a new story in this world. But when 'the same' is so damn good, I can't complain. More Shadow Tactics is always a good thing. Aiko's Choice is set for release in late 2021, but Daedalic hasn't been any more specific than that.

Andy Kelly
Andy Kelly

If it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Alien: Isolation, and anything with a good story.