“Heads Will Roll” is the final quest in the hunt for The Wounded, one of the targets in Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ main story questline. It ends with the assassination of Wada Koretake, and asks you to make a choice that could potentially anger Yaya, someone you can recruit as an ally.
In this Assassin’s Creed Shadows guide, we’ll walk you through how to complete the main “Heads Will Roll” quest and whether or not you should side with Yaya or Mitsumune when it comes to sparing or killing Nobunaga’s soldiers.
‘Heads Will Roll’ walkthrough in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
To start the quest, follow the marker on your map until you reach an Animus portal. Interact with it.
After a lengthy cutscene, you’ll be dropped into a castle to assassinate Koretake. Your allies will fight a battle against Koretake’s soldiers on the ground, and you’ll start on the rooftops with one goal: kill the snipers at the gates. You’ll get markers on your screen for the locations of all six of these snipers, so work your way across the castle rooftops and take them out.
While you can assassinate many of these snipers to instantly kill them, you don’t need to remain incognito to progress. Because they’re snipers, they’re pretty simple to fight, as they don’t really have any good close-range combat options. They’ll also be distracted by your allies, allowing you to sneak up on them.
Once you kill them all, head to the main courtyard, which has all the yellow flags and curtains. Stay on the rooftops to the left and watch for more archers and snipers.
How to assassinate Wada Koretake in ‘Heads Will Roll’
Climb along the rooftops to the back part of the courtyard, behind a small building that Wada Koretake walks up to and pauses at on his loop. Assassinate the snipers and scouts in the area to reduce the likelihood that you’ll get caught. Beware that a beefy castle guard tends to roam here even if you stay stealthy.
Once the enemies are taken care of, climb up the small building and perch on the point overlooking the courtyard. When Wada Koretake gets close enough, assassinate him from your perch. This will bring you into a cutscene that will end the mission and lead to a choice.
Should you side with Yaya or Mitsumune?
With Koretake dead, your allies have gathered all of his soldiers in the courtyard area. Mitsumune is looking to execute all of the soldiers, while Yaya and Kyonyo want to prove that they are different than Nobunaga and his goons.
Partway through the cutscene, you’ll get two dialogue options:
- “Justice must be served” (kill the soldiers, side with Mitsumune)
- “Killing them isn’t justice” (spare the soldiers, side with Yaya)
The game warns you that “this [choice] will impact Yaya,” but doesn’t give you any additional information. After playing the mission twice, we can tell you that Yaya wants the soldiers spared, and she’ll be pissed if you decide to support their execution. However, you won’t see how the decision impacts Yaya until later in the game — and it’s unclear how much of an impact it really makes, outside of her attitude in dialogue — though if you want to recruit her as an ally, go with “killing them isn’t justice.”
Regardless of your choice, Mitsumune and his goons will execute a soldier, and the cutscene will play out almost identically. The only difference is whether Yaya and Kyonyo blame you and Mitsumune, or just Mitsumune. Mitsumune is cold to you either way. Sparing the soldiers will make the fewest people mad at you — specifically Yaya, who is the only character the game explicitly calls out as being impacted by this choice long-term.
For more Assassin’s Creed Shadows guides, see our running lists of Lost Pages, Kuji-kiri, and armor locations. Or see our full Assassin’s Creed Shadows walkthrough, and our guides on how to get all companions and romance options.
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