Assassin's Creed Shadows: Shrine Locations & Interactive Tracking Guide

There are 27 Shrines across Japan and five more on Awaji Island, and they are comfortably the easiest Knowledge Rank progression in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

All are documented on Map Master's Japan and Awaji Island maps.

How Shrine Activities Work

Shrines appear on your map as white question marks that resolve into orange shrine icons as you approach. Enter the grounds and a tooltip appears in the top right telling you how many small shrines you need to honour — anywhere from two to five depending on the site's size.

Walk to each one and press Triangle or Y to pray. Once the last one is done, the activity completes instantly and the reward lands.

Either character can complete a Shrine. Knowledge Points are shared, so it makes no difference who kneels.

Use Focus Mode From a Rooftop to Find Every Shrine

The single best trick for these. Hold L2 or LT and the prayer spots resolve as white pulsing dots through walls and foliage.

Better still, climb something first. From a rooftop or elevated platform inside the shrine complex, Focus Mode reveals all of them at once from across the grounds — which turns a shrine sweep into a straight line rather than a search.

Sync the nearby Viewpoint if there is one and you'll often spot every prayer spot before you've dismounted.

Prayer spots hide in predictable places: at the top of the main steps, behind the primary building, across small bridges, tucked behind fences in the back half of gardens, and behind rows of small houses at the rear of a complex.

Where the Shrines Are Concentrated

Kii is the richest region in the game with six Shrines, more than anywhere else.

Yamashiro holds three, all on the eastern side, and it's a low-level region — which makes it the best place to farm Knowledge Points early without being outmatched by the local enemies.

Tamba and Wakasa hold two each, and both are high-level areas. If you're heading there early for the points, stay mounted until you're inside the shrine grounds. Riding past patrols beats fighting them at a level disadvantage, and shrines themselves are almost always peaceful.

Izumi Settsu includes Nishinomiya Shrine at Nakayama Peak in the south, with three prayer spots. Kii's Tokei Shrine northeast of Tanabe on the Nakaheci Route has just two — the second hidden past a wooden fence in the northern half of the garden.

Awaji Island Adds Five More Shrines

The Claws of Awaji expansion brings five Shrines to Awaji, functioning identically to the base game's.

Yura Minato Shrine at the southwestern end of Yura City is the most convenient — the Yura Kakurega sits roughly 80 metres north. Two prayer spots: one near the northern entrance, one far back up a hill.

On the path up, look right into the woods for a treasure chest sitting on a cliff.

Another is reached most easily from the south, up the steep mountain path out of Fukura Village.

Shrines Are Not Praying Shrines

Two different systems, one shared animation, and endless confusion between them.

Shrines are the marked activity sites covered here — orange icons, multiple prayer spots, 500 XP and a Knowledge Point on completion.

Praying Shrines are the small standalone ones at roadsides, entirely unmarked on the map, that grant a temporary combat buff and no Knowledge Point at all.

If you prayed somewhere and no Knowledge Point appeared, you found the second kind. Check the timer under your health bar.

Shrines and the Six Knowledge Ranks

Ranks 2, 3, and 4 cost 10 Knowledge Points each, Rank 5 costs 15 and unlocks the strongest skills, and Rank 6 is the ceiling.

Because Shrines involve no combat and no character restriction, they're the ideal filler between harder activities.

Pair them with Lost Pages at Temples and Kofun tombs, all three of which either character can complete, while Kuji-kiri belongs to Naoe and Kata to Yasuke.

Nothing is missable. Every Shrine remains available in post-story free roam.