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[EDMIX]

. If you don't understand the difference between a work of fiction and one that is claiming to be historically accurate,

Nioh, just like your summary states, is a "fictionalized version of the year 1600". Ubisoft has gone back and forth on this,

Where did anyone from Ubisoft state this is non-fiction though? Their comments about historical accuracy is more so about iconography, setting etc, its not about the actual story, as shit, thats like fucking thinking they are claing time travel and monsters and all the other sci fi shit are real, its as if you are taking 1 word and forcing an absolution with it when no where is Ubisoft actually making such odd statements, that is what you are saying btw, that is not what the publisher is stating verbatim

Use context, provide a source or link etc

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/four-years-offers-the-right-balance-to-make-a-new-assassins-creed-game

" . One aspect of the series that is widely admired is its commitment to historical accuracy (within the confines of a fictional story, of course), and that is something that also can't be rushed."

""It is very interesting, because when the team went there, one of the things that jumped out was the forests and how they are. We had made some forests based on the Greece landscape [for Odyssey], but when we went, we noticed it was very different to what we'd done, and we had to change it. You don't necessarily find that stuff out when doing historical research."

"Ubisoft will be looking at that as an indicator of what's possible here. All of this means it's vital Shadows is as authentic as possible."

Key words here "as possible" as in within the realm of fesabliity based on the actual story and lore of AC series, that does not mean the main goal is to make some 1.1 non-fiction type thing as no where is anyone from Ubisoft stating anything even remotely like this.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/05/15/assassins-creed-shadows-interview/

"Assassin’s Creed is well known for its depiction of the history and accurate recreation of the world and it’s what players can expect with Assassin’s Creed Shadows."

as in, the comments made is referring to them creating those worlds, its not about the actual story being some real thing as that has always been a fictional thing, I think the claim you are making is based on taking that word and wildly exaggerating the statements the publisher has made.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Launches November 15, Features Dual Protagonists in Feudal Japan

Set in 16th century Japan, Assassin’s Creed Shadows will star Japanese shinobi Naoe, and real-life samurai Yasuke.

news.ubisoft.com

"Ubisoft Quebec went to great lengths consulting source documentation and building a network of expert historians, professors, and cultural consultants to help the team build a world as authentically as possible, from castle construction principles to tea ceremonies to tatami alignment. The team made trips to Japan to help them properly grasp the landscape and the culture, and more importantly, connect with Ubisoft’s Tokyo and Osaka teams, who helped with the creation of the game."

So I don't recall this publisher ever stating that the whole historically accurate statement was about it being non-fiction and a real life 1.1 story or any thing of the sorts, the comments they've made in the past and present about this has been about them recreating those worlds, not about the actual stories and making them non-fiction

This is not a "fiction vs HISTOIRACLLY ACCURATE" as you seem to really, really want it to be forced into, this is about a work of HISTORICAL fiction that seeks to be accurate in terms of the settling, iconography and other cultural aspects

 

[shamoomoo]

I have no idea what you mean by Yasuke's looks and the type of game it is. If you don't understand the difference between a work of fiction and one that is claiming to be historically accurate, then I'll just leave you to it. As for the experts, google is your friend.

Assassin Creed is a game, historical accuracy is irrelevant when it comes to entertainment outside of a documentary because the source material is usually embellished on to some degree.

So I'm supposed to believe people have machines that can teleport folks back into the past so they can experience history through an avatar or real person?

 

[killatopak]

This is not a "fiction vs HISTOIRACLLY ACCURATE" as you seem to really, really want it to be forced into, this is about a work of HISTORICAL fiction that seeks to be accurate in terms of the settling, iconography and other cultural aspects

The issue isn’t exactly about how accurate it is. It is how respectful they are to the source material and in extension to how the Japanese people see your product. The same people you are basing the game on.

Even before the game was supposed to launch, there was already negative publicity outside the game. Stuff like using a copy of an anime sword rebranded as a katana for Shadows. Lack of research unto Torii gates. Failure to ask permission for certain icons used in the game who in fact explicitly forbid people from using them.

There was also some mundane stuff that I didn’t even know was wrong until it was pointed out by the Japanese.

It’s not like they were explicitly stating that some historical parts of it were changed or transposed paradoxically. They were adamant they were depicting it accurately and any pushback was harassment rather than criticism.

It’s very ironic really. You always hear people complain about cultural appropriation but can’t seem to see one when they are the ones beings accused of it.

Even then, I can probably ignore all of those in favor of the game itself. The problem is, I already see so many bugs and design issues from a curated trailer. Clipping, doors and windows that lead to nowhere, floating projectiles, etc. If it was this obvious from a trailer then how worse is it in the actual game? A delay is very much needed even before all these political, cultural and historical issues are addressed.

 

[EDMIX]

Assassin Creed is a game, historical accuracy is irrelevant when it comes to entertainment outside of a documentary because the source material is usually embellished on to some degree.

So I'm supposed to believe people have machines that can teleport folks back into the past so they can experience history through an avatar or real person?

Rationality, logic and contexts seems to be not allowed lol

What's crazy is I don't recall this publisher ever making statements about historical accuracy in absolution as if they are actually making a story in terms of the exact things occurring within real life , Most of The Times they usually just mean this in the world creation

But they've made these statements in the past regarding their other AC games as I recall years ago there was a thread on here talking about this regarding Odyssey as I think people were debating something about the accents

Even the claim whether Yasuke was really a samurai doesn't seem to me to be something that should ever even be an issue because the Japanese seem to think so enough to place him in multiple games books anime Manga very much calling him a samurai even a book that released in the 60s is very much stating this, which means regardless of how anyone actually feels that country has put out work in which they seem to very much believe that the evidence supports him legitimately being a samurai

This publisher is not the first to ever make any claim even remotely like that

So I think people are simply triggered because they don't like the publisher and there are the ones doing this

We did not see this when Yasuke was in other games yet magically now people are trying to pretend Japan is suddenly outraged about a character that they've put in their own work in which they themselves called a samurai before anyone else


Japan is literally the country that introduced us to Yasuke lol We only know Yasuke as a samurai because of Japan I don't believe he is known in any other way to them.

 

[dDoc]

Time for publishers to weigh what is in their best financial interest.

That DEI money, or sales to their customer base.

 

[dDoc]

"As the authors of 'How Democracies Die' so powerfully stated, democracies crumble when good people decide to stay silent."

Yes, customers have had enough and have started to be vocal and vote with their wallets. True that.

 

[MMaRsu]

Rationality, logic and contexts seems to be not allowed lol

What's crazy is I don't recall this publisher ever making statements about historical accuracy in absolution as if they are actually making a story in terms of the exact things occurring within real life , Most of The Times they usually just mean this in the world creation

But they've made these statements in the past regarding their other AC games as I recall years ago there was a thread on here talking about this regarding Odyssey as I think people were debating something about the accents

Even the claim whether Yasuke was really a samurai doesn't seem to me to be something that should ever even be an issue because the Japanese seem to think so enough to place him in multiple games books anime Manga very much calling him a samurai even a book that released in the 60s is very much stating this, which means regardless of how anyone actually feels that country has put out work in which they seem to very much believe that the evidence supports him legitimately being a samurai

This publisher is not the first to ever make any claim even remotely like that

So I think people are simply triggered because they don't like the publisher and there are the ones doing this

We did not see this when Yasuke was in other games yet magically now people are trying to pretend Japan is suddenly outraged about a character that they've put in their own work in which they themselves called a samurai before anyone else


Japan is literally the country that introduced us to Yasuke lol We only know Yasuke as a samurai because of Japan I don't believe he is known in any other way to them.

Thats all fine and dandy, but we wanted a Japanese Ninja guy, not this fucking random black guy who just so happened to maybe exist.

Why from all thousands of awesome truly historical Japanese characters, we get this fucking weirdo?

Nobody asked for him, let him fuck off into the sun

 

[ResilientBanana]

I hate this videogames are ART movement and thus above scrutiny, in every other line of work you get fired if you dont deliver your work but somehow every dev in this industry feels the need to create a manifest like the Unabomber when they get even the slightest pushback.

Art is also subjective, not everyone will like what you make. In this case, not many liked it.

 

[RJMacready73]

Thats all fine and dandy, but we wanted a Japanese Ninja guy, not this fucking random black guy who just so happened to maybe exist.

Why from all thousands of awesome truly historical Japanese characters, we get this fucking weirdo?

Nobody asked for him, let him fuck off into the sun

He was hardly a weirdo, he was an actual person at the time but the vast vast majority of people probably wanted to play as a Japanese protagonist not a hulking great big African dude towering over the rest of the population, he would've made a great DLC character as after playing through as a Japanese character you get to play as a huge tank plowing through the bad guys, I mean are they going to set an Ass Creed game in Africa and make the main character a white colonial dude? I don't fucking think so

 

[VulcanRaven]

I am sure his stance is going to help sales tremendously!

Edit: What I don’t understand is what the fuck are executives doing!? Concord, Veilguard, this game. After seeing pushback and hell, even before that , why the fuck would they keep pushing while knowing it is doing to tank sales?

Why do you assume its going to affect sales so much? The people who complaing them being woke probably aren't the majority. Its not being woke that made people not to buy Concord. It just didn't look or sound interesting.

 

[Gaiff]

Carthage was not a tributary of Rome until after the Second Punic War. It was during this war that Hannibal invaded Italy. Prior to that they had been competing empires, vying for control of the Mediterranean. Prior to the First Punic War Carthage had been the stronger of the two empires with control over Sicily and Sardinia. They clashed and Rome won.

They literally had to pay tribute to Rome after their loss in the first war.

After the Carthaginians' loss of the war, the Romans imposed terms that were designed to reduce Carthage to a tribute-paying city to Rome and simultaneously strip it of its fleet.[9] While the terms of the peace treaty were harsh, the Romans did not strip Carthage of its strength; Carthage was the most prosperous maritime trading port of its day, and the tribute imposed by the Romans was easily paid off on a yearly basis, while Carthage was simultaneously engaged by Carthaginian mercenaries who were in revolt.[9]

The terms were nowhere near has harsh as the ones following their second loss, but they still had to pay tribute.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Rationality, logic and contexts seems to be not allowed lol

What's crazy is I don't recall this publisher ever making statements about historical accuracy in absolution as if they are actually making a story in terms of the exact things occurring within real life , Most of The Times they usually just mean this in the world creation

But they've made these statements in the past regarding their other AC games as I recall years ago there was a thread on here talking about this regarding Odyssey as I think people were debating something about the accents

Even the claim whether Yasuke was really a samurai doesn't seem to me to be something that should ever even be an issue because the Japanese seem to think so enough to place him in multiple games books anime Manga very much calling him a samurai even a book that released in the 60s is very much stating this, which means regardless of how anyone actually feels that country has put out work in which they seem to very much believe that the evidence supports him legitimately being a samurai

This publisher is not the first to ever make any claim even remotely like that

So I think people are simply triggered because they don't like the publisher and there are the ones doing this

We did not see this when Yasuke was in other games yet magically now people are trying to pretend Japan is suddenly outraged about a character that they've put in their own work in which they themselves called a samurai before anyone else


Japan is literally the country that introduced us to Yasuke lol We only know Yasuke as a samurai because of Japan I don't believe he is known in any other way to them.

Motive is everything.

Japan (which is not a country whose populace's brains have been eroded by extreme left-leaning identity politics) producing fictional works with Yasuke as a Samurai is fine because it's not DEI and wokeness driving it.

Whereas woke activist developers at Ubisoft (evidenced by the verbal diarrhea in the OP) positioning him as a main character in their first game set in feudal Japan is clearly a move driven by wokeness and DEI, and the ostensible narrative they will write will invariably be centred around the racism he faces from the Japanese people. Which itself is a social commentary on the way woke people and those on the extreme left always seem to lump Asians from advanced eastern countries like China, Korea, and Japan in with the white oppressors in their nasty game of oppression Olympics; thus exposing the inherent racism they harbour against said groups.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The wild racism of woke lunatics against Asians is not subtle at all. For race-obsessed people like woke Canadians, this is the main driver for an AC set in Japan, nothing more.

 

[Drell]

Rationality, logic and contexts seems to be not allowed lol

What's crazy is I don't recall this publisher ever making statements about historical accuracy in absolution as if they are actually making a story in terms of the exact things occurring within real life , Most of The Times they usually just mean this in the world creation

But they've made these statements in the past regarding their other AC games as I recall years ago there was a thread on here talking about this regarding Odyssey as I think people were debating something about the accents

Even the claim whether Yasuke was really a samurai doesn't seem to me to be something that should ever even be an issue because the Japanese seem to think so enough to place him in multiple games books anime Manga very much calling him a samurai even a book that released in the 60s is very much stating this, which means regardless of how anyone actually feels that country has put out work in which they seem to very much believe that the evidence supports him legitimately being a samurai

This publisher is not the first to ever make any claim even remotely like that

So I think people are simply triggered because they don't like the publisher and there are the ones doing this

We did not see this when Yasuke was in other games yet magically now people are trying to pretend Japan is suddenly outraged about a character that they've put in their own work in which they themselves called a samurai before anyone else


Japan is literally the country that introduced us to Yasuke lol We only know Yasuke as a samurai because of Japan I don't believe he is known in any other way to them.

There's a difference between these media and ubisoft's. While japan talked about him as a different swordman (samurai or not I don't know) because he's black. AC shadow goes the usual "in your face" woke politics way by using hip-hop as music when presenting him in the trailer. In the 16th century, in japan...

I'm not against having a video game about this guy, but please, stop thinking that a black man in a game = afro american popular culture. There's a lot of diversity in black cultures around the world and I'm 100% sure that this samurai, in ancient japan did not live the same life as a 2020s american black person.

Just ask Koei Tecmo to do a game about Yasuke and I'm sure a lot less people would complain because it would be a game about Samurai who appears to be black and not a game about bringing modern western problematics to feudal japan.

 

[EDMIX]

Motive is everything.

Japan (which is not a country whose populace's brains have been eroded by extreme left-leaning identity politics) producing fictional works with Yasuke as a Samurai is fine because it's not DEI and wokeness driving it.

Whereas woke activist developers at Ubisoft (evidenced by the verbal diarrhea in the OP) positioning him as a main character in their first game set in feudal Japan is clearly a move driven by wokeness and DEI, and the ostensible narrative they will write will invariably be centred around the racism he faces from the Japanese people. Which itself is a social commentary on the way woke people and those on the extreme left always seem to lump Asians from advanced eastern countries like China, Korea, and Japan in with the white oppressors in their nasty game of oppression Olympics; thus exposing the inherent racism they harbour against said groups.

I simply can't really buy or avoid something based on the motive or perceived motive of a company. If its fun, its getting a buy, this is a day 1 for me. Companies are motivated by money too, but this is a moot point, it would be like me choosing to not buy Yakuza cause SEGA states their motives behind putting Yakuza in Hawaii was to get more western customers, like....sure, but if the game is fun, I'm still buying it as I can't control WHY a company puts something in a game as I'm not buying something based on mind reading or something lol

Thats like if I work for a company and tell you, "Guess What Bind (I assume your last name is bind lolz) I put Arthur Morgan in RDR2 in the game for dark motives, his demographic is the highest in the nation THAT is why lolz lolz"

Guess what, I also put them Toyota Cars in Forza and GT, cause my motive is to help boost Toyota's popularity lol

You might as well stay way from all gaming in generation if this is the reason you game.

Like the "motive" of a company vs the actual game itself.

I'm even willing to agree with you if Yasuke's actual story, comments, plot etc is some thing to do with an agenda and not a legit story made for entertainment, like if he stopped and did some Captain planet type comments randomly lol


But simply the character existing, that has existed in other titles being a problem solely based on WHY you think the person was chosen is a bit much for me.

I just can't buy anything based on another companies "why" as this would be some activist type thing, like don't eat at Burger King cause child labor in some other country type thing or don't buy from SEARS cause some rainforest type thing lol

 

[EDMIX]

They literally had to pay tribute to Rome after their loss in the first war.

After the Carthaginians' loss of the war, the Romans imposed terms that were designed to reduce Carthage to a tribute-paying city to Rome and simultaneously strip it of its fleet.[9] While the terms of the peace treaty were harsh, the Romans did not strip Carthage of its strength; Carthage was the most prosperous maritime trading port of its day, and the tribute imposed by the Romans was easily paid off on a yearly basis, while Carthage was simultaneously engaged by Carthaginian mercenaries who were in revolt.[9]

The terms were nowhere near has harsh as the ones following their second loss, but they still had to pay tribute.

lol I like these side conversations that go on, I think i learned more about this subject because you commenting lol

I don't know anything about that, but I enjoyed reading the post as they came in

 

[GametimeUK]

I'm not on board with this choice from Ubisoft. I was down to play as a female character in Beyond Good and Evil and never really questioned playing as a person of colour in Watch Dogs 2.

Ultimately in 2024 its as if Ubisoft chose that specific time period in Japan to justify their use of a person of colour and deflect criticism by claiming its a work of fiction based on real events. I get it, but in this day and age the industry has painted itself into a corner when unfortunately women and minorities as lead roles in games is going to receive backlash due to all the blatant pandering that has gone on for far too long.

It sucks because it taints a movement that is inherently good and females and people of colour obviously deserve these roles in games, but it's the way it's been integrated that has me rolling my eyes.

It's to the point now where you can't always distinguish good intent for the story and pandering so it always comes across as the latter.

I'm not offended, I don't object to it and im not outraged, but I won't play it either.

 

[Melter]

the solution is simple. Stop making your games woke

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

I simply can't really buy or avoid something based on the motive or perceived motive of a company.

I can.

When the motive is DEI and far left activist identity politics, the product will invariably be infused with its conveying propaganda and you will not be able to just "play and enjoy the game" when every five minutes the game tries to cudgel you over the head with its on the nose politics, which is wholly designed to program you into thinking the same way as the creator.

For these people, there is no middle ground. There is no such thing as a piece of entertainment that doesn't contain politics, and therefore, they use that BS to justify using gaming as a platform to preach their poisonous message of hatred against the cis-het white male.

Companies are motivated by money too,

Clearly not this one. Neither was the studio heads at Firewalk and the producers at Sony who thought Concord was a title that deserved anything other than cancellation.

Even multibillion dollar companies like Disney have been hemorrhaging money for close to a decade now, tanking all their core IP and shitting their IP value down the shitter because some woke cabal decided they were gonna make everything female and minority-led (both the media and on the production side).

So, money clearly isn't a factor for these companies when pushing the woke message is involved.

 

[EDMIX]

its as if Ubisoft chose that specific time period in Japan to justify their use of a person of colour and deflect criticism by claiming its a work of fiction based on real events.

Well...maybe, maybe not. This is one of the most popular time periods done in fiction about Japan, clearly the exact year was because of this character, but I don't know if I'd say the whole time frame was chosen cause this.

They likely were going to do Japan in Edo Period regardless.

I also don't see such a thing as claim, it is factually a fictional work and its clear they fully understand that

I was down to play as a female character in Beyond Good and Evil and never really questioned playing as a person of colour in Watch Dogs 2.

Nothing wrong with that, but if released today, like if nothing was changed in those games as they exist now, would you buy them?

As Threads stated

producing fictional works with Yasuke as a Samurai is fine because it's not DEI and wokeness driving it.

It's to the point now where you can't always distinguish good intent for the story and pandering so it always comes across as the latter.

True, but I feel one has to see what the actual story of the game even is to confirm any of that, I feel anyone could have chosen this character for a honest reason looking at his popularity in Japan, selected him cause they felt some AC templar story could make sense with him, could someone else from Ubisoft see this and clearly agree with it for other reasons? Sure, but when you have something multifaceted like this, it could literally be both.

Someone could have chosen this for good intent after reading some Manga in Japan and then Ubisoft's higher ups agree cause DEI , woke what ever lol

When the motive is DEI and far left activist identity politics, the product will invariably be infused with its conveying propaganda and you will not be able to just "play and enjoy the game"

smh, I'm not going to lie, that shit sounds depressing lol

Thank god I just play games for fun lol

So many complexes exist beyond this its not even funny, from musical artist on games, to clothing brands, to car companies etc If the idea of anything involved with the game is "propaganda" and is stopping you from enjoying the game, you might as well play nothing or something.

I'm not avoiding a game based on anyone's opinion in the work, people are allowed to have opinions and I don't even think I'd be able to game myself if I only played games based on if some developer agreed with all of my views or something lol

Thats just too much Theads. I just want to play games for fun, regardless of the developer's beliefs.

 

[Doczu]

I actually don't think they need to change anything to be historically accurate or not in this situation nothing else has been changed regarding other people's culture to remain respectful regarding the other assassin's creed titles you had situations where the founders of the United States have some sort of plot to do assassination things you have other cultures where the Pope has fucking powers but magically when a black person is in Japan it must be changed to respect the Japanese a people by the way that literally are the ones that have the most content about this character

^ wow, someone better get Koei and stop them, they need to respect, well....themselves, Japan is mad at Japan over this, I mean..ummmm /s I don't see any thread questioning Koei on this or if this person really had braids or even the outfit if its culturally appropriate, I don't fucking buy anyone REALLY generally care about this topic to this degree. So did anyone here question the earrings and braids? But question the Hip Hop? Where is that same energy to look into any of that? Yet we are suppose to believe someone truly cares about this, that seem to fail to care about it with Nioh's main character? lol

^ literally made by Japan...


So I think they're free to stick to the game that they have already regardless of how anyone feels I don't think any company should be bowing down to a vocal minority who's upset about anything inside of a fucking video game, The ones that seem to magically only appear regarding this publisher which is very funny considering there is no outrage regarding this exact character existing in several other Japanese games

So I don't know how much anyone really believes that an entire culture is really offended by any of this, If the same culture that takes a lot of these individuals and changes their gender and puts them in hentai's or supposed to believe is bothered by the fucking character they put in their own damn games lol


Nobunaga and other Japanese historical figures are literally in fucking hentai where they change his gender to a female and he/she gets plowed.
(lol enjoy the google search lolz)

This is who folks are trying to say really are hurt by this character existing in a fake game.

Ya OK.

Writes a lot, says very little

 

[Moriarty1889]

Thats all fine and dandy, but we wanted a Japanese Ninja guy, not this fucking random black guy who just so happened to maybe exist.

Why from all thousands of awesome truly historical Japanese characters, we get this fucking weirdo?

Nobody asked for him, let him fuck off into the sun

They had to be progressive and put this black samurai in above all others. It’s nothing more than virtue signaling and just another company doing what so many others are doing today in all forms of entertainment. They obviously are willing to risk everything including their main player base who has supported them over the years. All for the sake of diversity. These people are nuts and out of control with this ideology. It’s as if they have all been brainwashed to the point of no return especially when they issue statements like this. Look at how well it worked for the devs who tried to defend that turd Concord……yeah they are shut down now. These devs and the management who support this shite are all willing to DIE for DEI……..notice how those two are so similair?

 

[laynelane]

Assassin Creed is a game, historical accuracy is irrelevant when it comes to entertainment outside of a documentary because the source material is usually embellished on to some degree.

So I'm supposed to believe people have machines that can teleport folks back into the past so they can experience history through an avatar or real person?

Historical accuracy is important to Ubisoft, that's why they keep bringing it up. You can believe whatever you want, but at least read up on things. It's right in the op, not even hard to find.

 

[Boss Man]

Just make the game in subsaharan Africa instead, like wtf? That way it’s not ham-fisted DEI that upsets everyone and you’ve created a game with diversity in an underrepresented setting.

You could even make it literally about the slave trade and killing white people. That would be unhealthy societally but it would still be less clumsy and stupid than turning ancient Japanese warriors into africans and women.

 

[Bojji]

Just make the game in subsaharan Africa instead, like wtf? That way it’s not ham-fisted DEI that upsets everyone and you’ve created a game with diversity in an underrepresented setting.

Yasuke probably was the only black man in japan around that time. They have chosen him instead of thousands potential other interesting people (if they wanted to use real historical figure).

TBH the most important thing about this game is: Is it fun? Yasuke may be agenda driven choice in this game but if playing as him is fun then people will not care soon after game release. If it's another turd like Valhalla...

 

[Boss Man]

Yasuke probably was the only black man in japan around that time. They have chosen him instead of thousands potential other interesting people (if they wanted to use real historical figure).

TBH the most important thing about this game is: Is it fun? Yasuke may be agenda driven choice in this game but if playing as him is fun then people will not care soon after game release. If it's another turd like Valhalla...

You’re right on all accounts, but for some (maybe many?) the agenda peddling has gone so far over the line that we couldn’t enjoy the game even if it was good.

Personally, I’ve always hated Assassin’s Creed because I’m a history buff and it’s almost my perfect game. The story writers and the animus aspect make it unplayable for me though, constantly being reminded by UI and narrative that it’s a video game and you’re not really in the past. So these games have always been ruined by terrible, self-important writers in my view.

 

[Fake]

Will be another Concord...

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Just make the game in subsaharan Africa instead, like wtf? That way it’s not ham-fisted DEI that upsets everyone and you’ve created a game with diversity in an underrepresented setting.

You could even make it literally about the slave trade and killing white people. That would be unhealthy societally but it would still be less clumsy and stupid than turning ancient Japanese warriors into africans and women.

You can't make a game with a bit of historical accuracy located in African or pre-Colombian societies without depicting them as barbaric genocidal bastards. That would be a complete shitshow.

 

[ResilientBanana]

We wanted an authentic Japanese experience and that’s not what we got. I personally don’t care about playing as a male or female, and I think people against female protagonists is too heavy handed and unreasonable. But overall, they missed the mark and did not make something we’ve been wanting for nearly 2 decades. Listen to what the fans are asking for and stop playing dumb.

Also I’m tired of the woman smarter than everyone else, especially the doting male. Why can’t they just be on the same plane of existence? Why does the woman have to be better or smarter, or exclaim that they are powerful? Why does it need to be said? Just do, work together and act natural. Men don’t have these lines in games.

Is the backlash extreme? Maybe, but the “inclusion” trope has also been extreme and people have tolerated it for too long and are tired of politics entering the gaming space. It’s toxic in the way it’s been forced upon us and creates toxic conversation around it all. instead of creating a world of acceptance it’s doing the opposite and making groups hate each other to the extent that we want nothing to do with LGBTQ content in games. Now every time we see something obviously forced, we eye roll and don’t buy it, because fuck that.

I also don’t think the LGBTQ community wants to be portrayed this way either. They don’t want to be a checkbox. But if suddenly being straight becomes a trope I’d hate that too. I don’t want someone to make me a checkbox, why would they?

 

[PeteBull]

They are deliberately obtuse right now. We just want Japanese samurai as the protag for this AC game because this is set in Japan.

If they want to make a black protag so bad, just put him in another more suitable setting in another AC game.

They could put yosuke as 3rd character choice or as a dlc too, w/e, now its like they would replace luke cage with some snow bunny and called it a day, ofc only country music when he is fighting, not hip hop/rap/rnb

 

[genesisblock]

^ literally made by Japan...

And there's the key difference between Japan taking creative liberties on their own culture vs a foreign one doing the same thing to their culture. What you need to realize that Asian depictions in Western media is not very flattering which highlights this attempt to lecture the natives how to perceive their own culture and worse, rewrite the perception of said natives to.... as the director pointed out "look it through non-Japanese eyes". To simply discard any real concerns that can be abused with real racists to use this game as a power fantasy play to the Asian culture. It's not an open book for artist to depict them in whatever "freedom of stories" they want to tell and the right to be criticism free.

Make no mistake, AC: Shadows depiction of foreign countries is not the same as Hideo Kojima making an alt-universe where a fictional robot can threaten the entire world with nukes. Note how he can tell a story with a non-Japanese protagonist without receiving this controversy. One is literally making a political commentary, the other wants to force this DEI nonsense on a game that is set OUTSIDE the west. Is being a Japanese male assassin no longer counted as "foreign", "inclusive" or "diverse"? Do they have to really use a protagonist to be foreign to check those marks? Why are making this game like Japan is some state next to the US and it must act is the baseline for modern day sexual and gender identities? Can they not do it they way that the previous AC did like for Connor, Ezio and even Bayek? Had they done so, I have no doubt the reception would be far better received and would still tick those DEI boxes without any further issue.

 

[navii]

Japanese people can't catch a break. Hollywood casts a white guy as a "The Last Samurai", then again a white chick as a Japanese android/woman in Ghost in the Shell and now a black dude as a Samurai in a video game. Seeing a pattern for western "creative" freedoms not extending to casting Japanese people as main characters.

 

[MMaRsu]

My problem with the Naoe were the stupid ass quips. Like Lights out or whatever the fuck she said

Smh

 

[Fbh]

The fact that for the first time they've gone with a real historical figure as the main character in a mainline game because it's the only way to justify their choice tells you all you need to know about why he isn't like the other protagonists and why it feels forced and out of place. That said, the whole idea of having to be mega respectful about every small aspect of Japanese culture is silly, they've never done that with any of the other games and people largely didn't have an issue with it.

More than "their culture being disrespected" or anything like that I can understand how AC fans (specially Japanese ones) might be disappointed to finally get AC: Japan only to not be given the option to play as a Japanese Samurai, specially given the history of main characters in this franchise (Greek people in the Greek AC, Egyptiac dude in the Egyptian AC, Norwegians for the Viking AC, etc).

 

[TGO]

I'm not on board with this choice from Ubisoft. I was down to play as a female character in Beyond Good and Evil and never really questioned playing as a person of colour in Watch Dogs 2.

Watch Dogs is special, why?
Because through 1-3 you can actually see the mind virus mutating from this

To

 

[shamoomoo]

You can't make a game with a bit of historical accuracy located in African or pre-Colombian societies without depicting them as barbaric genocidal bastards. That would be a complete shitshow.

Were they? Considering Rome had the equivalent of human cock fighting (I'm taking about zee bird .) the Greeks owned slaves and I believe it was the Spartans who were recognized as officials soldiers by killing a Helot,the people they enslaved. I don't see any African society being any more violent.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Thats actually a pretty cool beat....reminds me of Samurai Champloo.

Would be a lot cooler if it didn't come from people trying to lecture me on random shit.

 

[StereoVsn]

Were they? Considering Rome had the equivalent of human cock fighting (I'm taking about zee bird .) the Greeks owned slaves and I believe it was the Spartans who were recognized as officials soldiers by killing a Helot,the people they enslaved. I don't see any African society being any more violent.

The thing is that pre European sub-Saharan African history is. It generally well known so the game won’t be as popular.

Mind you the setting could definitely be interesting as you could have things like fall of Mali, Ethiopian empire, Benin sultanate and many more different places as Africa is huge.

It’s just there won’t be as much interest so instead Ubi decided to push their crap into a game their fans have been asking for years instead. It’s incredibly dumb and frankly also disrespectful to people from Africa as Ubi is saying that basically there is no interesting setting there which is crazy.

 

[GametimeUK]

Watch Dogs is special, why?
Because through 1-3 you can actually see the mind virus mutating from this

To

Watch Dogs 2 hasn't don't anything special so to speak aside from being a game I enjoy. I just hadn't hit my telorance threshold for woke nonsense 8 years ago.

 

[TGO]

Watch Dogs 2 hasn't don't anything special so to speak aside from being a game I enjoy. I just hadn't hit my telorance threshold for woke nonsense 8 years ago.

Watch Dogs 2 wasn't really that bad, I did enjoy most of it although I wasn't keen on the vibe or the characters
it was just on the cursp of being a different culture of new liberals which was tolerable but a bit annoying, some questionable stuff to roll your eyes at but that's it.
WD3 was just an antifa simulator

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Too much focus in here about points on "historical accuracy", you can be historically accurate and still have things that didn't happen at all, that's the entire point of this franchise; a bunch of forerunner humanoid species created a sci-fi utopia and created human beings as their workers, only to get wiped out by a solar flare while the humans survived, now a lineage of hybrids are able to access the forerunner technology with varying results. These results being retold by humans as the things that became mythology and miracles, now there's two groups of people in search of these technologies and are reliving ancestral memories to find them.

The franchise is literally about a whole bunch of weird shit happening in "historical accuracy", AC2 has a lot of historical accuracy, and also a lot of nonsense, Da Vinci obviously wasn't some kind of Q gadgetmaster inventor for an ancient order of super assassins...
The director literally even says that yasuke in the game is FICTION, but I guess nobody actually read it:

"But just as Yasuke's presence in Japanese history is fact, so too are the stories of women who defied societal expectations and took up arms in times of conflict," Coté continued. "So while both Naoe and Yasuke's stories are works of historical fiction,

We have plenty of non-gendered names but they went with the equivalent of naming a burly viking Samantha.

Not really, Eivor is canonically female, they only give you a choice, because according to ubisoft's data, women don't sell, same reason why kassandra wasn't the only choice in odyssey, or why evie frye was deleted from every and all preview marketing materials for syndicate.
Eivor is the reincarnation of Odin, this is why she appears as male in the asgard dream sequences if you go with the "let the animus decide" option, because then it's not eivor (female) anymore, it's Odin/havi (male).

 

[cash_longfellow]

Gamers just don't get it... It was physically impossible for Ubisoft. Just like how it was physically impossible to make female characters (this is a very old reference, not a 2024 one), sometimes Ubisoft are just unable to achieve these things.

This was an inevitability and there is literally nothing Ubisoft could have done. They are just the victims in all of this with a fate sealed before development even started.

If only there was some logical way to have avoided all of this and given fans what they wanted, I guess maybe in kooky wacky alternate universe world someone maybe figured out the solution.

Wrong…they could have not tried catering to 10% of gamers, and not tried force inclusion in their game. Idk, just a thought

 

[ProtoByte]

How many western developed games have had a Japanese protagonist? Or Western developed movies with a Japanese lead?

Who cares? Lol

Motive is everything.

The wild racism of woke lunatics against Asians is not subtle at all. For race-obsessed people like woke Canadians, this is the main driver for an AC set in Japan, nothing more.

We wanted an authentic Japanese experience and that’s not what we got.

These are all wokester arguments thrown in the other direction.

Thats all fine and dandy, but we wanted a Japanese Ninja guy, not this fucking random black guy who just so happened to maybe exist.

Why from all thousands of awesome truly historical Japanese characters, we get this fucking weirdo?

Nobody asked for him, let him fuck off into the sun

See, this is getting at it. All these arguments of principle and “respecting Japanese culture are weak. People just don’t like an African being a mc in this game. Why that is is up to them. I’ve said it before, Ubisoft probably wouldn’t have done this 5-10 years ago. But the ideas of principle or tradition are just intellectually dishonest.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

You can't make a game with a bit of historical accuracy located in African or pre-Colombian societies without depicting them as barbaric genocidal bastards. That would be a complete shitshow.

WTH

 

[jason10mm]

..... had gone with a Korean woman for Origins? or a Lebanese man for Valhalla? I'm sure someone could have come up with someone to fit that if they had wanted to lol. The point is they were asking for this backlash and they should have known better, ....

This exists. Ibn Fadlan's account of the Rus (depicted by Antonio Banderas in The Thirteenth Warrior). So it would have been very easy to insert a real Arabic man ino the Valhalla game. And since most of what we in the west know if other cultures came from some white guys story, this could apply to China (Marco polo) the America's (Columbus or cortez), Africa, India, South pacific, basically everywhere we English speakers are familiar with. Even AC shadows is the period of European missionaries.

If ubi had confidence in yasuke they could have just said "we needed an outsider to bring the rich, detailed, and custom focused world of the samurai to the player we chose yasuke as our proxy for the player because the records we have of him show he was able to integrate into Japanese society enough for our purposes. He is the perfect assassin infiltrator but also allows us to explore traditional Japanese culture in a respectful and meaningful way. We have earned your trust with our previous games and I ask that you give ac:shadows and yasukes journey a chance to win you over."

 

[Calverz]

 

[ResilientBanana]

Who cares? Lol





These are all wokester arguments thrown in the other direction.


See, this is getting at it. All these arguments of principle and “respecting Japanese culture are weak. People just don’t like an African being a mc in this game. Why that is is up to them. I’ve said it before, Ubisoft probably wouldn’t have done this 5-10 years ago. But the ideas of principle or tradition are just intellectually dishonest.

No, you’re not correct. AC odyssey gave us Egypt and we had a man that was brown, no one had anything bad to say and thought it was a damn good game. It was also authentic. We had middle eastern, Native American, White, Mediterranean, Chinese, French, Norwegian, no issues at all. All of them were authentic. The Native American even fought and killed a ton of white people, it was a great game, no complaints there! If they did a one for ancient Africa I’d probably buy it, but how pissed would people be if they randomly threw a white guy in for that one? It would blow minds at how obviously wrong that is and we are facing that now. Same goes for India (I hope it’s next) or any other non-white country. We didn’t have issues with sales in the past, why would we have them now?

Hell, the original AC had Desmond and Altier, men of middle eastern decent as the main character when white people were at war with the Middle East and it was a stellar game and allowed us to get here. No one cared about race at all. But now we have a black guy in Japan and to be fair, a white man would have been just as bad. It’s not what we wanted.

Face it, you’re too far left to see it. But this was the wrong kind of inclusion and a majority of people see that. It’s forced and was unnecessary. If they didn’t make this boldly dumb move, there would not be any backlash and people would be very excited. This isn’t racism, no one would have cared if the black guy fit the game he was in. But a black samurai is not what people were expecting and not what people wanted out of an AC FINALLY set in Japan.

 

[SHAKEZ]

Have the most sure shot game ever and fumble it all because some devs can't stop thinking about shoving modern day politics down their game...

 

[VulcanRaven]

Will be another Concord...

You are seriously overesitimating how many care about this. Its an Assassin's Creed game set in Japan. I will be very suprised if it doesn't sell well.

 

[EDMIX]

And there's the key difference between Japan taking creative liberties on their own culture vs a foreign one doing the same thing to their culture. What you need to realize that Asian depictions in Western media is not very flattering which highlights this attempt to lecture the natives how to perceive their own culture and worse, rewrite the perception of said natives to.... as the director pointed out "look it through non-Japanese eyes". To simply discard any real concerns that can be abused with real racists to use this game as a power fantasy play to the Asian culture. It's not an open book for artist to depict them in whatever "freedom of stories" they want to tell and the right to be criticism free.

Make no mistake, AC: Shadows depiction of foreign countries is not the same as Hideo Kojima making an alt-universe where a fictional robot can threaten the entire world with nukes. Note how he can tell a story with a non-Japanese protagonist without receiving this controversy. One is literally making a political commentary, the other wants to force this DEI nonsense on a game that is set OUTSIDE the west. Is being a Japanese male assassin no longer counted as "foreign", "inclusive" or "diverse"? Do they have to really use a protagonist to be foreign to check those marks? Why are making this game like Japan is some state next to the US and it must act is the baseline for modern day sexual and gender identities? Can they not do it they way that the previous AC did like for Connor, Ezio and even Bayek? Had they done so, I have no doubt the reception would be far better received and would still tick those DEI boxes without any further issue.

k

make sure you let this company know this lol

Trailer - Showa America Story exclusive trailer - coming in 2025

https://www.ign.com/articles/exclusive-showa-american-story-gets-dramatic-new-trailer-release-window It’s been close to three years since the January 2022 reveal of Showa American Story, whose B-movie style trailer depicting 1980s America as a colony of Japan became a viral hit. Showa...

www.neogaf.com

they seem to be doing it to 2 cultures, go on, let them know this is wrong.