Support NeoGAF

[Voost Kain]

So this is a follow up to this thread that a mod locked for some reason with no post explaining why, but considering this has now become a more serious situation that thread may need to be unlocked for context: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/journalist-“assassin’s-creed-odyssey”-forced-my-lesbian-character-to-have-sex-with-a-man-and-have-his-baby-and-yikes.1472774/

However this had become a much bigger deal since then as Ubisoft apparently received so much pressure, they actually CHANGED the ending to the DLC and made other tweaks quietly without any real communication which may piss some players off. SO this has actually affected a gaming product so this is pretty important.

Article: https://gamefragger.com/multiplatfo...eed-odyssey-shadow-heritage-dlc-ending-a14831

EDIT: Additional Gamespot source: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/after-apology-assassins-creed-odyssey-changes-cont/1100-6465230/

Ubisoft Quebec has quietly decided to alter the controversial ending of the recent Assassin's Creed: Odyssey DLC, giving players more freedom to make their own decision about their character's heritage...
The controversial ending of the Assassin's Creed: Odyssey: Legacy of the First Blade – Shadow HeritageDLC is no more, Ubisoft Quebec has silently announced in the recent patch notes for Update 1.1.4.

The company has confirmed that the update has "adjusted a cut scene and tweaked some dialogue in Shadow Heritage," meaning that the old ending has been scrapped. In that conclusion of the DLC, Alexios or Kassandra (depending on the player's choice) was forced into a heterosexual relationship to have a child and "grow up", according to the trophy attached to the cinematic in question.

Considering that you can finish almost every single quest in the base game as a homosexual or asexual character, it would definitely make sense to continue that approach during the post-launch support.

Altering the DLC's ending is not the only major feature of the aforementioned update, as it has also brought the long-awaited New Game+ functionality, more fast travel points, Wild Boar Character Pack,and other improvements. Be sure to learn more about the February drop of content down below:

The biggest issue I see here, other than changing works for likely a small group of complaints, is that they basically made this and other changes without any real notification, which for those who've liked the DLC could cause some issues since it's basically completely ERASING PART OF A GAME.

At worst you'd think that based on your actions the original ending and other events before that would still be obtainable but nope, they basically just cut it.

 

[oagboghi2]

Nothing suprises me anymore

 

[Acerac]

I was hoping they would let the players be in a gay relationship that discontinued the bloodline the series had going.

You could have an ending where they show all the villains from other games succeeding because of a lack of opposition, it woulda been great.

 

[wvnative]

This goddamn controversy ruined the DLC as I ain't had time to play it...

Spoiler: Possible DLC spoilers

Since it's been ruined for me already I might as well ask, can you still choose to have a straight relationship with the dude in question? Do you still have a child if you stay gay?

This is an example of how dangerous current PC culture has gotten. Alexios/Kassandra would have obviously HAD to procreate to continue the bloodline given the nature of the series plot...

 

[LMJ]

... Isn't the whole point of assassin's creed that your playing as an ancestor through some magical science mumbo jumbo...

I haven't kept up with the series but aren't you like a distant descendant of the assassins?

AKA bloodlines passing down and all of that? Correct me if I'm wrong

 

[Doom85]

I mean, Ubisoft could have handled the response better, but I'm pretty sure it's not that unreasonable people were upset that their choices they made while playing the game were presented as meaningless later.

Unless I've entered some alternate universe where the Mass Effect 3 ending was unanimously adored by all. If I have, carry on.

 

[JunkerWoland]

We've known since January the ending was going to be altered.

That said, Kotaku's summary of the updated content suggests players can still choose the original ending, while new dialogue options allow for a slightly tweaked version that doesn't conclude with the main character in a loving heterosexual relationship.

Generally speaking, I'm no fan of this current trend of companies trying to appease the PC-progressive crowd by bowing to their social pressures and demands, but for a game that seemed to go out of its way to stress how the player didn't have to be straight, the DLC's ending from the start should have taken account the possibility of a gay or asexual main character.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

...the DLC's ending from the start should have taken account the possibility of a gay or asexual main character.

The lore of Assassin's Creed basically says that the main character MUST have a child - as in, it must be genetically theirs. So, by definition, they can not be 100% gay or asexual. It is unreasonable to roleplay that way.

Staying with someone to "further the bloodline" feels vaguely nonconsensual and tragic.

 

[Nickolaidas]

I am too in the opinion that gay/not gay bullcrap aside, the fact remains that the player's options turned out to be meaningless, which is a valid reason for complaining.

The lore of Assassin's Creed basically says that the main character MUST have a child - as in, it must be genetically theirs. So, by definition, they can not be 100% gay or asexual. It is unreasonable to roleplay that way.

Staying with someone to "further the bloodline" feels vaguely nonconsensual and tragic.

Then they shouldn't have allowed the character to be gay in the first place. Goes to show what happens when you don't make your lore politically correct. (rolls eyes)

 

[Sub_Level]

Heterosexuality literally forced me to be born REEEEE

 

[cryptoadam]

They should change the ending to Pong as I always felt that game was racist, homophobic, transphobic and antisemetic.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

Then they shouldn't have allowed the character to be gay in the first place. Goes to show what happens when you don't make your lore politically correct. (rolls eyes)

Maybe they just allowed them to be bisexual and people just made assumptions?

 

[Nymphae]

The lore of Assassin's Creed basically says that the main character MUST have a child - as in, it must be genetically theirs.

Pretty sure I read somewhere that they changed their lore to accomodate wokeness. IIRC, lineage is no longer required for a person to experience another's memories via Animus, you can just play anyone's memories.

I think that started with Black Flag, you were literally an employee at an in-game Ubisoft, testing out this pirate dude's memories. In the first game, the Templar's had to kidnap Desmond and force him through the animus to get the data they needed.

 

[Golgo 13]

I’m pretty sure most of the people who played the game with homosexual choices were dudes who wanted to see Kassandra bang some hot chick.

 

[ODESZA]

C'mon its a game, use your imagination if you want your fictional characters gay.

 

[ODESZA]

I’m pretty sure most of the people who played the game with homosexual choices were dudes who wanted to see Kassandra bang some hot chick.

I felt like the game tried to make her lesbian from the get-go. There is a mission that gives you options to hit on another female early on.

 

[zeorhymer]

Oh come on. Ubi messed up by being woke and pandered. Then they realized you can't be gay/lesbian cause you know Desmond is a thing so they had to back track.

 

[Spukc]

OP what is it with your trash style threads m8?
Are you an ex employee from Buzzfeed?
damn

 

[JunkerWoland]

The lore of Assassin's Creed basically says that the main character MUST have a child - as in, it must be genetically theirs. So, by definition, they can not be 100% gay or asexual. It is unreasonable to roleplay that way.

Ubisoft created a game that gave players control over their character's sexuality. Regardless of issues related to series' lore, there will inevitably be players who'd want their chosen sexuality taken into account or at least not dismissed. Going by their statement on the matter and decision to try and amend the DLC's ending, the company also seems to feel they should have taken gay or asexual characters into account.

You're welcome to think existing lore trumps everything, but once players are given certain agencies, I firmly believe those choices should be honored by the story. At the very least, there's no reason gay or asexual characters couldn't have been provided an ending that either outright in-game, or in future products, was denoted as noncanonical.

 

[The Scrivener]

"Presumably not a single lesbian was consulted in any capacity about this highly touted lesbian character."

Lesbianism isn't a difficult concept. I mean, even school kids understand the concept. It isn't rocket science. Why do SJWs make everything out to be super hard to understand?

 

[Paasei]

Is there also an option where I can choose my character was NOT forced to have sexual intercourse with a male (I play as Kassandra), because my character in my playhrough is actually heterosexual?
If not I'm going to be furious and send a few complaints to Ubisoft to demand to have that as an option as well.

Unbelievable that a fictional game with a timeline based on heritage/bloodline got so much controversy for no real reason.

 

[Nickolaidas]

"Presumably not a single lesbian was consulted in any capacity about this highly touted lesbian character."

Lesbianism isn't a difficult concept. I mean, even school kids understand the concept. It isn't rocket science. Why do SJWs make everything out to be super hard to understand?

Because they want to claim expertise on that field.

 

[Bkdk]

Why don’t Ubisoft make a special ending for them and charge them 10 dollars for it, the people who want other ending can use their money to pay the devs to make it for them.

 

[lukilladog]

I hope this serves as an example to other companies, identity groups interests collide between them, you cannot satisfy all of them at the same time.

 

[Virex]

This is seriously the dumbest shit ever

 

[ExpandKong]

I was hoping they would let the players be in a gay relationship that discontinued the bloodline the series had going.

You could have an ending where they show all the villains from other games succeeding because of a lack of opposition, it woulda been great.

Then you’d have a bunch of people complaining that Ubisoft is basically saying homosexuality = the end of the world or something stupid like that.

When it comes to hypersensitive, hypervocal complainers like this, the only way to win is to not play their game - just let them scream themselves to sleep. Nothing you can do will ever be enough.

Really was hoping people/companies would’ve started to realize this by now.

 

[Fake]

So, rip Assassin heritage?

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

Pretty sure I read somewhere that they changed their lore to accomodate wokeness. IIRC, lineage is no longer required for a person to experience another's memories via Animus, you can just play anyone's memories.

I think that started with Black Flag, you were literally an employee at an in-game Ubisoft, testing out this pirate dude's memories. In the first game, the Templar's had to kidnap Desmond and force him through the animus to get the data they needed.

Despite having completed every Assassin's Creed before Origins, I couldn't tell you what the plot of the games are anymore. But if I remember correctly, they kept Desmond's body after his death, which is what allowed the "game tester" in Black Flag to experience the animus from his DNA. I don't think an ancient Greek's DNA would still be around and in good enough shape by itself. I think you'd need an ancestor to carry the genetic memory forward unless you happened to find a perfectly amber-preserved mosquito that had just happened to bite an Assassin.

Ubisoft created a game that gave players control over their character's sexuality. Regardless of issues related to series' lore, there will inevitably be players who'd want their chosen sexuality taken into account or at least not dismissed. Going by their statement on the matter and decision to try and amend the DLC's ending, the company also seems to feel they should have taken gay or asexual characters into account.

You're welcome to think existing lore trumps everything, but once players are given certain agencies, I firmly believe those choices should be honored by the story. At the very least, there's no reason gay or asexual characters couldn't have been provided an ending that either outright in-game, or in future products, was denoted as noncanonical.

I'm going to be real honest with you here. This bullshit tires me out. I can't do it anymore. I don't give a shit if somebody's sexuality is respected in a game about assassins and templars. I mean, fuck off. I'd be fine playing a game with a gay character and gay people should be fine playing a game with a hetereosexual character. If they aren't, that's their problem and something they should work on. Bunch of assholes.

Ubisoft created something unique and interesting with the Assassin's Creed series and they've pretty much gone beyond the call of duty to sabotage it at every chance. I mean, did you see the ending to Brotherhood, Revelations, or AC3... or Black Flag, or Syndicate, or... basically anything that wasn't AC2? Holy shit were they terrible. Some were Mass Effect 3 levels of failure. Why should gay people get endings they like when plot people don't even get one?

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the people complaining about this ending have never seen it in person. They saw a YouTube clip about it after reading an article on Kotaku, which was found by a male reviewer who was playing as a lesbian because it arouses him. He hated the ending for two reasons. One, it set off his moral outrage at fictional characters in a fictional setting doing fictional things not aligning perfectly to his narrowly defined bullshit world view that was built around ingratiating himself to the powerful feminists who have control over his life (like his mom) and two, he couldn't spank to it.

 

[Verdanth]

I would love to see this non-sense issue 15 years ago. Would Ubisoft relaunch the game or what? Seriously, people really like to whine.

Its like people today play games not for fun but to look for an exploitable issue. Jesus.

 

[Woo-Fu]

The forced heterosexuality wasn't the problem, the guy they hooked her up with is in no way, shape, or form somebody she would have hooked up with. It is a jarring change from pretty much everything in the main story line.

As far as needing her to have a child because of lore why on earth does she need to get married to have a child? Babies come from sex, not from marriage.

 

[Lino]

Does anybody really follow the plot anymore?

Assassin's creed storyline is a convoluted mess

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

Its like people today play games not for fun but to look for an exploitable issue. Jesus.

But they don't even PLAY the games in the first place. It's all social media. If you were to ask them "what is your favorite skill in the skill tree", the response you'll get is "Don't talk to me, rapist, and what the fuck is a skill tree?"

 

[Winter John]

Giving players the choice to create a gay character was a good thing, but removing all meaning from that was a really dumb thing to do.

 

[Voost Kain]

It's funny that the old protag was called Desmond because there's another Desmond that's amazing that shows the Irony of Ubisofts changing stance on its games indirectly.

But looking around this wasn't even that big of an issue, they got a select few complaints and made it seem big and then quickly changed course, seems like dangerous reactionary reasoning to me.

 

[JunkerWoland]

I'd be fine playing a game with a gay character and gay people should be fine playing a game with a hetereosexual character.

The game gave players the option to play as gay, straight, or I suppose asexual. Once Ubisoft made the decision to hand players agency over the character's sexuality, they should have honored that choice throughout the game's development, even if it meant creating noncanonical endings. I don't see this as a matter of gay vs. straight vs. anything else, but simply a developer making good on the product they sold consumers.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

The game gave players the option to play as gay, straight, or I suppose asexual.

If that were true, nobody would be upset, would they? They are upset that the option to play as gay and asexual isn't there. Not completely. I guess 99% representation is about 100% too little.

Once Ubisoft made the decision to hand players agency over the character's sexuality, they should have honored that choice throughout the game's development, even if it meant creating noncanonical endings. I don't see this as a matter of gay vs. straight vs. anything else, but simply a developer making good on the product they sold consumers.

Let me ask you something, do you really care? I mean, really? Like look deep down in your heart and ask yourself, is this something that I should waste time and effort giving a shit about? Based on how you talk about the game, it seems like you haven't even played it. Why get upset on behalf of someone you've never met, that you've only heard about on ResetEra and Kotaku (who also haven't played the game)? What about their plight resonates so strongly with you? What makes you think "I should stand up for these people who are being wronged"?

 

[HotPocket69]

Really glad this is fixed. I haven’t slept right for weeks because of this colossal fuck up.

 

[Hissing Sid]

In the 80’s when I was younger me and me mate spent weeks mapping out the speccy game ‘Underwurlde’, by Ultimate.

Every night after school we’d get together at his house and play the game over and over, taking it in turns to see who could get to the the most remote, undiscovered parts of the game world. All this was done while listening to John Williams ‘Empire Strikes Back’ score playing in the background on an old tape recorder.

Obviously back in those days most games had limited lives and no saves so this involved a lot of dying, but in the end we mapped the whole thing out including boss, weapon and ecky man locations.

And you know what? We had a great time doing this. Playing computer games was one of the greatest and most fun pastimes in the whole world.

A beautiful memory to dust off during rocking chair moments.

So.

When did it all become so fucking lame and stupid?

 

[ThatGamingDude]

Once Ubisoft made the decision to hand players agency over the character's sexuality, they should have honored that choice throughout the game's development, even if it meant creating noncanonical endings. I don't see this as a matter of gay vs. straight vs. anything else, but simply a developer making good on the product they sold consumers.

That sort of mentality is a VERY slippery slope.

For instance, games with battle mechanics, based upon that mentality, would have to let you kill ANY NPC, no matter if it would prevent you from progressing in the game, etc.

Unless you wanted to make video games a 1:1 direct parallel to real life, you're going to have restrictions on what you can do. Even then, you would have the consequences of said action, which could end your game if you were jailed for killing innocent randos. Also kind of defeats the purpose of a game.

 

[DeepEnigma]

In the 80’s when I was younger me and me mate spent weeks mapping out the speccy game ‘Underwurlde’, by Ultimate.

Every night after school we’d get together at his house and play the game over and over, taking it in turns to see who could get to the the most remote, undiscovered parts of the game world. All this was done while listening to John Williams ‘Empire Strikes Back’ score playing in the background on an old tape recorder.

Obviously back in those days most games had limited lives and no saves so this involved a lot of dying, but in the end we mapped the whole thing out including boss, weapon and ecky man locations.

And you know what? We had a great time doing this. Playing computer games was one of the greatest and most fun pastimes in the whole world.

A beautiful memory to dust off during rocking chair moments.

So.

When did it all become so fucking lame and stupid?

When the medium became big pop culture business and got the attention of the intersectional divide & conquer ideologues.

 

[Elcid]

I wIsh I could see the guy's faces when they review the analytics of their hard work and see a total of 10 people chose the homo/asexual ending instead of the original ending.

 

[DonF]

Videogames are art, also, change your videogame you fucking bigot.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

When did it all become so fucking lame and stupid?

While I don't blame Anita Sarkeesian specifically, it was about the time she showed up that it all went to pot and she definitely contributed to it. 2013 is generally considered the turning point for the social justice movement, as it is when the post-Millennials started college.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Videogames are art, also, change your videogame you fucking bigot.

It is not the "right kind of art", duh.

 

[JunkerWoland]

If that were true, nobody would be upset, would they? They are upset that the option to play as gay and asexual isn't there. Not completely. I guess 99% representation is about 100% too little.

Ubisoft gave players agency over the character's sexuality. You're welcome to feel lore takes precedence or however else you may want to contextualize the ending. My point from the start is Ubisoft should have honored the choice they gave players; they seem to at least tacitly agree, based on their statements and decision to tweak the ending.

Let me ask you something, do you really care? I mean, really? Like look deep down in your heart and ask yourself, is this something that I should waste time and effort giving a shit about? Based on how you talk about the game, it seems like you haven't even played it. Why get upset on behalf of someone you've never met, that you've only heard about on ResetEra and Kotaku (who also haven't played the game)? What about their plight resonates so strongly with you? What makes you think "I should stand up for these people who are being wronged"?

I'm not upset, but I care enough to hold an opinion and comment on the matter, which is reason enough.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

I'm not upset, but I care enough to hold an opinion and comment on the matter, which is reason enough.

 

[Xenon]

This really puts the D in the Dlc or the C in the dlC depending on your lifestyle

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

This really puts the D in the Dlc or the C in the dlC depending on your lifestyle

I think these people are looking to take the L.

 

[LMJ]

It's not even so much the fact of whether or not there is supposed "forced heterosexuality" in the game...( If it's a pre written story it's not forced it's just part of the narrative)

It's the fact that yet again developers feel the need to kowtow to a small group who whines and moans and complains... why?
only God really knows

We're not talking a terrible ending that completely undoes everything else you did like in mass effect, or a character that doesn't look anything like the original ala infamous 2 (liked that design myself)
It's not listening to fans, but rather fearing the detractors and very vocal minority who are most likely people who didn't really play the game...

This is the part I'm concerned about

 

[Silent Viper]

Im straight and prefer straight romance options.