AC Shadows

Ubisoft

Now that Assassin’s Creed Shadows has launched and players and critics have gotten their hands on the game, they’ve discovered something:

This is an Assassin’s Creed game.

It’s fine, even pretty good, but this is simply nothing out of the ordinary for the series, even if many would have you believe otherwise. The narrative about the game was drowned by social media accusations of it being “woke” by using black samurai Yasuke as one of its two leads, and while that drama farming was always ridiculous, it is even more so when you play the game and realize that there’s nothing remotely controversial about any of this, his inclusion, how he’s portrayed, or what liberties may have been taken with the character in a series where Leonardo Da Vinci builds you a hang glider and you fist-fight the Pope.

This story is not all that dissimilar to what we saw years ago with Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai or more recently, our good friend the Anjin in Shogun, two characters that drew far less controversy because well, you know. I’d argue that Yasuke’s story is more interesting because of his race and the dynamic that creates within Japanese society, and his place and ascension within it.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Ubisoft

If Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a Yasuke problem, it may just be that the story is not exactly split evenly between him and Naoe, as there is much of the game he cannot interact with, nor is he granted her level of stealth powers that are a series trademark. But that’s a design problem, and has nothing to do with who he is and the character’s inclusion in the game.

I’ve seen some pivots to other “woke” aspects, which are things like the option to form non-straight romances with characters, an optional path. To me, this speaks not to how games have gotten more “woke,” but how weird and nonsensical this sort of pushback has become. Remember Mass Effect, the nearly 20 year old series everyone likes that has been doing this kind of thing for eons? Games haven’t changed, these commentators and fans have, which have become a pit of rage-baiting Twitter users and YouTubers and their audiences making something out of literally nothing time and time again. And while this happens all the time, this time, now that the game is here, it’s just so clear how this has been beyond manufactured when Shadows’ worst sin is perhaps being too similar to other Assassin’s Creed games, not taking enough risks.

You can say “well none of this matters,” but it does matter. Ubisoft is taking steps to protect its employees from harassment due to the hostility surrounding this release that can target not just the company, but individual developers. Again, for what? Because Ubisoft is using a historical figure to tell a story that has already been told similarly in other media with white guys? That the Japanese representation is a woman, not a Jin Sakai Tsushima samurai? This is utter nonsense, and discourse about practically any new game on the market has become so toxic that staying off the internet entirely is the only way avoid it. But good luck with that.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.