My Opinion on Assassin’s Creed: Shadows Drama

This year there has been so much drama around Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. Why?

I think the main reason originates after Valhalla was released, where many said this game is bland and not innovative enough. But it sold crazily well. Of course nobody in Ubisoft have listened and they probably laughed while wiping their eyes with $100 dollar bank notes. Shadows? They tried to pull same shit again.

The game is set in feudal Japan and they promised historic accuracy, “player will learn about history as he plays”. And they hired bunch of “historians” from gender studies. That is not bad, it could be only a specialization after all. But these seem to be incompetent to deal with the world building and story.

Yasuke, the main black character was created by white guy who changed Wikipedia about him, then wrote a book about Yasuke referencing Wikipedia and then changed Wikipedia to reference his book. Most likely he was a slave and kept around as a curiosity. Stolen assets and not knowing of Japanese culture and realities.

I don’t know if the process of creating this game is serious or a parody.

There seem a culture war going on which scrapes many of inconvenient parts of history. Not the wars and violence, but social systems, relations and opinions. New narratives are added. One could say it was always the case. Sure, winners write history and many historical events were very different, and fresh perspectives on the past are common. So in a way being accurate to a history is pointless. But that’s fine, in the end it doesn’t matter.

There are many other parts of a video game which carry a game. For example cool factor and story. Seeing Yasuke killing enemy Japanese soldiers is just a sad sight and kind of disrespectful. The female assassin killing soldiers in a bamboo forest looks…pointless. No cool factor.

Some criticize hiphop music in trailers (trap music to be exact). I don’t know, I’ve seen too many trailers aimed at American people which played gangsta hiphop in the background. I guess this is a cultural thing. Personally I find it ridiculous even in trailers for Apex Legends. But they promised historic accuracy….

Story - a story needs to be touching. Usually a love story or unraveling mysteries is used as a base. Like in Starcraft 2 or With Fire And Sword.

They should communicate motivation better. In middle ages Europe or pirate setting usually it is very clear why one fights. Some kind of freedom. But feudal Japan is not as known, there were shoguns, warlords trying to get power. But why? Who were they? Good or bad? And the main question - why should I play this? What can I learn from this?

Playing for Yasuke as a black person is not necessarily bad. A person outside of a culture is often used for story purposes. To better reflect and comment events and actions of people. And to add humor. In trailers it is absolutely not there.

Ubisoft later saying it is a fiction now won’t help, because as I wrote - fictional or not, there needs to be a touching story (in the direction of audience) and cool factor.

There is always a possibility that the current story is touching to somebody even if I consider it bad. Then let the free market to decide. I don’t have time to consume uninteresting stories and in some way it also poisons the mind.

Personally I don’t believe they can fix it in 4 months. They may rather convert it to a mobile game where people just expect to kill time. Forget about AC1 or AC2 level.