Japanese vs Afro-Samurai: gamers call on Ubisoft to cancel Assassin's Creed Shadows and take a history lesson

Many gamers dreamed of an Assassin's Creed game in the setting of feudal Japan - a wish that remained unrealised for more than a decade. But when Ubisoft finally announced Assassin's Creed Shadows, not everyone was happy.

The wave of indignation among gamers was caused by the choice of one of the two main characters.
In the centre of the story Assassin's Creed Shadows will be a shinobi girl Naoe and samurai Yasuke. And if the first one has no complaints, then Yasuke caused a storm of negativity.

Here's What We Know

Yasuke, as everyone already knows, perhaps, is a real historical character mentioned in the annals of Japan.

He was a man of African descent and came to Japan as a slave - there is no doubt about it. A number of sources indicate that for some merits commander Oda Nobunaga gave Yasuke the status of samurai. This fact is not confirmed and is interpreted differently by historians. A number of experts say that this could not happen by definition, and a number of admits such a possibility.

Ubisoft took a convenient version and made the African Samurai the main character of the game, which angered many players, especially Japanese.

Japanese gamer Shimizu Toru created a petition demanding the cancellation of the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows. The petition has collected 30,000 signatures on Change.org since 19 June, and their number has been growing exponentially over the past 24 hours.

The author of the petition points out that Assassin's Creed Shadows departs so much from historical facts and respect for Japanese culture that the game's release should be blocked:

In the game's proposed scenario, Ubisoft fails to understand the role and nature of the samurai. This is a serious insult to Japanese culture and history. We call on Ubisoft to immediately cancel plans to release Assassin's Creed Shadows, conduct a thorough analysis of Japanese history, and show respect for its culture.

Of course, it's hard to imagine Ubisoft cancelling the release of a game that has taken a huge amount of money, resources, and time to delve into Japanese history. Especially since historians have never reached a consensus on Yasuke.

In addition, none of the Assassin's Creed games claimed to be historically accurate, but merely used certain eras as a setting, famous personalities as characters, and many real-life events were rewritten for the sake of spectacle and drama.

When We Can Expect It

Hopefully, Assassin's Creed Shadows will still release on 15 November 2024 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series.

Note, Ubisoft seems to have foreseen the negative attitude towards Yasuke and offers the option to play through almost the entire game as Naoe. But even here, the Japanese may find cause for outrage, as it's unlikely that the society of feudal Japan was so tolerant that a woman with a sword wouldn't cause them bewilderment and suspicion.

The only thing that can be advised to the Japanese is to play Ghost of Tsushima: in this action game everything is as close to historical facts as possible.

Source: Change.org