Let's Talk about Assassin's Creed 14

The Assassin's Creed series has been dominating the gaming space for the last 17 years. There are, at present, 13 mainline entries and a number of spin-off titles. Each entry sees players re-living the memories of various assassins in different periods in history while they search for special artefacts.

New entries have been released pretty much every year and despite a few missteps here and there, they've been largely successful. Fans have been looking forward to the next one since the release of Assassin's Creed: Mirage last year. The newest entry was announced a while back and fans are...less than impressed.

There's been a considerable amount of backlash since the announcement of AC 14, but here's the question: is it justified or is it an overreaction? Well, here are my thoughts on the matter.

The New Setting

Before I continue, I think it's important to note that I had to look up the historical info in this section.

Something the fans have been clamouring for since the release of the first game back in 2007 is a game set in feudal Japan. The idea of being a ninja doing crazy parkour stuff? Yes, please! Well, when the 14th entry - Assassin's Creed: Shadows - was announced that's exactly what was shown. Finally, we were going to see ninjas doing parkour! Except that's not quite what happened with the announcement and fans have been left both infuriated and perplexed.

Shadows is set in the Sengoku period (1467 - 1615*) towards the end of the Ashikaga Shogunate and start of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The game will apparently have two protagonists: a female ninja named Naoe and an African samurai named Yasuke. I think you see where the backlash comes in.

The decision to make the newest AC protagonist in the series has a black samurai instead of a Japanese one has generated quite a bit of criticism. This has only been made worse by the fact that Yasuke is apparently based on a historical figure.

Yes, one of the two protagonists is based on a historical figure...oh boy, no wonder the history buffs are upset.

The Real Yasuke

So, who was Yasuke? Admittedly there isn't much that's known about the guy, but here's what we do know:

He first arrived in Japan in the service of an Italian Jesuit priest and was summoned by Oda Nobunaga when the Daimyo wanted to see what a black man looked like. Nobunaga took the man in as a retainer shortly after their initial meeting, granting him a stipend, a house, a short sword, and a name - Yasuke.

Yasuke served Nobunaga for a 15 month period from 1581 until the latter was betrayed by a vassal named Akechi and killed in 1582. After his master's passing in 1582, Yasuke was able to escape capture and engaged the traitorous vassal's forces. He was injured in the fight and was sent back to the Jesuits to be treated for his wounds. After that he disappears from the history books.

Playing Devil's Advocate

Okay, so let's play devil's advocate for a while. When I started looking into this whole thing, I found a very interesting little tidbit of info; the rules for being a samurai changed slightly during the Sengoku period. So, a black samurai wouldn't have been completely impossible. Whoa! Easy there AC fans, stick with me and I'll explain.

Before the Sengoku period, the samurai culture was pretty strict. You couldn't just volunteer to be a samurai or dress up like one and say:

"I'm a samurai."

That's not how it worked, you had to be born into a samurai family in order to be a samurai. As strange as that may sound to us nowadays, we have to remember that the samurai were considered as, for lack of a better term, nobles. You can't just be a prince, you have to be born into a royal family. Things went that way for hundreds of years, then the Sengoku period comes along and the rules are changed - but only slightly.

When the Sengoku period arrived, the main setup of the whole samurai culture relaxed a bit. People from other social castes would prove themselves - usually in battle - and be granted the title and status of samurai. So, a black samurai would've been unlikely but not impossible. Now, here's a hot take for you: I don't think the 'black samurai' is why people have an issue with the character.

The Real Source of the Controversy?

I think the real issue here is that the so-called 'black samurai' is based on a historical figure - a real person. Now, the Assassin's Creed series has always played fast and loose with history, but I don't think they ever used a historical person as a main protagonist. There were some historically-based characters that make an appearance - Richard the Lionheart comes to mind in Assassin's Creed - but these guys weren't the main guy of the story.

It also just doesn't make sense to me that you would use a samurai as an assassin. The real Yasuke, as we said before, was a retainer. Name a better cover than that, go on, I'll wait. Every other protagonist, whether it's Altair in Assassin's Creed, Ezio in Assassin's Creed II, Aveline in Liberation, these are all fictional characters and most of them were assassins to begin with.

Now, while I haven't played ALL of the games in the series, in fact, I've only recently done a playthrough of the first game, I know that a lot of the missions require eavesdropping, pickpocketing, and general tracking. I'm no expert, and it's likely that the samurai did a lot of different things, but I'm also pretty sure that stealing would've gone against their code of honor. Not only that, but assassins have to operate in the shadows and, as I understand it, the samurai would NOT be doing that.

Ubisoft in Hot Water

The backlash against Assassin's Creed 14 has been swift and brutal. There are two different petitions on Change.org. One petition is calling for the cancellation of the game and the other is calling on people to let the game be released. The first one has, at the time of writing, 98,714 signatures so it's blown up in a big way. The second one has, at the time of writing, closed with only gotten 596 signatures.

Additionally, Ubisoft Japan faced a problem and had to apologize to a re-enactment group for using their flag without permission. These guys really do keep putting their foot in it, don't they?

Will Shadows be Cancelled?

So, with all of this stuff going on, will Assassin's Creed: Shadows be cancelled? Should it be cancelled? Well, I highly doubt that the company will scrap the game at this point. They've already sunk a ton of money into marketing and design and so on. With that in mind, canning the game before it's even set to release is going to hurt everyone that worked on it - keep in mind that some devs rely on the game's release to get their much-needed bonuses.

Should it be cancelled? Well, frankly, I don't think so. Firstly, it's a videogame, a work of fiction designed to entertain us for a few hours over a weekend. Ubisoft has never, as far as I've seen, claimed that these games were historically accurate. There has been debate over whether the Japanese government will step in and stop the game's release but, from what little I was able to find, that seems very unlikely.

Here's another question: will the petitions amount to anything?

Will the Petitions Work?

So, we know that the petitions have blown up quite a bit, but will they actually amount to anything? My two cents? Not a chance. I highly doubt the petitions will do anything as far as cancelling/delaying the release of AC Shadows. It may sound somewhat cynical, but we've seen petitions go wild like this before.

How many petitions came out during the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp lawsuit a year or so back? Each one called for her to be removed from the Aquaman 2 film, remember that? You do, good. Tell me, was she removed from the film? No, in fact I seem to recall studio execs coming out and saying they wouldn't be removing her from the film regardless of the petitions. Ultimately, the film did well but still got a largely negative reception. If the petitions don't work, what will work? That's easy; money.

Companies don't really seem to care about the opinions of their consumer base. What they do care about, however, is their financial bottom line. I'll draw your attention to 2018's Battlefield V debacle. The game's trailer set off major backlash and it only got worse when Mark Rosewater, who was, if I remember correctly, the head of the sales department, said:

"If you don't like it, don't buy it."

The result of that statement was that Battlefield V underperformed in sales.

No Skin in this Game

I'll echo that statement, you don't have to buy the game. If you don't like what you've seen, then don't buy the game; play something else. Personally, I can't say that the material for Shadows has impressed me, so I'm not really interested in playing it and therefore have absolutely no skin in this particular game. Assassin's Creed: Shadows is set for release in November of this year, and I think we should at least give the game a chance.

Those are my thoughts on this topic, for whatever they're worth, let me know your thoughts in the comments.

I'll see you in the next one!