A petition from Japanese gamers wants to see Assassin’s Creed Shadows cancelled due to its lack of historical accuracy.
Ever since Ubisoft debuted Assassin’s Creed Shadows in May, there’s been a predictable wave of online backlash against the game’s dual protagonists.
Set in feudal Japan, the next entry in the series is led by African samurai Yasuke, a real life historical figure, and a fictional female shinobi named Naoe. In certain circles, it’s sparked the typical response you’d expect, with accusations of forced diversity.
A petition created by Japanese gamers has now attracted over 38,000 signatures, although its complaint has more to do with how samurai as a whole are portrayed in the game.
As stated in the Change.org petition by creator Shimizu Toru (through Google translate), ‘Recently, the lack of historical accuracy and cultural respect has been a serious issue regarding the upcoming game Assassin’s Creed Shadows by game developer Ubisoft.
‘The game is based on Japanese samurai and ignores the fact that samurai were a higher class of warrior class and should have been ‘gokenin’ or servants of nobles.’
The description later goes onto say that ‘Ubisoft continues to misunderstand the nature and role of samurai’, adding: ‘This is a serious insult to Japanese culture and history, and may also be linked to Asian racism. We call on Ubisoft to immediately cancel the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and show sincere research and respect for Japanese history and culture.’
At the time of writing, the petition has received over 38,000 signatures since it was set up two weeks ago.
It’s hard to take any complaints about historical inaccuracy in Assassin’s Creed seriously considering how silly the series has always been – between playing memories of dead ancestors through a virtual reality machine, controlling eagles, or that part in Assassin’s Creed 2 where you summon clones using a magical apple.
It’s still unclear how Yasuke fits into the overall narrative of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but the series has often playfully altered history with known figures. Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine, which he designed but never actually built, was created for a flying sequence in Assassin’s Creed 2, for example.
Recently, Assassin’s Creed boss Marc-Alexis Côté responded to the backlash surrounding Yasuke in an interview with Game File, where he called out Elon Musk specifically for ‘feeding hatred’ online.
After Musk posted that ‘DEI kills art’, in reference to the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion, Côté said: ‘What Elon says is not the game that we’re building. People will have to play the game for themselves. And if, within the first 11 minutes and 47 seconds, they are not convinced of what we’re doing, we can have that discussion.’
If anything it’s probably the portrayal of the ninja in the game, and in general pop culture, that is the most inaccurate, as they were primarily spies and very rarely assassins. But the petition doesn’t mention that.
There is some debate as to exactly what role Yasuke played in Japanese history but he was definitely a favoured vassal of Oda Nobunaga and while it’s unclear if he was a full samurai he was close enough that he’s still one of the more authentic representations of a historical character in the series.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is set to launch on November 15, 2024 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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