A petition by Japanese gamers wants Assassin’s Creed Shadows to be cancelled due to its lack of historical accuracy.
Since Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Shadows in May, there has been, as expected, a wave of online backlash against the game’s two main characters.
The next installment in the series is set in feudal Japan and is led by the African samurai Yasuke, a real-life historical figure, and a fictional female shinobi named Naoe. In certain circles, it has provoked the typical backlash you might expect, with accusations of forced diversity.
A petition created by Japanese gamers has now garnered over 38,000 signatures, but the complaint is more about the way samurai are depicted in the game.
As creator Shimizu Toru (via Google Translate) noted in the Change.org petition, “The lack of historical accuracy and cultural respect has been a serious issue lately regarding game developer Ubisoft’s upcoming game Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
“The game is based on Japanese samurai and ignores the fact that samurai were a higher class of warriors and should have been ‘gokenin’ or servants of nobles.”
The description later goes on to say that “Ubisoft continues to misunderstand the nature and role of the samurai,” adding: “This is a grave insult to Japanese culture and history, and can 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 already been signed more than 38,000 times two weeks ago.
It’s hard to take complaints about historical inaccuracies in Assassin’s Creed seriously, considering how ridiculous the series has always been – between playing back the memories of deceased ancestors through a virtual reality machine, to controlling eagles, to that part in Assassin’s Creed 2 where you summon clones with a magic 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 using familiar figures. For example, Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine, which he designed but never actually built, was created for a flight sequence in Assassin’s Creed 2.
Recently, Assassin’s Creed boss Marc-Alexis Côté responded to the negative reactions surrounding Yasuke in an interview with Game File. In it, he specifically criticized Elon Musk for “spreading hate online.”
After Musk posted that “DEI is killing art,” referring to the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion, Côté said, “What Elon is saying is not the game we’re building. People are going to have to play the game themselves. And if they’re not convinced within the first 11 minutes and 47 seconds of what we’re doing, we can have that discussion.”
If anything, it’s probably the depiction 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 over the exact role Yasuke played in Japanese history, but he was definitely a favored vassal of Oda Nobunaga. It is unclear whether he was a full-fledged samurai, but he came close enough to still be one of the most authentic representations of a historical character in the series.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be released on November 15, 2024 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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