- Assassin’s Creed Shadows features Yasuke as one of the lead characters.
- This pick has upset Japanese fans, who claim that Ubisoft should have used Japanese locals as its protagonists.
- Some have gone as far as calling the studio racist, leading to thousands of dislikes on the reveal trailer.
Ubisoft has taken shaky first steps into Japan with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Following an impressive first trailer, the game has been dubbed woke by audiences, and it seems Japanese fans, in particular, are quite upset.
A few days after this reveal, Ubisoft’s Japanese trailer on YouTube is already full of dislikes. This version highlights the sentiment around Assassin’s Creed Shadows among Japanese audiences.
Why it matters: Western developers tackling a completely foreign culture is always tricky. Sucker Punch Productions faced a similar challenge with Ghost of Tsushima, but the team ultimately ended up doing a stellar job.
Ubisoft Japan’s version of the reveal trailer has been quite divisive. Since this version is viewed by mostly Japanese users, it has attracted a slew of dislikes, reaching more than 24K dislikes at the time of writing.
The biggest point of contention appears to be Yasuke’s portrayal as one of the leads. Various comments under the video point out that Ubisoft previously relied on native characters as protagonists.
However, the team has picked a black man as the lead in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Some have even called the publisher racist for this pick, pointing to the poor job of representing Asian culture.
Why do all Assassin’s Creed games have local characters, but when they arrive in Japan, they have a black protagonist?
-Hryw09167 via YouTube (comment translated by Google)
A similar discourse exists in other parts of the world, though Japanese audiences appear to be the most vocal.
Ubisoft’s answer to this discourse appears to be Naoe, the second playable character. She serves as the local Japanese character, but the conversation seems completely focused on Yasuke for now.
Apart from the culture discourse, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is being criticized for an expensive deluxe edition, future microtransactions, and more. However, there is still plenty of excitement for Ubisoft’s first next-gen Assassin’s Creed experience.
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