Insider Gaming has a new report out on what Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and the big secret they found is that there is no big secret.
In their report, they make it clear that Ubisoft does not plan to remove Yasuke from the game at all. The Assassin’s Creed dev teams are working on addressing the historical and cultural concerns surrounding the game. So they will be changing Yasuke’s story and portrayal, as well as fixing both big and small historical details
Now, because of the proliferation of misinformation online, it was difficult to find out what the Japanese were actually complaining about in regards to this game. We had reported that the Japanese government didn’t seem to be that concerned about the game, and that was based on the muted response of their government agencies when asked about the title.
With the power of hindsight, this summary of events from YouTuber Ryuuku Sensei seems most credible. If we take his translations and interpretations to be true, Japanese gamers aren’t mad that Yasuke is in the game or is a playable character. They are, however, incensed by Ubisoft’s claims that they worked hard to accurately depict the historical period, and they saw that the game had numerous inaccuracies.
Ryuuku Sensei confirmed the claim that Yasuke was a samurai was an issue. However, Japanese gamers were also unhappy with details as minute as the position of the chopsticks in a meal. As it turned out, Ubisoft’s devs positioned chopsticks in a scene the way the Chinese would place them, not how the Japanese would. So the big issue really was these glaring inaccuracies, that the Japanese saw as gross characterizations of their culture, and flying in the face of claims that they did extensive research.
And if that’s true, then it really is a catastrophic fumble. Historians had previously praised Ubisoft for the historical accuracy of prior Assassin’s Creed titles. They also made it clear that Ubisoft had deftly made use of artistic license alongside this accuracy. For all the talk that Ubisoft always wanted to make an Assassin’s Creed game in feudal Japan, they fumbled this ball terribly.
Insider Gaming’s sources seem to confirm this scenario. They claim that Ubisoft cut corners and rushed to get previews and builds out to meet deadlines. They also brought historians and consultants to verify accuracy later in the pipeline, definitely later compared to other Assassin’s Creed games.
But we didn’t need a translator to understand that Assassin’s Creed Shadows was clearly not ready for a 2024 release. Insider Gaming claims that the developers were also telling their leadership they needed a delay for some time. But Ubisoft management set them to a strict development timeline, and that proved to be a serious mistake for the company in the end.
It’s no surprise that Ubisoft is now set to put themselves through a board review, with their stock prices dipping and unrest among their shareholders going public. We’re sure that they’ll still be able to deliver Assassin’s Creed Shadows in 2025. But Ubisoft’s long term future is in doubt over this and other huge blunders.
