General Gaming Assassin's Creed Shadows (PC/PS5/Xbox Series/Mac | 15 November 2024) - update (09/13): "World" trailer

[stepee]

17 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

"If you want to be only one character, you can for most of the game,"

 

@Phaseknox

[Phaseknox]

4 hours ago, stepee said:

@Phaseknox

It’s the same as Assassin’s Creed Syndicate where you can play whichever character that you want outside of story missions, but you have to play as a specific character for their story missions. And I’m sure that half of the story missions will be for Naoe and half of them will be for Yasuke, so I’ll have to play as Yasuke for half of the story content which I don’t want to do because I only want to play as Naoe.

[stepee]

Assassin’s Creed Shadows developers talk Animus, Yasuke backlash and more

WWW.GAMEFILE.NEWS

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"I just hope and wish that people can keep an open mind about this and see the game for what it is."

 

Assassin’s Creed Shadows dev explains why he ignored Elon Musk’s ‘DEI kills art’ tweet | VGC

WWW.VIDEOGAMESCHRONICLE.COM

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The game’s executive producer discusses online backlash to the Yasuke character…

 

Responding to a complaint that the character is an African samurai, Musk wrote: “DEI kills art.” DEI stands for ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’.

 

Côté replied that he had seen the tweet and was tempted to respond to Musk, but ultimately chose not to.

“That tweet generated emotions, that… the first thing I wanted to do was go back on X – that I had deleted – and just tweet back,” he explained.

 

“And I just took a step back. I have a mindfulness app on my phone. And I did a bit of mindfulness to try to explore the emotions that this tweet created.

 

“For me, Elon, it’s sad, he’s just feeding hatred. I had a lot of three word replies that came to mind.”

 

Côté came to the conclusion that fighting back wouldn’t win the game any new followers, saying: “By attacking someone like Elon… I will not convince people about our point of view as a team.”

 

He also explained that while the game’s developers did their initial research during the early stages of develoment, Yasuke – who was a real historical figure – “kept surfacing”.

“We’ve got a super-mysterious historical character from which not much is known about. And for us, it was what we want in Assassin’s Creed,” he explained.

 

 

Good answer. For those not keeping score dei is where the crt scare went.

 

[Spork3245]

3 hours ago, stepee said:

the crt scare went.

I never understood why CRT scared people. Sure, they’re bigger and heavier than LCD/OLEDs, but the color reproduction and 0ms 1:1 response times are still unmatched by displays that have replaced the technology.

[AbsolutSurgen]

 

8 hours ago, stepee said:

Good answer. For those not keeping score dei is where the crt scare went.

 

 

The "E" part of DEI is largely based on the various critical theories (of which CRT is just one), so it's probably more fair to call them one and the same.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Ubisoft Needs to Cancel Assassin's Creed Shadows, According to a Group of Japanese Gamers

WCCFTECH.COM

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A group of Japanese gamers want Assassin's Creed Shadows to be canceled due to a lack of historical accuracy and cultural respect. %

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Following the reveal of Shadows (previously dubbed  Assassin's Creed: Red) back in May of this year, plenty of 'fans' took to social media to discuss Ubisoft's choice for the game's main protagonists. Not only has there been a vocal discussion about character representation, but a group of Japanese gamers also seemingly don't agree with the game's historical accuracy and the lack of cultural respect from Ubisoft. As a matter of fact, there's now a Japanese petition on Charge.org that demands Ubisoft to cancel the title.

"Recently, a serious issue of historical accuracy and lack of cultural respect has been raised about game developer Ubisoft's upcoming release, Assassin's Creed Shadows", the creators of the petition write (roughly translated). "The game is based on the subject of Japanese samurai and ignores the fact that samurai are a higher class of samurai and should be "gokemono" or servants of nobility. In fact, the first European to receive the title of samurai, William Adams (Miura Anobori), was a bannerman with 250 koku and served Tokugawa Ieyasu. Throughout this history, Ubisoft continues to misunderstand the nature and role of the Samurai.

According to the group, this misunderstanding about the nature and role of the historical Samurai is a serious insult to Japanese history and culture, which could lead to Asian racism. "We demand that Ubisoft immediately stop the release of "Assassin's Creed Shadows" and show serious investigation and respect for Japanese history and culture", the group writes.

At the moment of writing, more the petition has over 28.300 signatures with the next goal being 35.000 signatures. Out of those 28.300, more than 13.500 people signed the petition today.

Petition · アサシンクリードシャドウズの発売中止を求めます - Japan · Change.org

[stepee]

damn, I was looking forward to it too but if they gotta they gotta

[Best]

So I'm wondering if Ghost of Tsushima portrayed the samurai correctly?

[Keyser_Soze]

Reminds me that someone pointed out that they were harvesting rice when cherry blossoms were blooming which would mean they are harvesting the rice in the spring instead of fall. Ubisoft, great attention to detail.

[Spork3245]

People: We want historical realism in AC!

Also people: We love that Ubi added mythical monsters in AC games for Origins, Odyssey,  and Valhalla!

 

It’s almost like there’s something specific in Shadows that is upsetting them… hmmm… not sure what, though!

[legend]

5 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

People: We want historical realism in AC!

Also people: We love that Ubi added mythical monsters in AC games for Origins, Odyssey,  and Valhalla!

 

It’s almost like there’s something specific in Shadows that is upsetting them… hmmm… not sure what, though!

 

I've seen some of these people respond "historical aside from the mystical parts!" and then you get to confront them with stuff like da Vinci building Ezio a flying machine that Ezio could shoot bombs from.

[skillzdadirecta]

Hmmm... how did the petition to cancel Nioh go when the main character was a white Samurai, also based on a real historical figure? What was that you say? There wasn't one?

[AbsolutSurgen]

They wouldn't be able to challenge the historical accuracy  of William Adams (and even mention him by name in their petition) as there is tons of historical documentation about him.

 

There is very little documentation about Yasuke, and most of what is said about him is largely interpretation/speculation (particularly on his status as a Samurai).

 

I, personally, have no issue with Ubisoft taking creative liberties in history.

 

However, if I was one of the 64k Japanese people that signed this petition (and I assume these are mostly all Japanese as the petition is in Japanese), would I feel the same way about a bunch of French Canadians taking liberties with my cultural history?  I don't know.

[skillzdadirecta]

53 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

However, if I was one of the 64k Japanese people that signed this petition (and I assume these are mostly all Japanese as the petition is in Japanese), would I feel the same way about a bunch of French Canadians taking liberties with my cultural history?  I don't know.

The Japanese take liberties with other cultures ALL OF THE TIME. I mean Muhammad Ali is a supporting character in Baki The Grappler for God's sake... as is his completely made up, fictional son Muhammad Ali JR.  African American Muslims were largely unsuccessful when they petitoned for that character to be taken out of the Anime and Manga... wait, there was no petition because no one gave a shit you say? Riiiiiight,

[AbsolutSurgen]

I would be surprised if the people signing the petition are the same people who write that anime/manga.

[skillzdadirecta]

16 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I would be surprised if the people signing the petition are the same people who write that anime/manga.

Word is the people that started the petition aren't even Japanese but I don't know... Baki is a HUGE manga and Anime and it's only one example of Japanese pop culture using real life figures in their stories. It's quite common in fact, so it's a little ironic to see THIS triggering some kind of outrage in Japanese society especially when this isn't even the first piece of of pop culture featuring Yasuke. Something is off here. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

3 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Word is the people that started the petition aren't even Japanese but I don't know...

Maybe.  The petition is written in Japanese (Kanji?) and change.org lists the petition starter as being from Chiba Prefecture.

 

[Kal-El814]

There's little to no doubt that the petition is astroturfed to shit given who I've seen promote it. Also I believe that Shadows pre-orders in Japan specifically are doing very well. There is very little reason to treat this as anything other than the umpteenth recent example of people bitching about wokeness.

[Spork3245]

People in Japan are kinda racist and dislike foreigners, you say?

[skillzdadirecta]

Japanese Historian Says Assassin's Creed Shadows' Yasuke Was A Samurai

WWW.THEGAMER.COM

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"There are very few historical documents about him, but there's no doubt that he was a 'samurai' who served Nobunaga."

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Assassin's Creed Shadows team acknowledges elements "that have caused concern" among Japanese fans

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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The development team behind Assassin's Creed Shadows has apologised for elements in the game's marketing campaign so fa…

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"While we strive for authenticity in everything we do, Assassin's Creed games are works of fiction inspired by real historical events and figures," 

….

"From its inception, the series has taken creative license and incorporated fantasy elements to craft engaging and immersive experiences. The representation of Yasuke in our game is an illustration of this. His unique and mysterious life made him an ideal candidate to tell an Assassin's Creed story with the setting of Feudal Japan as a backdrop.

 

"While Yasuke is depicted as a samurai in Assassin's Creed Shadows, we acknowledge this is a matter of debate and discussion. We have woven this carefully into our narrative and with our other lead character, the Japanese shinobi Naoe, who is equally important in the game, our dual protagonists provide players with different gameplay styles."

 

Yasuke is only mentioned in a handful of historical documents. One sentence in one of them, that he received a stipend, is used to identify him as a Samurai. Other historians suggest this may only identify him as a retainer. I don’t think we’ll ever know.

 

Even Ubisoft is acknowledging this. 
The full Ubisoft statement can be found in the pictures in an embedded tweet in the Eurogamer article. 

[Kal-El814]

This is truly one of the most deeply stupid controversies I've ever seen around video games, which is saying something. This is a franchise where one of the characters earnestly says "It's a me, Mario," and you get into a fistfight with the pope.

[Keyser_Soze]

They really should stop addressing it. The people who are upset are just angry a black guy is in the game. That's it.

[AbsolutSurgen]

It's worth noting that the whole concept that Yasuke was a Samurai was started by a British white guy promoting his book (which made a whole bunch of other assertions that clearly were not based on the evidence).  I've decided not to go down the rabbit whole, but there are a whole lot of claims made by some Japanese about "inaccuracies" in the trailers and promotional materials by the Japanese.  (Everything from Nobunaga's house crest being shown upside down, stealing sword designs from Manga, getting basic pieces of Japanese culture wrong, etc.)

 

Lots of assertions that the team used AI to generate much of the content, which is why it is out of context.

 

At the very least, Ubisoft should learn from this and stop making such strong assertions about the historical accuracy of their games in both their marketing materials and podcasts.

[Kal-El814]

11 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

It's worth noting that the whole concept that Yasuke was a Samurai was started by a British white guy promoting his book (which made a whole bunch of other assertions that clearly were not based on the evidence).  I've decided not to go down the rabbit whole, but there are a whole lot of claims made by some Japanese about "inaccuracies" in the trailers and promotional materials by the Japanese.  (Everything from Nobunaga's house crest being shown upside down, stealing sword designs from Manga, getting basic pieces of Japanese culture wrong, etc.)

 

Lots of assertions that the team used AI to generate much of the content, which is why it is out of context.

 

At the very least, Ubisoft should learn from this and stop making such strong assertions about the historical accuracy of their games in both their marketing materials and podcasts.

 

 

At the risk of defending Ubisoft for… anything, really, I think they have done a pretty good job of differentiating between what’s historical and historical fiction for a long time now. Outside of whatever they call the codex entries where it’s clear that the written text is historical up until the point that they start riffing on the Templars, or whatever they call the historical tour mode… it’s very obviously all historical fiction. Ass Creed 2 has a take on who Adam and Eve actually were, which is something that a lot more people ostensibly care about than Yasuke… and there wasn’t a peep about it.

 

All the smoke from this controversy is coming from the fire of there being a black guy in Japan. Absolutely nothing I’ve seen suggests that there’s anything more to it than that. And again, given who I have seen pushing this on Twitter (Elon, grummz, and others of their ilk) there is precisely no reason fo take these concerns at face value, let alone seriously.

[AbsolutSurgen]

4 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

 

At the risk of defending Ubisoft for… anything, really, I think they have done a pretty good job of differentiating between what’s historical and historical fiction for a long time now. Outside of whatever they call the codex entries where it’s clear that the written text is historical up until the point that they start riffing on the Templars, or whatever they call the historical tour mode… it’s very obviously all historical fiction. Ass Creed 2 has a take on who Adam and Eve actually were, which is something that a lot more people ostensibly care about than Yasuke… and there wasn’t a peep about it.

 

All the smoke from this controversy is coming from the fire of there being a black guy in Japan. Absolutely nothing I’ve seen suggests that there’s anything more to it than that. And again, given who I have seen pushing this on Twitter (Elon, grummz, and others of their ilk) there is precisely no reason fo take these concerns at face value, let alone seriously.

 

No.  They don't.  They very clearly talk about what a hard job they do about making the worlds they build authentic.  They have even put a Discovery tour mode into many of their games that they've pitched as a tool for teachers.  They have a podcast interviewing the historians they consulted in development.  It's a big part of their marketing.

 

I'm not Japanese, nor do I understand enough Japanese to know what many of the complaints are.  But, it seems there is at least a small group of people that are pointing out a lot of the basic mistakes made by Ubisoft (having things that are clearly from different seasons all at the same time), combining images/objects that were from different periods in Japanese history in the same image, religious iconography being reversed, misusing a Torii gate (entrance to a village instead of the entrance to a shrine), mixing up clan symbols (i.e. having Yasuke with clan symbols of warring clans on him at the same time), having Tatami mats being completely the wrong size,  having Yasuke walking around in ceremonial armour more fitting for a daimyo  (i.e. not for regular day-to-day use), using a sword from a modern Manga/anime (One Piece) and displaying it at their booth, using Chinese subtitles for Japanese-market trailers, etc.

 

If Ubisoft is apologizing, I would take it at face value that there are a reasonable amount of mainstream Japanese that are upset/disappointed.  Even if there are a few "right wing racist chuds" piling on.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

They really should stop addressing it. The people who are upset are just angry a black guy is in the game. That's it.

That really is it. Yasuke has been depicted in a bunch of other media and nary a peep was made about it. There's a whole fucking anime on Netflix starring him and a live action project is (was, who the fuck knows after this) in development. This is astroturf anti-dei bullshit and concern trolling. Let's call this out for what it is and stop fucking pretending. 

[Keyser_Soze]

9 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

That really is it. Yasuke has been depicted in a bunch of other media and nary a peep was made about it. There's a whole fucking anime on Netflix starring him and a live action project is (was, who the fuck knows after this) in development. This is astroturf anti-dei bullshit and concern trolling. Let's call this out for what it is and stop fucking pretending. 

 

I mean go to any steam discussion (but don't actually) and you'll see this same thing on any game what has any type of diversity in it.

 

Hell people are trolling Tales of Kenzera for being SBI or whatever. THE GAME WAS MADE BY A BLACK GUY AND IT'S ABOUT HIS LIFE!

 

*Ahem*

 

What I'm saying is ignore these ghouls they aren't really concerned about anything. (Or it's fun to be racist and get away with it. Take your pick)

[skillzdadirecta]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I mean go to any steam discussion (but don't actually) and you'll see this same thing on any game what has any type of diversity in it.

 

Hell people are trolling Tales of Kenzera for being SBI or whatever. THE GAME WAS MADE BY A BLACK GUY AND IT'S ABOUT HIS LIFE!

 

*Ahem*

 

What I'm saying is ignore these ghouls they aren't really concerned about anything. (Or it's fun to be racist and get away with it. Take your pick)

They should be ignored... but then you get a bunch of "objective well meaning third parties" who try to paint this shit as being about something other than what we all know it's really about. I personally find that wishy-washy, mealy mouthed bullshit more irritating than the racism itself.

[Kal-El814]

31 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

No.  They don't.  They very clearly talk about what a hard job they do about making the worlds they build authentic.  They have even put a Discovery tour mode into many of their games that they've pitched as a tool for teachers.  They have a podcast interviewing the historians they consulted in development.  It's a big part of their marketing.

I'm not Japanese, nor do I understand enough Japanese to know what many of the complaints are.  But, it seems there is at least a small group of people that are pointing out a lot of the basic mistakes made by Ubisoft (having things that are clearly from different seasons all at the same time), combining images/objects that were from different periods in Japanese history in the same image, religious iconography being reversed, misusing a Torii gate (entrance to a village instead of the entrance to a shrine), mixing up clan symbols (i.e. having Yasuke with clan symbols of warring clans on him at the same time), having Tatami mats being completely the wrong size,  having Yasuke walking around in ceremonial armour more fitting for a daimyo that they would use for special events (i.e. not for regular combat), using a sword from a modern Manga/anime (One Piece) and displaying it at their booth, etc.

If Ubisoft is apologizing, I would take it at face value that there are a reasonable amount of mainstream Japanese that are upset/disappointed.  Even if there are a few "right wing racist chuds" piling on.

 

I don’t.

 

And again, yes, it’s clear that they do take the historical aspects of their games seriously but the franchise has added more and more fantasy elements as the series has gone on. We’ve gone from DaVinci parachutes and wrist pistols to my Eivor running around with Thor’s hammer and Basim looking like an astronaut. Bayek fought Anubis and nobody cared. Cassandra punched Medusa and nobody cared. Eivor spent a significant amount of time fighting frost giants, Fenrir, and derping around in Valhalla and nobody cared. If I recall Black Flag correctly, I spent an awful lot of time in the Caribbean, most of the NPCs were white aaaaaaaaaand… nobody cared.

 

There is no compelling reason to believe that people are actually upset that cherry blossoms are in bloom the same time rice is being harvested or about the “authenticity” of Yasuke being a samurai. None.

[skillzdadirecta]

Today I learned the Assassin’s Creed games are documentaries 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Fair point.  Ubisoft should probably stop bragging about the great lengths the go to consulting source documentation and building a network of expert historians, professors, and cultural consultants to help the team build a world as authentically as possible.

[TwinIon]

I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. My classics major wife thought walking around and seeing sights in Odyssey was pretty nifty. Walking into the Parthenon she was curious what coloring and which version of the Athena statue they used and approved of many of their choices. It's obvious that a lot of care went into the minutiae of their set dressings. I think it's fine for them to show off all the cool details they get right without needing to be held to some kind of authoritative standard. The great pains they go through to make sure the clothing and the weapons and whatever else are period accurate aren't somehow diminished because they also take extreme creative liberties in making their entertainment product.

[Kal-El814]

17 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Fair point.  Ubisoft should probably stop bragging about the great lengths the go to consulting source documentation and building a network of expert historians, professors, and cultural consultants to help the team build a world as authentically as possible.

 

None of this has anything to do with what are absolutely crocodile tears about a black samurai. When I went to Florence and went to the top of Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore I was really impressed with how accurately the game rendered that building, the plaza, the orientation of other landmarks compared to how they're actually laid out on earth. They obviously care.

 

That is completely separate from bullshit concerns about a black samurai. People online generally and gamers online specifically have a decades long history of being absolute shitheels about this topic and again, there's no reason to think that the concerns are authentic this one time. People flip out when people of color show up in Lord of the Rings because it's "not authentic" to the European fantasy world that Tolkien created yet have nothing to say about the Hobbits eating potatoes, tomatoes, smoking tobacco, and other things that aren't indigenous to Europe within the general timeframe that Middle Earth was inspired by. They're vibes based concerns set off by a melanin threshold.

 

Very cool:

 

 

 

BIG PROBLEM:

 

 

Please.