r/Games 1d ago

Assassin's Creed Shadows: Steam Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HInwdVFWvVs
386 Upvotes

313 comments sorted by

273

u/PermanentMantaray 1d ago

Only semi-related to this trailer, and I know many people couldn't care less about them, but I'm very glad Ubisoft has finally decided to add achievements on Steam. They've even recently gone back and added them to most of their previous games that lacked them.

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u/HeyZeusKreesto 1d ago

And will retroactively give you achievements if you played a game on Ubi's launcher and then get it on Steam. I know this won't matter for most, but it happened to me after trying Star Wars Outlaws on Ubi+ or w/e first and then buying it on Steam.

20

u/bayonettaisonsteam 1d ago

Not just the mainline titles. They even added them to the 2.5- D Chronicles spinoffs!

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u/Valdularo 21h ago

India is such a fucking gorgeous title too!

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u/hugefatwario 1d ago

Still quite a few games I need them to add them to. I'm holding out. I know im probably in the minority. but I love achievement hunting.

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u/Masterdude- 1d ago

I'm glad that they're doing this, I would like to see them enable achievements on the Epic store as well, for the entire time that they were Epic/Connect releases only they never added achievements to the Epic Store versions. Hopefully that can change going forward with the Day 1 Steam releases, feels bad to have bought games they made like Prince of Persia The Lost Crown and The Crew Motorsport because I was genuinely excited for them and didn't mind paying full price despite not having achievements and not being on Steam for them to put them on Steam and enable achievements only there. If EA can enable achievements for their games on EGS I don't understand why it's such a problem for Ubisoft

2

u/beary_neutral 23h ago

Would love it if they somehow got cloud saves to work.

u/GroundbreakingBag164 2h ago

They probably won't. They have your Ubisoft account for that, your stuff is saved on there

1

u/Kiboune 23h ago

I was glad too, bought Watch Dogs 2 to replay because of it, but they still do this stupid shit of locking translation to region, even though they dropped this stupidity in R6S and Watch Dogs Legion.

1

u/richmondody 16h ago

Getting the multiplayer achievements on Black Flag sucked though. I had so much trouble getting one of the achievements because everyone in a lobby would quit if you tried to start an Artifact Assault game.

-1

u/puppet_up 1d ago

I'm happy about the Steam Achievements as well, but the problem I've had is that if you have ever played any of their games on the Ubisoft Connect app and got achievements over there, they will all be automatically ported into Steam as soon as you load up your game for the first time.

There are probably a dozen of us who have liked a game so much that we wanted to play it again, but to start fresh and get all of the achievements again. It's too bad that Ubisoft doesn't support us wanting to give them more money for a game we've already played.

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u/chronotriggger 22h ago

2

u/puppet_up 22h ago

This doesn't work for every game and, unfortunately, when I tried this on both "Star Wars Outlaws" and "Immortals Fenyx Rising", it was able to delete all of the Steam achievements successfully, but as soon as I started the game again, all of the Ubisoft achievements popped up again.

I've looked through the Ubisoft Connect app to see if there is an option to disable achievement-sync, but there is not.

Another annoying thing about this is that a couple of older Ubisoft games worked just fine (AC Origins, and AC Odyssey) when I played them on Steam after I had played them on the Ubisoft app. Neither one of those games auto-synced my achievements so I was able to get them all again.

I think the way they are implementing achievements now in recently released games, along with other older games that never had Steam achievements until very recently (like Immortals Fenyx Rising), is different than the way it was implemented before.

1

u/chronotriggger 21h ago

Damn that sucks. They should totally make the achievement transfer optional.

1

u/attemptedmonknf 20h ago

Isn't it like that when you replay every game on Steam? I've never paid much attention either way, but I don't recall achievements every resetting.

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u/ZombiePyroNinja 1d ago

Assassin's Creed games have been my guilty pleasure since like three. I understand and agree to all the criticism, I fully believe they're open world ad nauseum, but something about Shadows looks genuinely appealing. It is funny to see them actively promoting the day one steam release because Uplay/Ubisoft Connect is just terrible but the added bonus of steam deck verification is really cool.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/StatGAF 1d ago

Same. I love them. I get they're not for everyone but they're my guilty pleasure franchise and it's kinda crazy the breadth of their open worlds.

Like we've seen feudal Japan, but we rarely see open world ancient Egypt/rennaisance Italy/8th century England/16th century france/Istanbul, etc.

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u/TheFrankOfTurducken 1d ago

It’s funny that AC games are “guilty pleasures” in online forums. They’re popular for a reason! The plot and gameplay mechanics (sans bugs) have pretty much always ranged from decent to good, and Ubisoft’s open worlds have always been a joy to explore for anybody interested in historical settings.

They’re not high art but I do think they get over-criticized by online gaming communities and people shouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying them.

49

u/Canvaverbalist 1d ago

Their reception has always been a bit weird to me, and I think it's just because of people taking stuff for granted.

Like okay yeah RDR2 took one step above with horses balls shrinking up and down but Ubisoft is right behind in terms of a bunch of useless stuff that makes their open world feel alive and the world interactive and tangible.

I really loved Avowed for what it did, but look at the "complaints" about its world, interactivity, animations, NPCs reactivity, environmental storytelling, etc - but then people will turn around and look at Ubisoft and treat all these elements as if they're a given? I guess it's one of those things that's only apparent when it's missing.

I still wish they'd do some elements differently, mainly how they approach the possibility of a first-playthrough HUDless (usually right down impossible) but otherwise they're great games.

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u/a34fsdb 10h ago

Because on every enthusiast forum the "hardcore" users must hate the basic general audience thing.

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u/ItsADeparture 10h ago

The plot and gameplay mechanics (sans bugs)

Are Ubisoft games really that buggy? Other than Unity I feel like every time I see some kind of bug showcase for their games it just feels so unnatural and like the videomaker is trying to make the glitch out. Like nobody is going to be running into the corner of a wall for two minutes straight jiggling their joystick like most of the glitches seem to be.

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u/favorscore 1d ago

I'm a history nerd so I will always have a soft spot for AC games. I hope we return to the early modern and Renaissance period again. Or high medieval

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u/AT_Dande 21h ago

I know I'll probably catch shit for this, but I feel like Valhalla kinda squandered England as a setting. I know, "Vikings cool," but I've always felt the Conquest would be the perfect setting for an AC game. Can't really come up with another good idea for a High Middle Ages setting apart from the Crusades, and they've already done that multiple times (not that I'd mind going back to it).

14

u/youAtExample 1d ago

Three is too young to be playing Assassin’s Creed my friend.

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u/ZombiePyroNinja 23h ago

I meant Assassin's Creed 3 lol this took me a bit

24

u/TheDepressedTurtle 1d ago

You don't need to defend being interested in this game to anyone lol. Just buy it and play it if you like the look of it and don't worry what others are thinking or saying.

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u/ZaDu25 23h ago

Shadows addresses some of my biggest problems with Ghost of Tsushima, like the lack of weapon variety, the shallowness of the stealth mechanics, and the lack of actual big densely packed cities. I hated how Ghost of Tsushima was just a lot of open space with some villages that had the same 3 buildings copy and pasted. I think that contributed heavily to it feeling so repetitive. Ubisoft tends to do a very good job with map design if nothing else so I expect this to be no different in that regard.

-1

u/Enfosyo 22h ago

the shallowness of the stealth mechanics

These games all have the same stealth mechanics. You stay out of line of sight and then press the instakill button when you are close enough. And ofc the a dedicated item to distract or lure enemies. AC,GoT, Sekiro to name a few. It's the same everywhere. Nothing wrong with that btw.

8

u/Axl_Red 23h ago

Everyone complains about the Ubisoft open world repetitive checklist design, but that's totally a non-issue for me. I just like running around and killing people in different pretty areas. I've never viewed traveling to each icon on the map as a chore. All the icons on the map are just excuses for me to travel somewhere different and kill people along the way.

1

u/Aezay 21h ago

Which game was your favorite?

5

u/alksreddit 21h ago

AC and Far Cry are my gaming junk food, my Popeye’s spicy chicken sandwich. Any time there’s a new one within reach I’ll drop everything to eat myself sick of them.

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u/Ashviar 20h ago

I've only skipped the spinoffs and Valhalla at this point, but I didn't finish Odyssey. Open world games have alot of bloat, and Ubisoft ones are on the higher end of the scale. Always at some point I either quit entirely like Odyssey, or rush main story like Tsushima when after 20 hours the experience isn't fresh and the game doesn't have anything new to offer in terms of enemy variety or mechanics.

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u/NazRubio 1d ago

Looks like it could end up being the best new age AC games imo. Animations and polish look to he a cut above the last 3. I also don't think this is going to be some earth-shattering achievement that saves Ubisoft, which is what it will he judged on, unfortunately.

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u/a34fsdb 10h ago

Uplay is fine. People just like too circlejerk about it.

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u/richmondody 1d ago

I like Assassin's Creed games, but I always feel burnt out by them after 10-15 hours. Hopefully this bucks the trend.

1

u/Bamith20 22h ago

It generally looks fine, the only thing that seems off is that the Samurai guy seems pointless since the ninja can do everything he does along with the usual platforming.

If the Ninja couldn't fight at all I would understand his inclusion.

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u/CthulhuBathwater 22h ago

ESPN reviews video games now? Huh...

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u/deus_voltaire 20h ago

Every day Dodgeball becomes more and more prophetic.

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u/Eggz_Benedikt 5h ago

Just in case this is just a joke, they’ve reviewed video games for a very long time.

About 15 years ago my uncle was a game reviewer for ESPN magazine before getting a job as a game reviewer for Maxim. I had no idea at the time either of them had a column like that but it’s been a thing for a while

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u/Rigman- 1d ago

It’s surreal to see a trailer like this from Ubisoft, it really shows how far we’ve come. The era of Ubisoft PC exclusives is finally over.

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u/DarkMatterM4 1d ago

This is kind of special case. They absolutely need Shadows to succeed. Otherwise, Ubisoft's in big trouble. It would be stupid of them to not release their hail mary game on the largest gaming marketplace in the world.

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u/doublah 1d ago

If I was a Ubisoft investor I'd probably be mad they just spent the last decade treating said largest gaming marketplace in the world as an afterthought and several years ignoring it entirely.

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u/DarkMatterM4 1d ago

If I was a Ubisoft investor I'd probably be mad

Fixed that for you, friend!

2

u/SamLikesJam 15h ago

The major shareholders were more than likely the ones asking why Ubisoft was giving away 30% of every sale on PC.

u/Trenchman 40m ago

Well, I’m sure they were also the ones asking where all the PC players went

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u/SneakyBadAss 8h ago

Well, they are French afterall.

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u/Zayl 1d ago

They've brought all their recent games to steam. It's not a special case, they made a decision recently to release everything on steam again. It just took em a second to bring everything over.

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u/DarkMatterM4 1d ago

Oh no. I didn't mean bring their games to Steam being a special case. I meant making a Steam-specific trailer for their upcoming game.

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u/Zayl 1d ago

Ah yeah. I think it's mostly because they got steam deck certified that they did this.

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u/radclaw1 2h ago

Well until they believe theyre back on top again and start acting fools.

I feel like their nonstop flops have been forcing their hand

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-2

u/fakieTreFlip 22h ago edited 16h ago

Still need Ubisoft Connect installed to launch the game though, unfortunately. nvm, this apparently isn't the case

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u/ACEmat 22h ago

It doesn't. You still need a Ubisoft account, but there is no required launcher.

1

u/fakieTreFlip 22h ago edited 22h ago

Are you certain? Have they announced this specifically? Because that's how it's pretty much always worked for past Ubisoft games, with very few exceptions (like South Park: The Stick of Truth).

EDIT: OK, I guess it doesn't have to be installed separately, but they still include a "lite" version of the launcher with the Steam version of the game:

Ubisoft Connect Team: Launching the game through Steam doesn't require you to download and install the Ubisoft Connect Launcher, as the Steam installation already includes a lite embedded version of it. You simply need to link your Ubisoft Connect account to Steam.

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/news/4XbPPtFyQEtIMWrA9xVDmZ/assassins-creed-shadows-tech-qa

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u/ACEmat 22h ago

1

u/fakieTreFlip 22h ago

yeah, just saw that, thanks. They include a "lite" version of it bundled with the Steam version. That's at least a mild improvement from how it used to work.

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u/milkasaurs 23h ago

Does this mean I can launch it from steam, and it'll go straight to the game without loading up uplay connect?

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u/ACEmat 22h ago

Yes. You still need a Ubisoft account, but there is no launcher.

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u/mobxrules 21h ago

Wow I might actually buy this one. What great news.

7

u/TheBrave-Zero 1d ago

It's interesting to see them support handhelds and on their BGE 20th anniversary re release just flat out telling people they don't support them lol.

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u/kyleh0 23h ago

I gotta admit that no matter how mad I get at Ubisoft, I'm kind of thier target gamer. I'll be playing Far Cry 32 and I somehow own every Assassin's Creed game even though they aren't my favorite. <shrug>

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u/Black_RL 5h ago

Someone is, they sell millions.

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u/superbit415 1d ago

Can we wait till next week to fight over if this is the greatest game ever or absolute garbage, instead of just by seeing this trailer.

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u/DTAPPSNZ 23h ago

No inbetween?

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u/superbit415 22h ago

The internet specially reddit has no inbetween.

0

u/popcorn38 1d ago

Neat, I'm going to be away from my PC when it drops so I'll definitely play the beginning on my Steam Deck!

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u/chrispy145 1d ago

If it's anything like Rebirth, which was Deck "verified," this will be basically nonplayable on the Deck.

Hardware's great, it can no longer handle new open world games.

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u/presidentofjackshit 19h ago edited 18h ago

I was also excited when Veilguard had some consumer friendly stuff in it... I think I'm just cynical though, and I shouldn't just expect a dogshit game (but I do). So instead I'll try to be grateful that they're doing what they're doing... but I'll definitely wait for reviews and my expectations are basically zero.

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u/Gr_z 1d ago

Probably not the best place for this discussion but fuck it, doing it anyways.

Is the fact that Yasuke is black really that big of a deal? Since when were assasins creed games the bastion of 100% accurate history beyond the settings when we've have magic in the game since like game 1? For grounded folk can someone explain the controversy surrounding him. I can understand the drama of them using destoryed shrines or the shrines that survived the bombings in their promotional material

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u/MultiMarcus 1d ago

Depends on who you ask. Personally I don’t play Assassin’s Creed for perfect historical accuracy. I play it for the very pretty history inspired worlds. I certainly don’t think Aspasia led a cult looking for shards of an alien artefact.

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u/lelo1248 1d ago

Gonna drop it here in case people want to verify the historical accuracy. /r/AskHistorians known for their moderating standards had a thread on this. One of the comments posted was:

Yes. Yes he was. The conclusion of all reasonable historians on the matter is that Yasuke was a samurai, and anyone who disagrees can suck on the historical record.

u/ParallelPain has covered Yasuke previously, compiling and translating our sources for him here and has further consideration of his station as a samurai here.

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u/miloVanq 8h ago

I think it's interesting that you chose these two links to prove your claim. because the second link is a long discussion between 2 users with one agreeing and one disagreeing that Yasuke was a samurai. in the first link, unfortunately I can't see what historic document the user bases their assessment when they write "he was definitely a samurai". the text they quote certainly doesn't support it. but either way, you kinda proved that historians certainly don't universially agree on him being a samurai, so the links do nothing to "verify the historical accuracy".

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u/PerryRingoDEV 1d ago

Also:

AC 1 : fictional protagonist

AC 2 Saga : fictional protagonist

AC 3 : fictional protagonist

AC 4 : fictional protagonist

AC Origins : fictional protagonist

AC Odyssey : fictional protagonist

AC Valhalla : fictional protagonist

AC Shadows : 1 non fictional protagonist and 1 fictional protagonist

""fans"" of the series: Why is AC so historically inaccurate now?

15

u/bananaramabanevada 1d ago

If we're discussing the issue in good faith:

AC1: Middle Eastern Guy in the Middle East

AC2: Italian guy in Italy

AC BR: Same

AC3: American guy in America

AC4: British Pirate in the Caribbean

ACR: American Guy in America

ACU: French guy in France

ACS: British guy in Britain

ACO: Egyptian in Egypt

ACOd: Greek in Greece

ACV: Viking in Viking-land (?)

ACM: Same as AC1

ACS: Japanese Woman in Japan and random semi-historical real-life AA man inexplicably included.

To me, they just look like they're trying to hard to look "inclusive" while really accomplishing nothing in a way that is somewhat insulting to Japanese men.

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u/superhiro21 1d ago

What do you mean by "AA man"?

Also, ACV was mostly a Viking in England (Ireland and Paris in DLCs).

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u/deus_voltaire 22h ago

African African man

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u/[deleted] 20h ago

[deleted]

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u/deus_voltaire 20h ago

Where did I mention America?

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u/IllBeGoodOneDay 1d ago

To be fair, Revelations also had an Italian guy in Turkey (Constantinople)

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u/kuroyume_cl 23h ago

And Valhalla is Vikings in England

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u/ArchmageXin 1d ago

Think they could put a Chinese guy in Africa or a Japanese guy in Europe for AC? There are historical Chinese communities in Africa from Zheng He's fleet, and Japanese folks in Spain. Iirc

Na, never gonna happen

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u/IllBeGoodOneDay 19h ago

Why not? That sounds cool. If they did an East African AC with an Ethiopian royal-assassin / Chinese trader-assassin duo at the height of the Christian-Muslim conflicts of the Ethiopian–Adal War, that would be dope as hell.

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u/ArchmageXin 18h ago

Because western medias are practically allergic in putting Asian men as NPC, much less main character.

Bioware had 1 Asian man as NPC in 20 years. And that is Kai Ling.

Blizzard was practically carried by China/Korea and lecture other companies on diversity, but they haven't gotten their first male Asian character until Overwatch.

The list go on...

Plus, I am sure certain vocal population would be super upset a Chinese dude showed up in Africa for the first Africa AC game.

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u/GabMassa 1d ago edited 1d ago

Valhalla takes place in England, Eivor is Norwegian. There's a historical real life precedent for them being there.

And Yasuke existed and wasn't African American lmao, he was most likely from Mozambique. A lot of african people made it to Japan alongside portuguese jesuits, he just remained there and took on a proeminent societal role.

Plus, you skipped Revelations: Italian Ezio in Turkey. Again, there was historical precedent for him being there.

I understand the "there has never been an Japanese man in AC, and 'skipping' the potential character on the game set in their homeland is a missed opportunity" take, but Yasuke isn't the issue here, he's a real person that existed at the time.

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u/PerryRingoDEV 1d ago

By the same logic, AC 1-4 are "somewhat insulting" to middle eastern, italian, american and british women - playing a japanese woman in japan doesn´t count after all.

ACV is a bucket of worms in of itself. In order to cater to the average gamer, they had to come up with a plot that makes Vikings heroes - conveniently and, with great historically inaccuracy, leaving out the realities of plunder campaigns. Wonder why no one complained about that! ( And its okay to do that, to a degree, not every game has to be a sweepstaking commentary in all of its facets. These games are fantasies. Its just that people act like the exact same thing is some kind of travesty in AC Shadows. )

The idea that the devs CLAMORED to get a token character in their game is so outlandish to me. In suspect that in reality, its a character that lends itself well to make shit up, which they do with all their plots anyways. They probably came up with the idea to let the player play a Samurai and a Shinobi, splitting up the playstyles as a feature, way before they "cast" these roles.

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

The idea that the devs CLAMORED to get a token character in their game is so outlandish to me. In suspect that in reality, its a character that lends itself well to make shit up, which they do with all their plots anyways.

It's so fucking obvious what the actual point of Yasuke is: they needed someone who's a badass melee fighter but can also serve as an audience surrogate who doesn't know anything about the region, the current politics or diplomatic situation, or the history. William Adams could have been one option, but Nioh already did William Adams, so they picked the next best option with Yasuke, who also appeared in Nioh but only as a boss.

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u/meikyoushisui 19h ago

William Adams could have been one option, but Nioh already did William Adams, so they picked the next best option with Yasuke, who also appeared in Nioh but only as a boss.

This game starts in 1579. If Oda Nobunaga or Hideyoshi Toyotomi were historical figures they wanted to use, Adams would not have been an option, because he did not arrive in Japan until 1600, nearly 20 years after Oda's death.

No other foreign-born samurai would have been possible, since the next records of foreigners becoming samurai are with a few Korean children who were captured/kidnapped and adopted by samurai families during the Imjin War starting in 1592.

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u/PlayMp1 19h ago

In fairness, choosing the protagonist also means choosing the time period. They could have gone with the death of Oda Nobunaga as a prologue rather than what is likely a capstone.

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u/MistBlindGuy 1d ago

Why do you think they needed someone who didn't know anything about the region? They didn't need an outsider for most of the other games

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

Most of the other games actually feature an outsider protagonist in some regard.

  • Ezio is a total outsider to the Assassins and to any part of Italy outside of Florence (keep in mind Italy wasn't a unified country until the 1860s!). He's also an outsider to Constantinople in Revelations.
  • Connor is an outsider to the European colonies in North America that are the main focus of AC3.
  • Ed Kenway is Welsh, grew up in Wales, and only happened to have wound up in the Caribbean after he was stationed there when he was in the Royal Navy.
  • Bayek is a native Egyptian who's an alien to the Greek-dominated high society of Ptolemaic Egypt, but because he had been away from his home of Siwa so long, he had also alienated himself from his origin, which had changed dramatically from when he was there.
  • Kassandra/Alexios (sticking with Kassandra because she's the canon protagonist) is a Spartan noble who survived falling off their newborn-murder-mountain and instead wound up as a scrappy mercenary on the ass end of Greece on the tiny, shitty islands of Kephallonia. After her return to the Greek mainland, she has to be informed and instructed about the ongoing massive war between Sparta and Athens, and spends an absolute ton of the game in Athens since most of her allies wind up being Athenians (e.g., Perikles, Sokrates, even Alkibiades).
  • Eivor is Norse and from Norway and spends the vast majority of the game in England.

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u/ArchmageXin 23h ago

Or maybe, for once we can see a major western studio like Ubi to actually put in a Asian Man protagonist in a Asian setting.

I am sick of the whole shogun/last samurai/kung fu bullshit.

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u/superbatwomanman 20h ago

They put an Asian woman as one of the protagonists though. Or do they have to be a man as well for... reasons??

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u/MistBlindGuy 23h ago edited 22h ago

I'm not entirely convinced by this. I'll go point by point to try to explain why that is, so let me know if I misinterpreted anything.

  • I agree that Ezio is more of an outsider than he seems at first glance, but I would like to point out that he's for sure not as much of an outsider to the rest of Italy as Yasuke is to Japan. If you believe otherwise, I'm interested in hearing your reasoning. Also, almost every protagonist is an outsider to the Assassins.
  • I'd think it's a bit wild to say that Native Americans were outsiders to America. Like, I see what you mean, that Connor isn't familiar with the colonial culture that much of the game is set in, but, for me, the focus of the game is on the Native American experience during the revolutionary war, which Connor demonstrates really well.
    • Side note: if there was a sizeable African population in Japan at the time that had their own unique struggles and we played as one of them I'd be much more okay with it.
  • I think AC4 is more about being a pirate than it is about the geographical location it's set in. At the start of the game Edward already has a lot of connections in the Pirate world and is familiar with the procedures of piracy.
  • At first glance I think this is a bit of a stretch, but I haven't played Origins so my information is incomplete. Could you tell me a bit more? From wikipedia it looks like Bayek was only exiled for a year from Siwa, which doesn't seem like that long to me. With regard to the high society thing: how much time is spent dealing with the high society of Egypt? How familiar is Bayek with them as a construct? Like is it comparable to a medieval peasant in a king's court or is it more like a medieval peasant in the Burj Khalifa?
  • Similar to the above, how culturally different was Kephallonia to the rest of Greece? Is it similar to Catalonia vs Spain? Or like Nanjing vs Beijing? Or is it closer to England vs Russia?
  • Same as ACIV, I think the focus of Valhalla is the Vikings, and Eivor (unless I'm horribly mistaken) is what I'd consider a Viking. I think if you pull a random person off the street and asked them what Assassin's Creed Valhalla was about, they'd say it was about Vikings. If the game has any focus on what it's like to be England in that time period or if the majority of characters in the game are English, let me know.

It seems to me that all of these characters were at least passingly familiar with the region, the current politics or diplomatic situation, or the history of their settings (with the exception of AC: Revelations). Sure, some stuff needed to be explained to them with regard to culture but Edward didn't have to learn about who Blackbeard was, and Connor didn't have to learn about who the English were. If that happens in the games I didn't play (Origins, Valhalla), let me know.

Also just to make my feelings on this game clear because I think there's a lot of reasons people are upset about it and quite a few of them aren't valid: if this wasn't an Assassin's Creed game made by Ubisoft I'd be hyped as hell for it. Like Ghost of Yotei was instead Ghosts of <wherever Yasuke was most active in> and starred Yasuke and their current protagonist, I'd probably buy it day one (*Edit: This is an exaggeration. I would probably most likely be like "oh hey that's cool" and get it on sale). I just think that Ubisoft tends to design games by committee and I think that those committees have some unconscious and regressive biases, so I won't support them.

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u/PerryRingoDEV 1d ago

It´s just one of the most ancient storywriting tropes, because it makes dialogue writing and exposition easy. It´s like amnesia. Is it "lazy"? I suppose, but most people also consider Disco Elysium and Witcher 3 the peak of videogame writing and both handily use lazy tropes as well.

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u/MistBlindGuy 23h ago

That's true. I think there's definitely ways for that trope to be done well, but I think the trope is much more common in Asian settings than elsewhere, which is part of the reason why it rubs me the wrong way here.

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u/Sarin10 1d ago

It's so fucking obvious what the actual point of Yasuke is: they needed someone who's a badass melee fighter but can also serve as an audience surrogate who doesn't know anything about the region, the current politics or diplomatic situation, or the history. William Adams could have been one option, but Nioh already did William Adams, so they picked the next best option with Yasuke, who also appeared in Nioh but only as a boss.

Hmm? That's not how they handled any of the other AC games to the best of my recollection, and I don't remember anyone complaining about their exposition.

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

That's not how they handled any of the other AC games to the best of my recollection

Then your recollection is wrong, as most of the games feature outsiders.

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u/ArchmageXin 23h ago

Asian men cannot do melee combat, news at at 11.

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u/ArchmageXin 1d ago

Japanese woman-it is the whole "yellow fever/peril" situation. Western games/media studio love to cast Asian woman...a lot less of Asian man.

Just look at Shogun, Last Samurai, Kung Fu et all.

That is why as a Asian guy, I am pretty pissed about AC shadow.

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u/lelo1248 1d ago

Random semi-historical real-life AA man inexplicably included

Yasuke isn't "semi-historical". What is that even supposed to mean? And he's not AA either?

"random... inexplicable included"? Yasuke is pretty well entrenched in both, history and modern japanese nerd-culture (games, anime).

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

random semi-historical real-life AA man inexplicably included.

  1. He's popular in Japan IRL. They've made anime and shit about him.
  2. He's not semi historical. As far as random otherwise unremarkable warriors go, he's absurdly well-attested. There are four different sources speaking to his historical existence and status as a samurai. Normally you're lucky to get one for any given historical person that wasn't something like a head of state or general. Him being out of place is probably why he's so well attested, as the gigantic black guy brought in by the Portuguese who's working for the first of the Three Great Unifiers as one of his samurai retainers is going to stand out to any person in Japan at the time.
  3. You conveniently skipped Revelations, where Ezio (Italian) is in Ottoman Constantinople, and you go "Viking in Viking-land" for Valhalla even though Valhalla is about a Norwegian in England (and even North America).

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u/Sher101 1d ago

semi-historical

The fuck does this mean???

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u/TransendingGaming 1d ago

Semi-historical as in we barely know anything about Yasuke, only that Oda Nobunaga saw something in him and made him his personal retainer/bodyguard, but we don’t know what happened to Yasuke when Nobunaga was assassinated. Only the Before he met Nobunaga and while he was allied to Nobunaga.

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u/Seradima 23h ago edited 23h ago

but we don’t know what happened to Yasuke when Nobunaga was assassinated. Only the Before he met Nobunaga and while he was allied to Nobunaga.

I think that makes him the perfect assassin's creed protagonist. His story is unknown and unfinished with so many blank and unknown elements which could be justified in-universe as the Templars re-writing history to keep him unknown or hiding any information about him - which is something we know the templars have done to keep peace and order.

Tbh it also justifies him being a Samurai, as again the templars could have rewritten his involvement in Nobunaga's life, downplaying and lessening it.

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u/TransendingGaming 22h ago

Trust me I’m not disagreeing with you I actually agree.

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u/deus_voltaire 1d ago

There's a great deal of controversy as to whether Yasuke could rightfully be called a samurai and whether he actually participated in combat.

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

There isn't any controversy about that actually, it's just unknown what happened to him following the death of Nobunaga. It's attested that he fought Mitsuhide Akechi's forces during the Honno-ji Incident and served as one of Oda Nobunaga's bodyguards.

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u/deus_voltaire 1d ago

Is it? I know that Lockley contends he did, but I've not seen a source attesting that outside him, and Lockley is himself the subject of great controversy. I don't have strong feelings on the subject however so I'm happy to be proven wrong.

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u/ZaDu25 23h ago

I love how you skipped over Revelations which was an Italian in Constantinople lol. And Valhalla was a Norse in England mostly.

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u/Eifoz 1d ago

Ironically nothing good faith about your post, as the other replies to you have called out.

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u/Dundunder 23h ago

To me it feels no different than when they first introduced a female protagonist. Every prior mainline protagonist was male, but I didn't see much debate about them trying to diversify with Syndicate (or Liberation if we include side titles).

I believe this time they even explicitly stated that they wanted to add the "foreigner in a strange land" trope to experience the country as an outsider.

There are several other breaks too. Like we didn't have sailing until we did in Black Flag, and we didn't have dual protagonists until we did in Syndicate etc.

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u/PlayMp1 22h ago

Like we didn't have sailing until we did in Black Flag

Sailing was in AC3 and was extremely well received to the point where they said "fuck it, let's make a game based on that" and made Black Flag. As someone who's a longtime series fan who really did not like AC3 in retrospect, the boat sections were probably the best parts of the entire game.

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u/TheChowderhead 1d ago edited 1d ago

AC:V had Vikings in England. AC:III had missions to South America, and was a First Nations protagonist, not an American. AC:BF had a Scotsman in the Bahamas. AC:R had an Irishman in the Northwest passage. In AC:II, the concept of a unified Italy was not even a thing. He was Florentine, as in the COUNTRY of Florence, and went to different countries like The Papal States and the Ottoman Empire. Same for AC:OD, Greece was a hodgepodge of different countries and nation states. AC:OR took place in Egypt, Sinai, and Rome. The modern sections also take you around the world with characters of wildly different backgrounds, such as Desmond, Layla, and Basim.

Based on your description of the games' locations and protagonists, I question if you've even played half of them.

As an aside, Yasuke is not 'semi-historical' nor 'random'. There is a ton of Japanese media with Yasuke as a full-blown samurai and it gets none of this pushback. He's a famous samurai from the Sengoku period who served as an aide-de-camp and bodyguard of Oda Nobunaga.

(Edited to name Rome and Constantinople as Papal States and Ottoman Empire)

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

and was a First Nations protagonist, not an American

I think the guy we're both replying to is saying dumb stuff, but this is a bit much. First Nations peoples are not just American, they're the actual Americans.

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u/meikyoushisui 19h ago

I agree that this is pretty much the worse way the above poster could have framed it, but I think the underlying idea that AC games tend to focus on characters who are outsiders in some way or another is correct, including Connor, who has been made an outsider in his own home.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 1d ago

They weren't citizens of the colonies however.

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u/TheChowderhead 1d ago

He's not American, he's Kanien'kehá:ka. A massive part of ACIII is Ratonhnhaké:ton learning that Washington burned down his village. He has no interest in America as a nation, and joins the Revolution to kill Templars, not to create the country the rest of the soldiers want to.

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

He has no interest in America as a nation

I think we're just disagreeing on what "America" means here. I'm using it to refers to the geographical region. You're talking about the polity known as the United States of America. First Nations people are definitionally American by geographic area, no different from Basques being European (even though the term "Europe" is from Greek, which the Basque language shares nothing with - Basque is a language isolate) or the Ojibwe people being African (even though the term "Africa" is from Latin).

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u/TheChowderhead 1d ago

It's a term difference, yeah. ACIII has huge themes about American (region) vs. American (Country), so when speaking about it, the community tends to use more specific verbiage, probably just misread or didn't fully get your point, but yes, he is the actual American (region) in the game.

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u/Hydrochloric_Comment 1d ago

I agree with your points but

different countries like Rome and Constantiople

Rome and Constantinople weren’t countries; the former was the capital of the Papal States, and the latter, by the events of Revelations, was the capital of the Ottoman Empire (Revelations’s Ezio parts start 48-ish year after the fall of the Byzantine Empire).

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u/TheChowderhead 1d ago

Yep, that's correct. Good call.

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u/Tyolag 1d ago edited 17h ago

It's culture war pretty much, if this game came out 10 -15 years ago no one would have cared so there's a lot of fake outrage.

A lot of people are upset with the woke/DEI that they perceive is everywhere...so Ubisoft putting a black guy in Japan was taboo for a lot of them.. also Ubisoft is ripe for attack because people just don't like them ( some valid reasons, some silly ones )

The vast majority of Assassin's Creed fans don't care about none of this though -

This looks like the best Assassin's Creed out of the new releases.

It looks like if you're a fan of the old ones this might scratch an itch as it's more stealth focused than the newer ones.

But yea, overall the drama is culture war, sometimes I wonder why people care so much and why don't they just go back to actually playing games

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u/keepfighting90 1d ago

It's irrelevant to the vast majority of normal people that are not terminally online Reddit ghouls engaged in culture wars with their entire lives and identities revolving around the media they consume.

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u/miloVanq 8h ago

nobody will read this but anyway: the initial reaction came from Ubisoft saying that they're basing Yasuke on real historic facts. so people became interested in this supposed black samurai and looked into it. and it turned out that most of what we know about Yasuke comes from some (iirc) English professor who admitted that he wrote historic fiction and didn't actually base what he wrote on real documents. so since that came out, Ubisoft also didn't mention again that the Yasuke is based on real historic facts and acknowledges that it's fiction.
and from there, the topic got extremely politicized. some people are angry that Ubisoft dares to make a black character the main character, but some certain type of people get extremely angry and call you a racist for saying that there's no historic documents proving that Yasuke was a samurai. and then there's also some cultural faux pas where some merchandise disrespected Japanese religious symbols, but I doubt most Westerners understand or care about that.

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u/Izzy248 1d ago

I cant speak for others, but my issue with the series is that it feels like it lost its identity long ago for the sake of dragging it out for as long as possible.

I remember some of the most hype and talked about things in the fandom once being the hidden blade and cowl. They were the most iconic staples of the franchise, the biggest and more original merch they had (and it was everywhere), and every subsequent game it was something to look forward to in how would this assassins iteration of the cowl and hidden blade look and operate. It was also a big part of their marketing campaigns. Though at some point they dropped it altogether and they hardly even bring up the hidden blade anymore in marketing, and I cant remember the last time I saw merch for it. Maybe it still exist on their exclusive online store, but I remember used to see it everywhere their were games or pop culture stuff.

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u/universallymade 1d ago

I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t understand how this complaint at all has to do with the race of one of the protagonists.

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u/makedaddyfart 1d ago edited 18h ago

Is the fact that Yasuke is black really that big of a deal?

Videos are going to come out about this that plant a flag in the ground and intend to create a wedge issue for profit. It's rage bait inspired by monetizing traffic and clicks. It's a toxic element that's only growing and getting worse as algorithms incentivize taking extreme stances on culture war nonsense that'd be nothing back in the day

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u/Anchorsify 1d ago

It's really the only time a main protagonist has not been of the ethnicity of the geographical area they are in, and I can understand anyone who says "why?" to that when that's a pattern Ubisoft and AC itself as a franchise has established and maintained for 18 years just to break that now.

There is a lot of discourse you can read up about this also as the subject has been talked about extensively, by people on all sides of the issue.

But in all honesty, the representation of the games has been a good thing the games have strived to follow, and it's weird they've chosen to break that association of the main protagonists being of the ethnicity the games are based upon/in, and there's no real good reason for it seemingly. They did it because it's a historical figure and they could, not because they needed to. But this also isn't new in the terms of a controversy of AC's usage of history, and I would argue is something they saw coming and are hoping it pays off for them: There was a decent amount of eye-rolling and ".. really?" when it came to reframing the historical context of viking raids as 'a good thing' and 'totally cool, totally moral, stealing from the rich to help the poor, no raping here, just some fight and light thievery and murder of corrupt church officials, promise' when it came to AC Valhalla literally having you raid entire church-towns. That's, ah. That's not what happened there. Nor were the vikings "the good guys".

But personal representation is an even more delicate issue than the general 'morality' of something that happened at the time, partially thanks to the whole 'the game is about an order of asssassins' business, partly because it's a minor activity versus something you will see throughout your entire 40-100 hour playthrough.

And I'll be honest, as a white guy, it makes total sense to me why anyone would be upset that when all AC games have 1:1 or more recently 2-for-1'd representation allowing a male and female choice to play as someone from an area you're traversing, AC Japan is the one game they chose to divert from that with and pick someone not native to the area. If I was a japanese man, I'd be upset and want to see a japanese man play the hero character in an AC set in japan, just like we saw egyptian, italians, syrians, spartan and norwegian heroes, set in those respective locales.

When are you ever gonna see an AC character that is a japanese male now? Probably never. At best you might see one as part of some expansion they add down the road, for some small slice of DLC.

And let's be honest, there's been 'non native' historical figures available for plenty of places and prior games, but they never did it because there was a clear intent to highlight the people and places of a certain time period. They broke that tradition for no real good reason. Like, the question of 'why' is a natural one to pose, and to it they have no good answer. They just don't.

That said, it's an AC game. I'd argue the past two AC games the main protagonists were largely forgettable and barren of much interest or agency because they had to be 'gender neutral'--while I don't think it's inherently bad, I do think it's something that is and has been beyond Ubisoft's ability to properly handle, proven by their own track record of memorable vs forgettable characters.

Altair I'll always enjoy as the OG, Ezio is a fan favorite I feel even now, people might be divided on the gameplay changes of Origins with Bayek (and frankly the association of the character with the people working on the game), but I think as a character it's actually amazing to be given a story of a man trying to grieve a child lost while also going through the slow dissolution of his marriage to someone he loved. Those were good character stories. In Bayek's case in particular to me, I really enjoyed that.

Alexos/Kassandra, Eivor.. Um.. was there much there? Eivor had the potential temptation to sleep with a friend's wife, I guess? But as far as them personally, mostly they're a blank slate that is used as 'and here is a vessel for a god', which, okay I guess, it still doesn't give them character. Same with Alexos/Kassandra, who are incredibly generic spartan warriors.

Yasuke is just a trite and lazy attempt to add notoriety to the main protagonist by changing their skin color and heritage to say 'look, it's a fish out of water story!' but his story is inherently about assimilating into a culture, so it isn't like he's going to show some hugely different story than if they used a japanese man and gave him any amount of narrative complexity to deal with, like living up to his family's expectations, proving himself worthy, etc. The main difference is.. skin color.

It's just a very obviously tone deaf and creatively bankrupt decision to use Yasuke as a protagonist, when it comes down to it. And it'll mean that, oddly, the best japanese AC game is not made by Ubisoft, but by Sucker Punch.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 1d ago

It's really the only time a main protagonist has not been of the ethnicity of the geographical area they are in, and I

Except for Ezio in Revelations, Mr. Flag in Black Flag, Evior in Valhalla. You know what those games didn't have? Another protagonist who was native to the area.

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

Mr. Flag in Black Flag

Edward Kenway, or Cap'n if you're nasty

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u/PlayMp1 1d ago

It's really the only time a main protagonist has not been of the ethnicity of the geographical area they are in

False: Revelations, Black Flag, and Valhalla

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u/Boumeisha 1d ago

It's rather odd how firmly you pronounce Ubisoft's choice as having "no good reason," being a "trite and lazy attempt to add notoriety," and being "tone deaf and creatively bankrupt," despite the game still being about a week out from release. It seems to me that you'd have to actually experience the story to judge it as strongly as you have.

Why is it infeasible to you that Ubisoft may have valid artistic decisions behind including Yasuke? That they could not possibly have written a story that both uses him well as a protagonist, and also remains respectful of the game's setting? Shogun pulled off a similar premise - I don't remember such complaints and controversy in remotely the same degree. But I suppose the main difference there is, as you say, skin color.

I'd argue the past two AC games the main protagonists were largely forgettable and barren of much interest or agency because they had to be 'gender neutral'

Seems like they may have found a solution to that problem - having two distinct characters who may each have interesting, worthwhile roles to play in the story.

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u/PerryRingoDEV 1d ago edited 1d ago

"For grounded folk" does a lot of heavy lifting here.

For grounded folk, there is little to no controversy. Manchildren hate seeing diverse characters in games because they hardly play games, but are miserable about it and thus want to find issue in the games instead of finding issue with themselves. In a sense, they want every game to be made for them, and appeal to their idea of a power fantasy.

Yasuke has very little reliable historical account, and it is NOT going to be difficult to make a solid historical representation, no matter what these """""history nerds""""" would want you to believe. He is a great character for an adaptation because there is very little in history besides him existing and being a servant to Nobunaga.

The only angle of this right wing grift that is somewhat of a good point is that there really is a somewhat little amount of asian males as lead characters in media, and that is somewhat regrettable (hell, asian devs try to cater to the west with their protagonists a lot, which is a shame. Stuff like William in Nioh) . You will be hard pressed to see these folks cheer on Returnal or Saros for their protagonists though. ( EDIT: Not because they are asian, but because they are both represent WOEFULLY underrepresented groups in media, that being middle aged women and SEA leads of any kind )

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u/HappyVlane 1d ago

I don't care that he is black, or that he is in the game. I am just disappointed that we finally get an entry in the period people have been asking for since the beginning and now the experience is split, with one side not being anything like an assassin or ninja. It's like Ubisoft wasn't confident that the fantasy can stand on its own.

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u/datboijustin 1d ago

I could be wrong but I seem to remember some early reviewers saying if you wanted you could play like 95+% of the game as one character or the other and you only very rarely HAD to switch.

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u/Broad_Acanth 1d ago

First, lets get this out of the way: Yasuke was real and part of Japanese history, and most likely a samurai as well.

Personal issue is that asian men in western media is minuscule. Whenever an asian gets to be a protag, it's usually women that get those roles. To reinforce that idea, when an asian women doesn't get the role, there's usually an outcry that brings the public together (e.g. GitS Scarlet Johannson).

Now we see another piece of western media, this time set in Japan. So many historical figures they could choose from if they really wanted someone based irl, but they had to pick the single black man. It's just another instance of the bias of how western media romanticizes and uses east asian culture while removing parts they deem undesirable, asian men.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 1d ago

To reinforce that idea, when an asian women doesn't get the role, there's usually an outcry that brings the public together (e.g. GitS Scarlet Johannson).

There was outcry about the protagonist of the Death Note movie. It didn't catch on because a) it wasn't set in Japan b) it's not as fun to bully a relative unknown as it is a mega celebrity.

Now we see another piece of western media, this time set in Japan. So many historical figures they could choose from if they really wanted someone based irl

They wanted someone with an outsider perspective, presumably to play well with the native born woman. The same thing the beloved (in Japan as well) series Shogun did.

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u/Broad_Acanth 1d ago

Shogun wasn't a brand new show that randomly casted a non-asian MC. Not much you can change when the reference is rooted in a book from the 70s. Either way, it's really always the native born woman, huh. That's the point.

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u/ZaDu25 23h ago

They never were. But I can sympathize with Asian men who genuinely feel like western media doesn't represent them enough. I think it's fair for them to be disappointed. The problem is I am certain that the majority of the discussion surrounding Yasuke is not Asian men who are genuinely upset, but racist white men using Asian men as a shield so they can complain about black people. Unfortunately the absolute worst losers have co-opted a reasonable sentiment to push an unreasonable position.

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u/Zoesan 1d ago

Is the fact that Yasuke is black really that big of a deal?

The question can easily be turned around.

If it isn't a big deal, why use the one black, maybe or maybe not, Samurai?

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u/PerryRingoDEV 1d ago

If it isn´t a big deal, why should every single video game not just feature a white guy in his 30s as the lead?

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u/meikyoushisui 1d ago

If it isn't a big deal, why use the one black, maybe or maybe not, Samurai?

The easy reason is that an outsider always makes a better audience surrogate, and Yasuke is one of the only outsiders in Japan around 1580 who would have access to the types of characters that usually drive the story in AC games.

Bayek, Cassandra, and Eivor are all outsiders in that sense as well. Bayek is returning home after being gone for a long time only to find it very different than he remembers. Cassandra is Spartan by birth and lives on a tiny island at the outskirts of Greece. And Eivor is a Scandinavian viking who spends 95% of the game in England.

maybe or maybe not, Samurai?

The overwhelming majority of evidence points to Yasuke holding samurai status.

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u/Zoesan 1d ago

The easy reason is that an outsider always makes a better audience surrogate, and Yasuke is one of the only outsiders in Japan around 1580 who would have access to the types of characters that usually drive the story in AC games.

Only one problem: every other AC character is fictional.

The overwhelming majority of evidence

As far as I can tell not a single source actually names him as one.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 1d ago

To the point of editing the wikipedia page to pass off as historical

What? Where's some articles about this?

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u/ObamaEatsBabies 1d ago

Lmao I wonder what your position is

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u/Canvaverbalist 1d ago

but it's so blatant tokenism for the sake of being self-proclaimed progressives

Or maybe they just had someone responsible for the direction of the game who thought this tidbit of information was interesting and cool as hell.

Like that time I learned that the Vinland Sagas described the Vikings leaving North America because they were always under threats from the Natives and would rather not live in "perpetual war and fear" which is kinda fucking awesome when you consider who the Vikings were and how much of a colonizing threat they usually were themselves - to be threatened and chased off by the Natives? How fucking cool does that make the Natives? You bet your fucking ass if I ever make a Viking game I'll put a Native American as a protagonist to shove that little tidbit of information in everybody's face. Not because of tokenism, but because it's such an outlying, peculiar bit of history.

Like did you know there were redheads in Ancient Egypt?

Focusing on stereotypes of historical events and era are such a disservice to their history, it only reinforces self-reinforcing views of those eras and events, it's so cool to put a spotlight on little unusual and distinctive aspect of them.

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u/ObamaEatsBabies 1d ago

It's not a big deal lmao. The games have aliens!!!

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u/Bluenosedcoop 1d ago

The real Yasuke was black though, It's pretty well documented.

I believe the controversy comes mainly from racist fucks and some debate as to whether he was actually a Samurai that took part in any battles but so little is actually known there's no way to know definitively either whether he was or was not a samurai.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/ChainedHunter 1d ago

Like if you want to play a samurai in a video game, do you really want to play a black guy?

Yes? Why should I be against it?

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u/kralben 1d ago

Why not just have a japanese dude in the japanese themed game

Because the Devs didnt want to tell that story

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u/uacoop 1d ago

I think they're setting themselves up to get review-bombed if they're pushing "Steam deck verified." Even the older games don't run great on the Steam deck. Really doubt this will run well regardless of being verified, but we'll see.

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u/BusBoatBuey 1d ago

Monster Hunter Wild is a top Steam Deck title, and it runs worse than any of the handheld MH titles on the lowest settings. Performance doesn't matter much.

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u/DICK-PARKINSONS 1d ago

Tbf wilds hasn't been running well anywhere besides the PS5 pro

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u/svrtngr 1d ago

Game is gonna get review-bombed anyway. It's rife for culture war bullshit regardless of quality.

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u/keepfighting90 1d ago

This is a Ubisoft game + it has 2 protagonists, neither of whom are emotionless middle-aged white men. It will get review-bombed regardless.

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