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Ubisoft Japan trailer for AC:Shadows only has 253 likes against 7000 dislikes after 3 days

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Kerotan

Member
RIP Ubi share price if this underperforms. Diversity teams are costing publisher's Billions these days.
 
Have you realised that is the first time that we HAVE to play as a "real" historical person?

Also if I'm not wrong all the yasuke story was fabricated and Ubisoft fell for it with all their team.

Then again interesting character why? Cause it is almost completely invented? Why not make a new person like the old game and write a good story with it?
Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, this is why I think it's an interesting choice for a character

Yes. That's why it's interesting. It's a very 'oh, that's odd. An african "samurai" in japan. Haven't seen that before' hook.
I don't know much about the background but it makes me think the story will be told from an outsider's perspective. How did he end up there, what will that aspect of his character change in the narrative, and so on. If you were a writer given that pitch, I'm pretty sure you would find it an interesting challenge.

Though it's Ubisoft so I'm not expecting it to be used to any notable extent

I don't know about anything being fabricated because I didn't look into it beyond connecting this game to the old 'did you know' facts I saw floating around the internet a few decades ago about a supposed african samurai. I don't think you need more than that to choose to use a character even if their authenticity is dubious if it would present an interesting origin since this isn't a documentary or anything (unless ubisoft took the whole "notre dame historical authenticity" thing too seriously and changed the brand).

Again, I'm not playing this myself because I don't care about modern assassins creed gameplay, but I think I've explained why the character is interesting
 

Kotaro

Member
News Flash: this wasn't a big deal when they chose William in Nioh and he was the only option. At least in Assassin's Creed you have another native protagonist.

There are major differences between the two

- Nioh is a new niche franchise. The game has no predecessors so the creator has more liberty in creating a game based on real character fighting demons-infected fictional feudal Japan

-AC: Shadows is a game in major franchise. The main characters from the predecessors are always fictional NATIVE. BUT YET in AC Shadows, they changed the paradigm, suddenly the main character is not native to the land, a black foreigner to the land. and worse they upgraded his status to be a samurai, when his status is at best a retainer to a major samurai. so now in the game, you will have this black foreigner go around killing native Japanese....all this for what? BLM agenda?
 
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The cynicism in the "b-b-but aliens!" argument is wild.

Aliens are fictional.

Historical characters and events are not.

If feudal Japan is not accurately depicted, the criticism is valid, regardless of aliens or any other fantasy element not related to actual facts. The same applies to characters who Ubisoft has promoted as "REAL".

Did Ubisoft consult with local historians to make the game? if the answer is "no" their multicultural team notice is just as bullshit as the arguments of the people who defend this.
 

Aion002

Member
Ubisoft could have handled this game in a much better way.

Imagine if the main plot was about Naoe seeking revenge after Nobunaga razed her village, then Nobunaga is murdered by Mitsuhide and Naoe learns that it was Mitsuhide that destroyed her village, so she joins forces with Yasuke and go after Mitsuhide...

They could make the first 10 hours of the game focused on Naoe only and after it Yasuke becomes a playable character and we could have his backstory. It would be a cool surprise, like when Raiden becomes the playable character on MGS2.

They could even use more accurate historic events, for example, the player takes control of Yasuke, but then he is captured by Mitsuhide, so Naoe ends up rescuing him.

I think I will end up buying this game... But they could have made things much more interesting on the trailers.
 
Did Ubisoft consult with local historians to make the game? if the answer is "no" their multicultural team notice is just as bullshit as the arguments of the people who defend this.

Yes, they consulted a Japanese LGBTQ+ activist Sachi Schmidt-Hori, she is known for her books depicting romantic relationships between Buddhist priests and adolescent boys.

 

gakidx

Neo Member
I suppose you are playing dumb but anyway, the issue isn't historical accuracy it's black representation.

The real problem being of course extreme bad faith all across the board.
AC always had historical figures, events and correct architecture from the times and places they depicted. The overarching storyline also had crazy scifi elements and historical tie-ins.
It's only a short while ago that people started to play dumb omitting one side of the coin or the other, to further their agenda, which is the same for both sides : censoring what they don't like from the other side.

You're playing dumb, they are playing dumb, and everyone else is watching a downxican standoff wondering how two sides battling each other can be losing at the same time.
But Yasuke was a real dude, he was a real retainer for Nobunaga. Why is it an issue to be in Japan where he lived and got his name?

'The Japanese woman is his sidekick' i am not getting that vibe at all, it's 2 playable characters, or where the twins in Syndicate one sidekick and one main hero?

I don't see the issue, Afro Samurai was great, Samurai Champloo was awesome, why is now an issue?

Edit: to the other poster, I mean but AC had never been a good metric for historical accuracy. Ever.
 
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MayauMiao

Member
But Yasuke was a real dude, he was a real retainer for Nobunaga. Why is it an issue to be in Japan where he lived and got his name?

'The Japanese woman is his sidekick' i am not getting that vibe at all, it's 2 playable characters, or where the twins in Syndicate one sidekick and one main hero?

I don't see the issue, Afro Samurai was great, Samurai Champloo was awesome, why is now an issue?

Edit: to the other poster, I mean but AC had never been a good metric for historical accuracy. Ever.

Probably because of all AC games, this one features a main character that is not Japanese.
 
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gakidx

Neo Member
Probably because of all AC games, this one features a main character that is not Japanese.
It does, you can play as a Japanese woman whose gameplay is more classic AC

And Yasuke is also Japanese. He was a slave, freed and lived most of his life in Japan. If i lived 90% of my life in Ireland I would consider myself Irish as well.
 
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I could care less about a black protagonist, but I just don't understand how Ubisoft didn't evolve their hand to hand combat from Valhalla. Outside of bloat, the combat of AC games is one of its biggest criticisms. And it makes the bloat way more noticeable with such a shit gameplay loop
 
You guys need to dial it down a bit. You either dismiss the Internet hive mind as woke that has no bearing in reality or you acknowledge the online reception as illustrative of the real world. You can’t have it both ways.
I mean we can look at real world examples...

Why would Ubisoft put out an apology to Japan if they weren't feeling the backlash IRL?

Why did Hogwarts, Stellar Blade and Black Myth Wukong sell so well?

Why are woke games selling so poorly?

Look at all these games that pander to the woke audience, the common theme is nobody buys them. If you listen to works telling us about this "modern audience" Dustborn should have sold millions.

Even outside of gaming, why are companies getting Bud Lighted left and right? Tractor Supply, John Deere, Target, etc the list goes on

One group is claiming something with zero evidence to back it up, the other is showing tangible evidence.
 
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And Yasuke is also Japanese. He was a slave, freed and lived most of his life in Japan.
We only have records that show he was in Japan for a total of three years. Your claim is not supported by the facts.

Ultimately it doesn't matter. The Japanese don't seem to like how their country is represented here, and that's all that matters. They're certainly free to feel however they want about it. I don't know why they don't mind Nioh's MC, but that game was developed by a Japanese studio of course, so they made that decision themselves. Anyway, we live in a time where accurate representation of PoC (including Asians like the Japanese) and their cultures is deemed the most important thing in media. Companies like Ubisoft subscribe to that idea in any case. So they could've seen this coming from a mile away and should've put in the work to get the Japanese on board. They seem to have failed, though we'll have to see how sales pan out.
 

Jaybe

Member
Why did Hogwarts, Stellar Blade and Black Myth Wukong sell so well?

Plus Warhammer 40k Space Marines 2, Palworld, and Helldivers 2. Seems like some studios have figured out that gamers want fun games to play that aren’t infused with messages and politics.
 
This is what happens when you try to make a product to appease a certain crowd but piss off a majority. Japanese take their culture seriously and dont want to be fed virtue signaling cuckery like some other societies.
 
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Stu_Hart

Banned
Japan does not matter when it comes to ubisoft games or even console games. They are not going to buy them no matter what ubisoft does. They can hate all they want while playing their little mobile games.
 

Roxkis_ii

Banned
From the outside looking in, with no other info outside of what's posted in this thread, it just looks like people hating on a game because a black person is in it.

It actually looks like that with many of these anti woke Crusades.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
Look at all these games that pander to the woke audience, the common theme is nobody buys them. If you listen to works telling us about this "modern audience" Dustborn should have sold millions.
Ok, agreed, thus my point exactly - online reaction doesn't say much.
 

MMaRsu

Member
From the outside looking in, with no other info outside of what's posted in this thread, it just looks like people hating on a game because a black person is in it.

It actually looks like that with many of these anti woke Crusades.

You know what's racist?

Putting in hiphop music because the game features a black person.

As if every black person loves hiphop.

I'm sure you guys talked about this somewhere else, but the funniest shit is the blatant attempt at botting positive comments for the game Ubisoft did on the international trailer.

Here's the usual Asmongold clip covering the topic really shortly:



God I hate that guy so much. Fuck Asmonclown
 
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Arachnid

Member
Did I miss something ?

'Complete mockery of history' its AC? In the first game there were clones, aliens and such and such. Second game had flying machines dropping bombs...

Ac has never been accurate. Why is now an issue?
Hint: It's not really about historical accuracy.

Do you really think these people are aggrieved history buffs?
 

Kacho

Gold Member
I'm sure you guys talked about this somewhere else, but the funniest shit is the blatant attempt at botting positive comments for the game Ubisoft did on the international trailer.

Here's the usual Asmongold clip covering the topic really shortly:


The video is so funny when he goes full detective mode

6db_3.jpg
 

Laptop1991

Member
Not surprised in the slightest, Ubisoft deserves it, and i support and agree with any Japanese people who are not happy about this, they have every right to be unhappy, it's their country and history, let's see if the game itself is any good.
 
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this video is kinda long but just the opening 5 minutes or so already shown why it's an issue. everyone of the previous AC game's protagonist all fits the nationality of the settings of the game, so why is this one different? why do you have to change this game? you can make the two main protagonist both Japanese but from different side of the waring states and still archived the same story.

Yasuke, while being a real person in that part of history in Japan, has very little actually recorded history about him, outside of all the made up stuff by that white professor in that Japanese university. now, if you are trying to take some liberty with that, then why also make him have a same sex relationship in the game? I get that ancient Japan does have a more relaxed attitude towards that subject, but it is still far from the norm and there is absolutely no recorded evidence that Yasuke is gay. it just makes it feel like you're forcefully checking all the boxes of diversity pandering. and when you have previous games going so far as to take a painstakingly detailed scan of the actual Notre Dame, yet you made the mistake of using ancient Chinese architecture in a Japanese setting game, it kinda give people the impression that you're not really taking this one seriously.

in anyway, vote with your wallet. if you think it's a game worthy of your time, by all means go ahead and buy it. get that super deluxe or whatever edition to show your support. I have plenty of other better games to play.
 

Laptop1991

Member
It does, you can play as a Japanese woman whose gameplay is more classic AC

And Yasuke is also Japanese. He was a slave, freed and lived most of his life in Japan. If i lived 90% of my life in Ireland I would consider myself Irish as well.
My dad was Irish, he and my 4 uncles had to leave Ireland and move to England and lived their lives and died in England as most of the Irish have always done, does that mean they are no longer Irish because they didn't live there since they were late teens ?, no they were still Irish and always were.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Sounds like a normal immigration story yes.
Maybe in the US or Canada or other western countries. This isn't how it works in Japan. To their eyes, a foreign-born person will never be Japanese, let alone one who has moved to Japan when he was a full adult. I don't even think Yasuke would have ever viewed himself as Japanese. I know people who have emigrated to Japan and have been there for two decades and still don't consider themselves Japanese. Hell, you can even take it a step further. There are Japanese-born East Asians (Koreans, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc) who have been in Japan for generations and Japanese is their mother tongue and they still do not consider themselves Japanese, nor do the locals view them as such.

Being Japanese isn't just living on Japanese soil for a number of years. This isn't the United States where it started as a melting pot of different races and ethnic groups and where everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or race, can become American.

So no, Yasuke was not Japanese by any definition of the word. Nobody calls William Adams Japanese because he wasn't.
 
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Roxkis_ii

Banned
You know what's racist?

Putting in hiphop music because the game features a black person.

As if every black person loves hiphop.

Lol no it's not. If it was a while person and they added rock songs to the soundtrack, no one would blink an eye.

Roxkis_ii Roxkis_ii you should not come back to respond, that way MMaRsu comes back and gets upset at your single post yet again and quotes it a third time lol.

one-more.gif


I tried, but the bait was too good! Lol
 
this video is kinda long but just the opening 5 minutes or so already shown why it's an issue. everyone of the previous AC game's protagonist all fits the nationality of the settings of the game, so why is this one different? why do you have to change this game? you can make the two main protagonist both Japanese but from different side of the waring states and still archived the same story.
This was my take since the beginning, it's kind of unfair that Japan doesn't get two Japanese characters. There's so much bloat in these games that Yasuke could've easily have been a third character or standalone DLC.
 
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