Petition to cancel Assassin’s Creed Shadows hits 38,000 names in Japan

Ever since Ubisoft debuted Assassin’s Creed Shadows in May, there has been a predictable wave of backlash online against the game’s dual protagonists.

Set in feudal Japan, the next entry in the series is led by African samurai Yasuke, a real-life historical figure, and a fictional female shinobi named Naoe. In certain circles, it has caused the typical backlash you’d expect, with accusations of forced diversity.

A petition created by Japanese players has now attracted over 38,000 signatures, though his complaint is more about how samurai as a whole are portrayed in the game.

As stated in the Change.org petition by creator Shimizu Toru (via Google translate), ‘Recently, the lack of historical accuracy and cultural respect has been a serious issue regarding the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows game from game developer Ubisoft.

“The game is based on Japanese samurai and ignores the fact that samurai were a higher class of warrior class and had to be ‘gokenin’ or servants of nobles.”

The description later says that ‘Ubisoft continues to misunderstand the nature and role of the samurai’, adding: ‘This is a serious insult to Japanese culture and history, and may also be linked to Asian racism. We call on Ubisoft to immediately cancel the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and show honest research and respect for Japanese history and culture.’

At the time of writing, the petition has received over 38,000 signatures since it was created two weeks ago.

It’s hard to take any complaints about historical inaccuracy in Assassin’s Creed seriously, considering how silly the series has always been — between playing out the memories of dead ancestors through a virtual reality machine, controlling eagles, or that part in Assassin’s Creed 2 where you summon clones using a magic apple.

It’s still unclear how Yasuke fits into the overall narrative of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but the series has often changed the story with familiar figures. Leonardo da Vinci’s flying car, which he designed but never actually built, was created for a flight sequence in Assassin’s Creed 2, for example.

Assassin’s Creed boss Marc-Alexis Côté recently responded to the backlash surrounding Yasuke in an interview with Game File, where he called out Elon Musk specifically for ‘feeding hate’ online.

After Musk tweeted that ‘DEI kills art’, referring to the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion, Côté said: ‘What Elon says is not the game we’re building. People will have to play the game for themselves. And if, within the first 11 minutes and 47 seconds, they’re not convinced about what we’re doing, we can have that discussion.’

If anything, perhaps the portrayal of ninjas in gaming, and pop culture in general, is the most inaccurate, as they were mostly spies and very rarely assassins. But the petition does not mention this.

There is some debate as to what role Yasuke played in Japanese history, but he was clearly a favored vassal of Oda Nobunaga, and while it is unclear whether he was a full samurai, he was close enough that he is still one of the most authentic representations. of a story. character in the series.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows will launch on November 15, 2024 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC.