Assassin’s Creed Shadows | PC/PS5/Xs | 15th November 2024 | First trailer out now

[Moggy]

Interesting call to use a character who is an actual real-life figure (Yasuke). I'm not big on Japanese history but I think he's a bit of a blank slate in that not much is known of him. It's still causing a bit of controversy over there by the sound of it.

I've no idea if it's been controversial in Japan, but I've seen plenty of Brits/Americans getting upset about it.

I haven't even looked to see if the usual "BuT iT's NoT aCcUrAtE" crowd have come out yet to complain about how the fantasy game has taken liberties with the truth. But I presume they have.

"I can accept that ancient beings called the Isu left powerful objects all over Earth as well as mythical creatures like Medusa actually existing.

But I draw the line at black people and women being in my super historically accurate game!!"

[Tomous]

Exactly. Their racism and sexism is so transparent. It must be exhausting to be that fragile and outraged all the time.

[RetroCora]

I generally have fairly strong feelings on historical accuracy in media because there are instances where it's important, but they boil down to - if you're making something that explicitly claims to be or is advertised as re-enacting historical events then you should strive for accuracy, in as much as that is possible. For literally anything else, do whatever the strawberry float you want. I don't care. There is a world of difference between a Napoleon and an Assassin's Creed.

If anything, constant reinterpretations and reimagining of historical events keeps my work interesting.

[Moggy]

I generally have fairly strong feelings on historical accuracy in media because there are instances where it's important, but they boil down to - if you're making something that explicitly claims to be or is advertised as re-enacting historical events then you should strive for accuracy, in as much as that is possible. For literally anything else, do whatever the strawberry float you want. I don't care. There is a world of difference between a Napoleon and an Assassin's Creed.

If anything, constant reinterpretations and reimagining of historical events keeps my work interesting.

Are you trying to say that the animus isn't a real technology? That you can't relive your ancestors lives because of the DNA you inherited?

You woke strawberry float

[Parksey]

Was there any outrage at Nioh having a white protagonist? I think William was similarly based on a real life person with the game and its mythology filling in the many historical blanks. That game similarly takes history and wraps it around an outlandish fantasy core.

Admittedly, Team Nioh are a Japanese development team, so perhaps swerve some of Ubi's criticism of historical appropriation.

Except, I think the anti-Yasuke crowd are using claims ot historical appropriation to suit their own agenda. What they really have a problem with is a "woke" decision to have a black protagonist when, actually, Yasuke is more grounded in reality than a lot of AC protagonists.

We've had:

Several characters that are completely made up, including a Frenchman with a native English accent, a character in the Middle East with a native American accent, and an Irish character voiced by a Canadian.

In AC Valhalla, which is mostly based in England, you play not as an English person, but a Norwegian viking. This character is also completely fictional and is an embodiment of Odin, but still less controversial than Yasuke.

A nymphomaniac who shags their way across various Greek islands, periodically putting it back in their pants to fight off minotaurs and Medusa (that's how I played it anyway).

Two make-believe twins and you can switch between them like some sort of Victorian version of Sister Sister. You cannot do this on real life, though I believe experiments to do this are how we ended up with Ant and Dec.

What's even weirder, is that people are moaning about the lack of a Japanese protagonist in a game set in Japan... when there's a Japanese protagonist in the game.

[rinks]

When Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was revealed, I saw people complaining that “he doesn’t look Persian”. Firstly, that’s outright racist. Secondly, the main character isn’t the Prince of Persia.

[Knoyleo]

Was there any outrage at Nioh having a white protagonist? I think William was similarly based on a real life person with the game and its mythology filling in the many historical blanks. That game similarly takes history and wraps it around an outlandish fantasy core.

Admittedly, Team Nioh are a Japanese development team, so perhaps swerve some of Ubi's criticism of historical appropriation.

Didn't Nioh also feature Yasuke as a boss?

[Parksey]

Was there any outrage at Nioh having a white protagonist? I think William was similarly based on a real life person with the game and its mythology filling in the many historical blanks. That game similarly takes history and wraps it around an outlandish fantasy core.

Admittedly, Team Nioh are a Japanese development team, so perhaps swerve some of Ubi's criticism of historical appropriation.

Didn't Nioh also feature Yasuke as a boss?

Yes and it labelled him the "Obsidian Samurai".

[RetroCora]

Was there any outrage at Nioh having a white protagonist? I think William was similarly based on a real life person with the game and its mythology filling in the many historical blanks. That game similarly takes history and wraps it around an outlandish fantasy core.

Admittedly, Team Nioh are a Japanese development team, so perhaps swerve some of Ubi's criticism of historical appropriation.

Except, I think the anti-Yasuke crowd are using claims ot historical appropriation to suit their own agenda. What they really have a problem with is a "woke" decision to have a black protagonist when, actually, Yasuke is more grounded in reality than a lot of AC protagonists.

We've had:

Several characters that are completely made up, including a Frenchman with a native English accent, a character in the Middle East with a native American accent, and an Irish character voiced by a Canadian.

In AC Valhalla, which is mostly based in England, you play not as an English person, but a Norwegian viking. This character is also completely fictional and is an embodiment of Odin, but still less controversial than Yasuke.

A nymphomaniac who shags their way across various Greek islands, periodically putting it back in their pants to fight off minotaurs and Medusa (that's how I played it anyway).

Two make-believe twins and you can switch between them like some sort of Victorian version of Sister Sister. You cannot do this on real life, though I believe experiments to do this are how we ended up with Ant and Dec.

What's even weirder, is that people are moaning about the lack of a Japanese protagonist in a game set in Japan... when there's a Japanese protagonist in the game.

This bit is actually explained in the very first game by one of the characters who says that there's a setting they modify so that the person in the Animus can understand native languages and speech patterns. Which I actually thought was a nice touch.

Hang on, Valhalla is based in England?

[Robbo-92]

Yeah, that was the main reason I got Valhalla, thought it'd be really neat to explore their interpretation of England in that time period, it was good to be honest, it just didn't need to be anywhere near the 100 hour mark in my opinion.

[Moggy]

Hang on, Valhalla is based in England?

Mostly. There's a bit set in Norway, but the majority of the game focus's on the Viking invasion of England.

[Vermilion]

My biggest concern with this game, is that there is the potential of it requiring a ridiculously long install like what happened with Avatar (took around 8 hours in the end roughly) as a result of the online required for install element.

[Moggy]

Bending over backwards in this case meaning most of us are thinking "looks kinda fun, but I'll wait for the inevitable Ubisoft discount".

[Robbo-92]

Like with the £120 Star Wars Outlaws

[rinks]

Presumably such a protestor plays all games on a permadeath basis, because resurrection isn’t realistic.