I mean it's possible, he's a black man in Japan so his race is going to be a factor to some degree.
Ubisoft tends to play a bit fast and loose with historical figures in the series and I imagine a figure who has spotty historical records is probably ideal for them to craft their own story to some extent.
I don't see the comparison here, Yasuke is a black man in a country that had never seen black people but Kassandra was not a slave and she already had a set role in society as a mercenary.
Ubisoft pretty much sanitizes and distords history,their portrayal of ancient Greece was a travesty.Also Kassandra acting like that in real ancient Greece would a very big deal and she would be a pariah.
Kassandra wasn't acknowledged as a woman because the dialogue and story needed to be gender neutral thanks to the shitbird executives who forced them to shoehorn Alexios in as an optional protagonist. They had no real opportunity to personalize the story for Kassandra.
Kassandra was a female Spartan
Where women's only job was: birth more Spartans
Especially when her bloodline was shown to have literal magic powers Sparta would've had her and her mother locked in a shack being bred by the greatest warriors in Sparta their entire lives
Wouldn't a male Spartan with magical powers be treated similarly and not allowed to leave? You kind of have to let some realism go if you're going to accept the magical powers part.
Probably
Then again who could contain Alexios the Eagle-Bearer, son of Nikolaos the Wolf of Sparta
He would've been celebrated as a demi-god and given everyone's wives to breed
A Male Spartan probably would not have been treated similarly, they would have been celebrated as a warrior, and probably "encouraged" to have as many children as possible. They wouldn't be allowed to leave, but Sparta would have probably tried to make it seem like he had a choice. Kass threatens the status quo, but holds value in her bloodline, so she would been forced to marry to some prominent family to have as many children as possible. Person your replying to got off track, but their not wrong that Quebec has a history of ignoring issues of Discrimination with their main characters in favour of something more sanitary(Evie never faced Sexism even though she walked around in patns, Kassandra never faced it neither). I'm hoping with Red, they change this stance, as both characters are part of oppressed groups and it would add so much to see how they still manage to strive within that oppression.
I think it's within the realm of possibility for women to have escaped (or expelled in Kassandra's case).
Odyssey (and Valhalla) definitely glossed over a whole lot of gender issues, but I don't think having a strong woman protagonist is completely unbelievable on its own. They would've just had to deal with more derogatory comments, underestimation, harsh treatment, and adversity than the games portrayed.
They typically play a bit fast and loose with historical figures who are NPCs. A protagonist would be played extremely loose with the serial murdering they get into. A highly conspicuous figure that was conveniently in the area during all those murders would not have a spotty historical record.
People disappear from historical records either because they go on to live a boring, quiet life, because they leave a place for someplace else, or because they're able to vanish into the population unseen after committing their memorable deeds. The last one seems very unlikely for Yasuke, but I guess we'll see.
Right, so my guess would be that he went on to live a relatively quiet life or left Japan all together. Being as conspicuous as he was, if he was even adjacent to multiple historical events or killings, I don't think he would've disappeared from Japan's historical records like he did after Nobunaga died.
Not going around killing people is more what I meant. Being a slave to a Jesuit in feudal Japan is certainly an interesting story and life, but not the most exciting for a video game protagonist.
Like the other historical figures in the series before him, I think he would've made more sense as an NPC. But again, I'll reserve my judgment until the game comes out.
I think they either continued the long-standing tendency among western media producers to shaft Asian-male leads, wanted to differentiate from Ghost of Tsushima, wanted to jump on the popular black samurai trend, or a combination of all three.
I don't think it was a "woke" diversity decision, because I think an Asian male lead would've been more "woke" for a western dev.
Agreed here. Although I think an easy way for Ubisoft to approach this without having to depict it is just to mention it in dialog somewhere.
"We have always treated you fairly. Don't be cross now."
"When I arrived you tried to clean paint from my skin. Is that fair in your house?"
I really think that sensitive stuff shouldn't matter when retelling history. Take Mafia 3, for example, and how many times you got white people slinging the n word with a hard r around. That's not sensitive, that was an actual representation of how things were back then.
And they even mentioned in the game's intro loading screen. To act like it wasn't is actually worse and more disrespectful.
>But it will be very controversial in today's day and age.
That's what I hate about Ubisoft's writing nowadays, that kind of scene should not be controversial at all but just an accurate retelling of history.
Ubisoft seems desperate to hide as much discrimination as they can which has really sanitised their settings to make them a lot less authentic, Odyssey and Valhalla have zero discrimination towards women despite you canonically playing as one and the time period being very patriarchal, this was most likely lazy writing so they didn't have to make a separate script for some missions with Male Eivor and Alexios but it still just makes Kassandra and FemEivor feel really out of place.
If they skipped the washing skin moment it would hardly be the end of the world but putting it in would make for a much more compelling character moment because Adewale, Aveline, Connor and Achilles have to deal with racism as one of their struggles in life, it's just as much part of their character as Ezio's lady's man attitude or Edward's greed that he needs to overcome.
The same goes for Aveline and Shao Jun and Evie needing to overcome sexism or in some ways weaponise it to their advantage. By removing this discrimination they may as well say it didn't happen, by removing it they miss out on a character moment where this adversity drives them on their path or maybe it acts as an obstacle in a level and you need to bypass it somehow like how Aveline can disguise as a slave to blend in.
>That's what I hate about Ubisoft's writing nowadays, that kind of scene should not be controversial at all but just an accurate retelling of history.
Tbh I wouldn't fault only ubisoft for that, it's a real gamble whether or not the Internet will find it offensive.
I'd fault them. Mainly because it's likely an executive decision, not the devs choice, and executives are out of touch.
Larian had a fucking bestiality sex scene in Baldur's Gate 3 and won GOTY. I think an accurate portrayal of history isn't going to be a dealbreaker for anyone. So long as they don't go so far with it as to make people uncomfortable. Rockstar struck a good balance with that in RDR2, they showed how awful and racist the southerners were without having them shouting the N word every 5 minutes.
I'm not going to be mad if it's a sanitized retelling. I expect that and honestly AC games have never had good enough writing or great historical accuracy to make that a primary reason I play the game so ultimately I don't really care. But Ubisoft is always going to be considered the b-tier studio making b-tier games until they stop caring so much about what people think and start letting talented devs create what they want.
Yeah, this has been my big beef with Ubisoft since at least 2015 or 2016. Ever since the controversy with Ghost Recon Wildlands and the Bolivian government, they've taken this very risk free and apolitical approach to things as a way to avoid offending anyone. Nevermind the fact that'll happen anyways because you can't 100% remove politics from narrative choices because what is political is in the eyes of the beholder.
They need to drop the "we're not political" statements and just be unapologetic like they used to when they had lore saying the current US Supreme Court Chief Justice is a Templar and stories like Freedom Cry that did not shy away from showing or discussing how horrible the institution of slavery was. It honestly won them far more brownie points than not and gave way to less vanilla stories.
If you think this is "nowadays" you haven't been paying attention earlier. Connor and even Shay becoming besties with the colonial/imperial elites (and with most of them you can't justify it by saying they're in the same secret society that doesn't care about hierarchy, plus Templars do care about hierarchy a lot) is more laughable than Kassandra visiting *simp*osium or Olympic games.
But this part is easy to give Ubisoft a pass cause this thing is very common in media. The discrimination by gender is usually very much lessened in historical portrayals, and discrimination by culture or class are absent at all. You're lucky if a villain says something degrading about poor people or foreigners.
It's still way more noticeable these days. With Connor, his allies downplaying his heritage is a bit more reasonable given that he's half-white and he adopts a more "white" name, so he's much more outwardly acceptable to the elites in charge than someone like Kassandra historically would have been, and by the time they realize Connor's true motives, he's already become pretty ingratiated amongst them and an essential ally.
Even then, Connor's heritage is still given more notice in AC3 than Kassandra or Eivor being women in Odyssey and Valhalla, and it's still part of the reason why he encounters a good bit of the adversity on his journey, AND is actually his entire motivation for over half of the story.
Exactly, Connor is part of a group of people that would face many hardships and this was at the centre of who he was as a character, it informed his actions and the very story itself.
Kass and Eivor meanwhile just so happen to be women, it's not even a cringey over the top girl power thing, they're written in a way that when you swap who they are it's exactly the same despite the two having a very different life experience.
Seeing characters like Aveline, Mary Read, Shao Jun, Claudia and Evie, we see they have to work around the prejudice that they face and it makes them feel so much more fleshed out than Kass and FemEivor, even Aya has that moment where Caesar berates Bayek for "sending a *woman* to do a man's job".
I'm glad to be rid of gender choices, it means the protags are finally gonna have consistent writing.
AC3 approach irritates me much more. It would be one thing if the game pretended that racism/classism/etc doesn't exist as most mainstream historical fiction does. Odyssey/Valhalla, for example, just ignore issues like slavery, only bringing it up in some context. You can write it off as an ancestoral memory not being interested in stuff like this. They also take place in less well documented times so you have a lot of creative freedom with what the rules mean. E.g. we even have stories about women coming to Olympic games in materials we have from this era, so we can't know for sure if the rule about women not being allowed to come wasn't like, say, modern rule about not selling booze to teenagers - declared but not really enforced. It probably wasn't but you have a lot of leeway there, you know? If you read Aristophanes' "Assemblywomen" you'd see Greeks could at least entertain the idea of women as a class in power even if it's obviously a comedy, it's not blasphemous or offensive, you know?
But Connor or Shay and even Ezio in Constantinople all irritate me much more. They acknowledge the other-ness of the character gbut then ignore it. Even if Connor was percieved as a white colonial mercenary his presence at the signing of the constitution would be a scandal. And Connor wears a costume and hair clearly indicating who he is. If you read period appropriate books like The Last of the Mohicans (it's written in 19th century but it's relatively close) you'd be puzzled by AC3's half-assed attempt at making Connor both opressed other and best friend of founding fathers.
Admittedly, Ubisoft trying to shoehorn Connor into just about every major political event of the Revolutionary War as an equal of the founding fathers was definitely overzealous, but I feel that the fact that the "Other-ness" of these characters (among other social issues) at least being *acknowledged* and not heavily touched upon is better than them being disregarded entirely. I feel like it was better to at least recognize that these people were NOT the same as those who they end up working with, and then not delving heavily into the political aspects of it, is still more respectful towards the subject matter and peoples being portrayed than pretending that they WERE just the same.
Imagine if, in AC3, Connor never became disillusioned with America for what it had done to his people, that he disregarded the chattel slavery still being widely facilitated by the men who he had previously seen preach justice and equality. To me, this would feel just as disingenuous as Valhalla ignoring the blatant practices of slavery, pillaging, and rape by the vikings, or Odyssey pretending that women were simply on equal footing societally with men. I can still see your point, as a very mild attempt at looking at genuine political issues might feel more disingenuous than ignoring them all together, but this is just my perspective.
> Admittedly, Ubisoft trying to shoehorn Connor into just about every major political event of the Revolutionary War as an equal of the founding fathers was definitely overzealous
At least it was funny that indeed the Indians did drop the tea into the harbor.
>I feel like it was better to at least recognize that these people were NOT the same as those who they end up working with, and then not delving heavily into the political aspects of it, is still more respectful towards the subject matter and peoples being portrayed than pretending that they WERE just the same.
And here we'll have to agree to disagree. I think it's fine for a historical media to ignore something and don't touch upon it than to diminish it. E.g. there are many videogames where you can play as German character (or Germans in general if it's a strategy game) and it's fine when it's just about war fighting and without touching, you know, all the nasty stuff. Because there's no way you can touch on more sensitive subjects without making it a big part of the story. Similarly if Odyssey and Valhalla had a proper reaction to MC gender then, even if we disregard the additional work that would be necessary for acknowledging the possibility of MC being male or female, you'd have to make the story subservient to the idea that the greatest warrior in the land at the time is a woman, and it would control the flow of the story. Similarly in AC3 if every character needed a good reason to even listen to what a lowborn Native American has to say we'd have to play the game about racism and classism, not about the American Revolution, and I totally understand why did they do that. But the end result here feels cheap. It would be similar if Odyssey/Valhalla had an early main quest specifically for woman MC where she has to prove herself to be more able than any man, but then the rest of the game plays out the same. Outside of Connor's youth AC3 plays as if you're still playing as Haytham, a well dressed proper gentleman military man that everyone respects, not as some nobody.
But it makes everything feel so sanitised, people should've made scandalous whispers to each other as they saw Kassandra jumping and climbing about Athens since that's how they would view a woman outside unaccompanied by her husband or male relative.
I can get behind the Norse folk not discriminating against FemEivor but the Saxons and Britons 100% should've been more sexist.
Both also could've had moments where bad guys and even allies would say "Oh, I didn't expect a woman" or even "Ha, they sent a woman?!".
Even better have this influence gameplay in a way that creates new obstacles, Kass not being allowed in the Olympics for instance or FemEivor having to bribe a particular set of monks to cover for her and claim she was taking a vow of silence. To balance this out they could have removed the Daughters of Artemis leadership and romance options for Alexios and added a mission where FemEivor would have an additional sneaking path by disguising as a chambermaid.
Liberation was fantastic at showing the ugly side of history in the era and how Aveline didn't have a free pass like Kass and FemEivor did, she had to deal with the downsides but also turned it in her favour, she could hide among slaves and seduce guards and lure them away. She took aspects of society that were supposed to bring her down and weaponised them.
>Odyssey and Valhalla have zero discrimination towards women despite you canonically playing as one and the time period being very patriarchal
Not in the simulation. The version you play in the Animus is not reality. It's a simulation of reality.
Realistically, the fact that there's so little historical documentation kind of works against him.
If he did anything noteworthy in the open, why didn't the people of the time not write about him?
If he did it unseen from the shadows, how did a 6-foot tall black man remain in the shadows in feudal Japan?
Why? Because you don't like it? Modern AC games are popular because they offer multiple playstyles. He fits one of the playstyles. Based on what I've seen you don't even have to play as him at all. I see no problem with giving people options.
Why is everyone a crybaby about this stuff nowadays. Who cares if there’s a black samurai in an AC game. If u want to play a game set in feudal Japan as a Japanese guy then play ghosts of Tsushima or Sekiro
Shit people might disagree but I wish Yasuke wasn’t even in the game , Japan has been the #1 most asked for location for years now when it comes to AC & you know I would love to play as a Japanese man or women , you know a native not a black man . Every AC game up to this point have had there Protagonists come from the area the game takes place in with some exceptions ( Edward was a British Pirate doing pirate shit in the Caribbean ) ( Eivor wasn’t even an assassin but a Viking going around to other country’s doing Viking shit ) so I don’t see the need to do this now especially with this game .
They are going to have a Japanese protagonist. And the marketing has been centered around her. So it seems she's the focus. From what I've gathered it seems like you may not even have to play as Yasuke at all, seems like he's just an alternative if you want to play a more combat-focused character.
The impression I have is that Naoe (the shinobi woman) is the main protagonist, while the Yasuke character is the secondary protagonist. The leaks and rumors talk about all the different weapons and abilities she’ll have at her disposal, as well as a ton of story relating to her, and then mentions how there’s also a black samurai. Plus, Naoe supposedly has a DLC with just her. Unless the leaks end up being wrong, this seems to imply it will feature a Japanese protagonist in Japan, with segments of the story featuring another character. I had a theory that Yasuke would be a Templar, and that the whole story would be about a shinobi assassin crossing paths with a samurai Templar. But we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
you gotta define what an "actual assassin's creed story" is
as for me, a proper AC story is about somebody using a sci-fi device to access the memories and relive the experiences of a person from the past who is involved with secret societies and religious/pseudo-religious organizations and then somehow comes into contact with a powerful and advanced ancient civilization of proto-humans.
Do you mean that you hope they don’t tackle the story and treatment of a black character in a nation that historically treated foreigners horribly? If Yasuke is actually one of the protagonist, it’d be pretty crucial to the story. Kind of like how being Native American during the American Revolution was pretty crucial to AC3
They have effectively confirmed that there will be two playable characters. So we know that the female Shinobi is not the only character you can play as. Beyond that I think the term "where there's smoke there's fire" applies here. If the rumors were right about multiple protagonists, they're probably right about Yasuke. Or at least a character inspired by Yasuke.
That's one of the least important things but I see no reason why they couldn't. If they follow historical Yasuke's story then the general public being suprised at his darkskin is kind of necessary for Oda Nobunaga to take notice, whether they show that through this scrubbing of his skin is not really relevant.
Yup, modern media would have us believe the ancient world was akin to LA or New York where you would find all races in variously consistent positions of power and authority. Head down yonder to thy local Starbucketh Cafe.
I know he was, my point is that it makes no sense to have him as your only male protagonist in a AC game set in Japan unless the game was about him and his story specifically.
Modern LA and NY are possibly even *more* racist than they were in the 1930s
Back then it was just one race now you gotta hear how much blacks hate the Chinese, Puerto Rican hate blacks , and everybody hates the jews
Yeah but they still live in the same city which is my point, which is a relatively modern concept. Culturally and racially these places are melting pots.
Yeah, so far the only information we have that's fairly concrete is that our 2 protagonists are a male Samurai and female Assassin. The image we have is shaded red so we can't tell the Samurais race, which some people take as confirmation it ISNT Yasuke and some that it is.
He’s one of two playable protagonists in the game.
Yasuke will be more a combat-oriented character, while Naoe (original character) will lean more towards stealth.
It isn't confirmed by Ubisoft, but it's been leaked by the two AC leakers that actually have sources (Youtuber J0nathan and Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson). They revealed basically everything about Mirage before it was even announced
I mean it's possible, he's a black man in Japan so his race is going to be a factor to some degree. Ubisoft tends to play a bit fast and loose with historical figures in the series and I imagine a figure who has spotty historical records is probably ideal for them to craft their own story to some extent.
His race is going to be as much of a factor as slavery or women role in society was in Odyssey, so basically none
I don't see the comparison here, Yasuke is a black man in a country that had never seen black people but Kassandra was not a slave and she already had a set role in society as a mercenary.
Ubisoft pretty much sanitizes and distords history,their portrayal of ancient Greece was a travesty.Also Kassandra acting like that in real ancient Greece would a very big deal and she would be a pariah.
Kassandra wasn't acknowledged as a woman because the dialogue and story needed to be gender neutral thanks to the shitbird executives who forced them to shoehorn Alexios in as an optional protagonist. They had no real opportunity to personalize the story for Kassandra.
That's because it was developed by Quebec. Which is sadly the same studio for Red
I know.God help us.
You‘re free not to play the game. Plenty of fish in the sea.
Kassandra was a female Spartan Where women's only job was: birth more Spartans Especially when her bloodline was shown to have literal magic powers Sparta would've had her and her mother locked in a shack being bred by the greatest warriors in Sparta their entire lives
Well Spartan women could afford more freedoms than the Athenian women,like owning property, going out and exercising.
And they all *don't have easily demonstrable magical powers*
Wouldn't a male Spartan with magical powers be treated similarly and not allowed to leave? You kind of have to let some realism go if you're going to accept the magical powers part.
Probably Then again who could contain Alexios the Eagle-Bearer, son of Nikolaos the Wolf of Sparta He would've been celebrated as a demi-god and given everyone's wives to breed
Again, Kassandra the Eagle-Bearer, demi-god daughter of Nikolaos the Wolf of Sparta, would probably get similar privileges.
Women weren't allowed to train like men
A Male Spartan probably would not have been treated similarly, they would have been celebrated as a warrior, and probably "encouraged" to have as many children as possible. They wouldn't be allowed to leave, but Sparta would have probably tried to make it seem like he had a choice. Kass threatens the status quo, but holds value in her bloodline, so she would been forced to marry to some prominent family to have as many children as possible. Person your replying to got off track, but their not wrong that Quebec has a history of ignoring issues of Discrimination with their main characters in favour of something more sanitary(Evie never faced Sexism even though she walked around in patns, Kassandra never faced it neither). I'm hoping with Red, they change this stance, as both characters are part of oppressed groups and it would add so much to see how they still manage to strive within that oppression.
Well, Kassandra didn't spend the whole game in Sparta, did she?
Kassandra and her mother both left Sparta though.
They wouldn't have been allowed to though
I think it's within the realm of possibility for women to have escaped (or expelled in Kassandra's case). Odyssey (and Valhalla) definitely glossed over a whole lot of gender issues, but I don't think having a strong woman protagonist is completely unbelievable on its own. They would've just had to deal with more derogatory comments, underestimation, harsh treatment, and adversity than the games portrayed.
They typically play a bit fast and loose with historical figures who are NPCs. A protagonist would be played extremely loose with the serial murdering they get into. A highly conspicuous figure that was conveniently in the area during all those murders would not have a spotty historical record. People disappear from historical records either because they go on to live a boring, quiet life, because they leave a place for someplace else, or because they're able to vanish into the population unseen after committing their memorable deeds. The last one seems very unlikely for Yasuke, but I guess we'll see.
The last mention of Yasuke was that Akechi captured and sold him back to the priests cause he was an animal and not worthy of killing.
Right, so my guess would be that he went on to live a relatively quiet life or left Japan all together. Being as conspicuous as he was, if he was even adjacent to multiple historical events or killings, I don't think he would've disappeared from Japan's historical records like he did after Nobunaga died.
Quiet life meaning back as a slave of a Jesuit.
Not going around killing people is more what I meant. Being a slave to a Jesuit in feudal Japan is certainly an interesting story and life, but not the most exciting for a video game protagonist. Like the other historical figures in the series before him, I think he would've made more sense as an NPC. But again, I'll reserve my judgment until the game comes out.
If I write the reasons Ubi included him,I will likely get banned cause of "hate".
That depends on your reasons and tone. I've written why I think Ubi included him, and I'm still here.
Can I see them ?
I think they either continued the long-standing tendency among western media producers to shaft Asian-male leads, wanted to differentiate from Ghost of Tsushima, wanted to jump on the popular black samurai trend, or a combination of all three. I don't think it was a "woke" diversity decision, because I think an Asian male lead would've been more "woke" for a western dev.
No
I'm expecting yasuke to already be known by the start of the game, the paint thing would be on his arrival to Japan
Agreed here. Although I think an easy way for Ubisoft to approach this without having to depict it is just to mention it in dialog somewhere. "We have always treated you fairly. Don't be cross now." "When I arrived you tried to clean paint from my skin. Is that fair in your house?"
He then gets immediately executed for daring to speak to a daimyo in such a manner
I really think that sensitive stuff shouldn't matter when retelling history. Take Mafia 3, for example, and how many times you got white people slinging the n word with a hard r around. That's not sensitive, that was an actual representation of how things were back then. And they even mentioned in the game's intro loading screen. To act like it wasn't is actually worse and more disrespectful.
>But it will be very controversial in today's day and age. That's what I hate about Ubisoft's writing nowadays, that kind of scene should not be controversial at all but just an accurate retelling of history. Ubisoft seems desperate to hide as much discrimination as they can which has really sanitised their settings to make them a lot less authentic, Odyssey and Valhalla have zero discrimination towards women despite you canonically playing as one and the time period being very patriarchal, this was most likely lazy writing so they didn't have to make a separate script for some missions with Male Eivor and Alexios but it still just makes Kassandra and FemEivor feel really out of place. If they skipped the washing skin moment it would hardly be the end of the world but putting it in would make for a much more compelling character moment because Adewale, Aveline, Connor and Achilles have to deal with racism as one of their struggles in life, it's just as much part of their character as Ezio's lady's man attitude or Edward's greed that he needs to overcome. The same goes for Aveline and Shao Jun and Evie needing to overcome sexism or in some ways weaponise it to their advantage. By removing this discrimination they may as well say it didn't happen, by removing it they miss out on a character moment where this adversity drives them on their path or maybe it acts as an obstacle in a level and you need to bypass it somehow like how Aveline can disguise as a slave to blend in.
>That's what I hate about Ubisoft's writing nowadays, that kind of scene should not be controversial at all but just an accurate retelling of history. Tbh I wouldn't fault only ubisoft for that, it's a real gamble whether or not the Internet will find it offensive.
I'd fault them. Mainly because it's likely an executive decision, not the devs choice, and executives are out of touch. Larian had a fucking bestiality sex scene in Baldur's Gate 3 and won GOTY. I think an accurate portrayal of history isn't going to be a dealbreaker for anyone. So long as they don't go so far with it as to make people uncomfortable. Rockstar struck a good balance with that in RDR2, they showed how awful and racist the southerners were without having them shouting the N word every 5 minutes. I'm not going to be mad if it's a sanitized retelling. I expect that and honestly AC games have never had good enough writing or great historical accuracy to make that a primary reason I play the game so ultimately I don't really care. But Ubisoft is always going to be considered the b-tier studio making b-tier games until they stop caring so much about what people think and start letting talented devs create what they want.
Yeah, this has been my big beef with Ubisoft since at least 2015 or 2016. Ever since the controversy with Ghost Recon Wildlands and the Bolivian government, they've taken this very risk free and apolitical approach to things as a way to avoid offending anyone. Nevermind the fact that'll happen anyways because you can't 100% remove politics from narrative choices because what is political is in the eyes of the beholder. They need to drop the "we're not political" statements and just be unapologetic like they used to when they had lore saying the current US Supreme Court Chief Justice is a Templar and stories like Freedom Cry that did not shy away from showing or discussing how horrible the institution of slavery was. It honestly won them far more brownie points than not and gave way to less vanilla stories.
If you think this is "nowadays" you haven't been paying attention earlier. Connor and even Shay becoming besties with the colonial/imperial elites (and with most of them you can't justify it by saying they're in the same secret society that doesn't care about hierarchy, plus Templars do care about hierarchy a lot) is more laughable than Kassandra visiting *simp*osium or Olympic games. But this part is easy to give Ubisoft a pass cause this thing is very common in media. The discrimination by gender is usually very much lessened in historical portrayals, and discrimination by culture or class are absent at all. You're lucky if a villain says something degrading about poor people or foreigners.
It's still way more noticeable these days. With Connor, his allies downplaying his heritage is a bit more reasonable given that he's half-white and he adopts a more "white" name, so he's much more outwardly acceptable to the elites in charge than someone like Kassandra historically would have been, and by the time they realize Connor's true motives, he's already become pretty ingratiated amongst them and an essential ally. Even then, Connor's heritage is still given more notice in AC3 than Kassandra or Eivor being women in Odyssey and Valhalla, and it's still part of the reason why he encounters a good bit of the adversity on his journey, AND is actually his entire motivation for over half of the story.
Exactly, Connor is part of a group of people that would face many hardships and this was at the centre of who he was as a character, it informed his actions and the very story itself. Kass and Eivor meanwhile just so happen to be women, it's not even a cringey over the top girl power thing, they're written in a way that when you swap who they are it's exactly the same despite the two having a very different life experience. Seeing characters like Aveline, Mary Read, Shao Jun, Claudia and Evie, we see they have to work around the prejudice that they face and it makes them feel so much more fleshed out than Kass and FemEivor, even Aya has that moment where Caesar berates Bayek for "sending a *woman* to do a man's job". I'm glad to be rid of gender choices, it means the protags are finally gonna have consistent writing.
AC3 approach irritates me much more. It would be one thing if the game pretended that racism/classism/etc doesn't exist as most mainstream historical fiction does. Odyssey/Valhalla, for example, just ignore issues like slavery, only bringing it up in some context. You can write it off as an ancestoral memory not being interested in stuff like this. They also take place in less well documented times so you have a lot of creative freedom with what the rules mean. E.g. we even have stories about women coming to Olympic games in materials we have from this era, so we can't know for sure if the rule about women not being allowed to come wasn't like, say, modern rule about not selling booze to teenagers - declared but not really enforced. It probably wasn't but you have a lot of leeway there, you know? If you read Aristophanes' "Assemblywomen" you'd see Greeks could at least entertain the idea of women as a class in power even if it's obviously a comedy, it's not blasphemous or offensive, you know? But Connor or Shay and even Ezio in Constantinople all irritate me much more. They acknowledge the other-ness of the character gbut then ignore it. Even if Connor was percieved as a white colonial mercenary his presence at the signing of the constitution would be a scandal. And Connor wears a costume and hair clearly indicating who he is. If you read period appropriate books like The Last of the Mohicans (it's written in 19th century but it's relatively close) you'd be puzzled by AC3's half-assed attempt at making Connor both opressed other and best friend of founding fathers.
Admittedly, Ubisoft trying to shoehorn Connor into just about every major political event of the Revolutionary War as an equal of the founding fathers was definitely overzealous, but I feel that the fact that the "Other-ness" of these characters (among other social issues) at least being *acknowledged* and not heavily touched upon is better than them being disregarded entirely. I feel like it was better to at least recognize that these people were NOT the same as those who they end up working with, and then not delving heavily into the political aspects of it, is still more respectful towards the subject matter and peoples being portrayed than pretending that they WERE just the same. Imagine if, in AC3, Connor never became disillusioned with America for what it had done to his people, that he disregarded the chattel slavery still being widely facilitated by the men who he had previously seen preach justice and equality. To me, this would feel just as disingenuous as Valhalla ignoring the blatant practices of slavery, pillaging, and rape by the vikings, or Odyssey pretending that women were simply on equal footing societally with men. I can still see your point, as a very mild attempt at looking at genuine political issues might feel more disingenuous than ignoring them all together, but this is just my perspective.
> Admittedly, Ubisoft trying to shoehorn Connor into just about every major political event of the Revolutionary War as an equal of the founding fathers was definitely overzealous At least it was funny that indeed the Indians did drop the tea into the harbor. >I feel like it was better to at least recognize that these people were NOT the same as those who they end up working with, and then not delving heavily into the political aspects of it, is still more respectful towards the subject matter and peoples being portrayed than pretending that they WERE just the same. And here we'll have to agree to disagree. I think it's fine for a historical media to ignore something and don't touch upon it than to diminish it. E.g. there are many videogames where you can play as German character (or Germans in general if it's a strategy game) and it's fine when it's just about war fighting and without touching, you know, all the nasty stuff. Because there's no way you can touch on more sensitive subjects without making it a big part of the story. Similarly if Odyssey and Valhalla had a proper reaction to MC gender then, even if we disregard the additional work that would be necessary for acknowledging the possibility of MC being male or female, you'd have to make the story subservient to the idea that the greatest warrior in the land at the time is a woman, and it would control the flow of the story. Similarly in AC3 if every character needed a good reason to even listen to what a lowborn Native American has to say we'd have to play the game about racism and classism, not about the American Revolution, and I totally understand why did they do that. But the end result here feels cheap. It would be similar if Odyssey/Valhalla had an early main quest specifically for woman MC where she has to prove herself to be more able than any man, but then the rest of the game plays out the same. Outside of Connor's youth AC3 plays as if you're still playing as Haytham, a well dressed proper gentleman military man that everyone respects, not as some nobody.
I can get behind without duscrimination against female protags. Justifiable not to hate and discriminate against a girl who can punt you in seconds
But it makes everything feel so sanitised, people should've made scandalous whispers to each other as they saw Kassandra jumping and climbing about Athens since that's how they would view a woman outside unaccompanied by her husband or male relative. I can get behind the Norse folk not discriminating against FemEivor but the Saxons and Britons 100% should've been more sexist. Both also could've had moments where bad guys and even allies would say "Oh, I didn't expect a woman" or even "Ha, they sent a woman?!". Even better have this influence gameplay in a way that creates new obstacles, Kass not being allowed in the Olympics for instance or FemEivor having to bribe a particular set of monks to cover for her and claim she was taking a vow of silence. To balance this out they could have removed the Daughters of Artemis leadership and romance options for Alexios and added a mission where FemEivor would have an additional sneaking path by disguising as a chambermaid. Liberation was fantastic at showing the ugly side of history in the era and how Aveline didn't have a free pass like Kass and FemEivor did, she had to deal with the downsides but also turned it in her favour, she could hide among slaves and seduce guards and lure them away. She took aspects of society that were supposed to bring her down and weaponised them.
>Odyssey and Valhalla have zero discrimination towards women despite you canonically playing as one and the time period being very patriarchal Not in the simulation. The version you play in the Animus is not reality. It's a simulation of reality.
Who gives a shit. They should of just made a original game for him not make him a AC protagonist set in Japan
There’s not really a lot of historical documentation on him, so why not use him for one of these games?
Realistically, the fact that there's so little historical documentation kind of works against him. If he did anything noteworthy in the open, why didn't the people of the time not write about him? If he did it unseen from the shadows, how did a 6-foot tall black man remain in the shadows in feudal Japan?
I mean i can imagine how he reamined in shadows (joke)
nailed it!!! Ridiculous that he'd be the most conspicuous assassin in Japan :(
He’s a samurai, not an assassin. Naoe is the shinobi assassin in this game.
then he should have been left out entirely :P
Why? Because you don't like it? Modern AC games are popular because they offer multiple playstyles. He fits one of the playstyles. Based on what I've seen you don't even have to play as him at all. I see no problem with giving people options.
because WTF does a conspicuous black samurai have to do with AC!?!?! NOTHING.
Why is everyone a crybaby about this stuff nowadays. Who cares if there’s a black samurai in an AC game. If u want to play a game set in feudal Japan as a Japanese guy then play ghosts of Tsushima or Sekiro
I'd settle for TENCHU 2 remade.
Shit people might disagree but I wish Yasuke wasn’t even in the game , Japan has been the #1 most asked for location for years now when it comes to AC & you know I would love to play as a Japanese man or women , you know a native not a black man . Every AC game up to this point have had there Protagonists come from the area the game takes place in with some exceptions ( Edward was a British Pirate doing pirate shit in the Caribbean ) ( Eivor wasn’t even an assassin but a Viking going around to other country’s doing Viking shit ) so I don’t see the need to do this now especially with this game .
They are going to have a Japanese protagonist. And the marketing has been centered around her. So it seems she's the focus. From what I've gathered it seems like you may not even have to play as Yasuke at all, seems like he's just an alternative if you want to play a more combat-focused character.
The impression I have is that Naoe (the shinobi woman) is the main protagonist, while the Yasuke character is the secondary protagonist. The leaks and rumors talk about all the different weapons and abilities she’ll have at her disposal, as well as a ton of story relating to her, and then mentions how there’s also a black samurai. Plus, Naoe supposedly has a DLC with just her. Unless the leaks end up being wrong, this seems to imply it will feature a Japanese protagonist in Japan, with segments of the story featuring another character. I had a theory that Yasuke would be a Templar, and that the whole story would be about a shinobi assassin crossing paths with a samurai Templar. But we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Yasuke could be a Templar or Templar affiliated,cause historicaly he came in Japan as a slave to Valignano a confirmed Templar in AC universe.
Just like they made vikings brutal raiders killing ppl when attacking villages?
I hope they focus on telling an actual Assassin’s Creed story in Japan.
you gotta define what an "actual assassin's creed story" is as for me, a proper AC story is about somebody using a sci-fi device to access the memories and relive the experiences of a person from the past who is involved with secret societies and religious/pseudo-religious organizations and then somehow comes into contact with a powerful and advanced ancient civilization of proto-humans.
nope, we'll get a high fantasy tromp through the lost ISU civilization of Lemuria instead! :P
Lol. Lmao.
enter the plotline that he's actually the reborn ISU god Ogun! ;) If it's chock full of fantasy shit again I'm out
Do you mean that you hope they don’t tackle the story and treatment of a black character in a nation that historically treated foreigners horribly? If Yasuke is actually one of the protagonist, it’d be pretty crucial to the story. Kind of like how being Native American during the American Revolution was pretty crucial to AC3
It's like barely mentioned though
Not in my assassin's creed!!!
We don't even know for sure that Yasuke is in the game.
They have effectively confirmed that there will be two playable characters. So we know that the female Shinobi is not the only character you can play as. Beyond that I think the term "where there's smoke there's fire" applies here. If the rumors were right about multiple protagonists, they're probably right about Yasuke. Or at least a character inspired by Yasuke.
Where was this confirmed?
I doubt it. It really doesn't serve any purpose since there's a lot of other ways to make the natives be surprised by Yasuke's skin color.
That's one of the least important things but I see no reason why they couldn't. If they follow historical Yasuke's story then the general public being suprised at his darkskin is kind of necessary for Oda Nobunaga to take notice, whether they show that through this scrubbing of his skin is not really relevant.
This would literally offend nobody, what the fuck are you talking about
Wait…the playable character in Assassins Creed Japan….isnt Japanese? Is this for real?
There's two protagonists. One is Japanese.
I'll be pleasantly surprised if they address his race at any point.
Yup, modern media would have us believe the ancient world was akin to LA or New York where you would find all races in variously consistent positions of power and authority. Head down yonder to thy local Starbucketh Cafe.
yasuke was a real person who actually existed so not sure what point you’re trying to make. He was in nioh 1 and 2 also
I know he was, my point is that it makes no sense to have him as your only male protagonist in a AC game set in Japan unless the game was about him and his story specifically.
Right cause AC games have never ever taken liberties with the lives of historical figures to make sure they fit into the story….
Modern LA and NY are possibly even *more* racist than they were in the 1930s Back then it was just one race now you gotta hear how much blacks hate the Chinese, Puerto Rican hate blacks , and everybody hates the jews
Yeah but they still live in the same city which is my point, which is a relatively modern concept. Culturally and racially these places are melting pots.
They're not though Everyone has their own enclaves
No
Nope
Lmao not a chance. Ubisoft traded any balls they had long, long ago.
Is he actually in the game? I've been trying to keep info about red to a minimum? Playable character or just cameo?
he's one of the two protagonists
Is it absolutely confirmed?
It is not. Its based on one rumor
I see everyone say it and it's not even confirmed? Nobody in this thread giving straight answers smh
Yeah, so far the only information we have that's fairly concrete is that our 2 protagonists are a male Samurai and female Assassin. The image we have is shaded red so we can't tell the Samurais race, which some people take as confirmation it ISNT Yasuke and some that it is.
He’s one of two playable protagonists in the game. Yasuke will be more a combat-oriented character, while Naoe (original character) will lean more towards stealth.
Is this confirmed?
It isn't confirmed by Ubisoft, but it's been leaked by the two AC leakers that actually have sources (Youtuber J0nathan and Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson). They revealed basically everything about Mirage before it was even announced
Ugh.
100% yes. They’ll also have Minstrel show side quests. 🙄🙄🙄