Following the announcement that several Ubisoft titles will now be developed under the “Vantage Studios” brand, it would seem that a new Assassin’s Creed game has been cancelled in the process.
A report by Game File states that this new Assassin’s Creed game would have been set during the “Reconstruction Era”, an era after the first American Civil War between 1863 and 1877, and the game would have featured a new black male lead as a former slave. The plot would have centered around this slave who escaped to the West to start a new life, but then teamed up with the assassins from the series, and then returned to the South to confront the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan.
One source within Ubisoft stated that the political climate, especially in North America, is simply too tense and unstable to create and release a game like this one, especially after the controversy that surrounded Assassin’s Creed: Shadows and the game’s depiction of Yasuke.
As one can imagine, Gaming Journos are already foaming at the mouth when it comes to this game’s cancellation, as one article posted by Tessa Kaur @ TheGamer claims that the game was cancelled due to “Cowardice.”
The internet reacts:
Over on Kabrutus’ X/Twitter page, many people have responded to the news of the cancellation, as well as some choice words for the particular article from TheGamer:
They wanted their sick fantasy of killing White people. I think UBIsoft should have made the game. It unironically would have pushed people further to the right. -@deletemyinfopls
Since they don’t actually play the games, the gaming journos only want to see ubi release another humiliating kick in the crotch/anti-White lecture & trauma dump. -@ChattyNate49521
This reminds me of how Far Cry 5 caused an outcry from game journos because instead of being a “racist puncher” simulator it was about a group of largely californian transplants moving to rural montana and starting a murder cult. –@PaladinAshe
The Yasuke Contraversy
Personally speaking, Yasuke simply being playable in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows was never the main issue for me. While I’m not going to pretend like I am some history professional when it comes to Japan, and since the debate topic of “Was Yasuke actually a samurai or not” has been done to death, the real issues I had with Yasuke were:
- It went against the trend of Assassin’s Creed games having completely fictional protagonists.
- The historical revisionism that the game presented made his role during the Sengoku period seem more impactful than it really was.
- The way he was depicted as a samurai and a foreigner, which showed him acting in ways that were against the Bushido code
Besides all that, the way Sengoku Era Japan was depicted in the game obviously didn’t sit well with a lot of people, to the point where Japanese Politicians had to speak up about it, and were even considering a ban on the game from Japanese storefronts. And of course, it certainly didn’t help that the gameplay loop was very typical of modern Ubisoft games, where the combat was average, the objectives, collecting items, and unlocking waypoints were repetitive and dull, and many aspects of the game felt like they were trying to nudge the player into buying something from the store page.
In an article reported by John F Trent @ That Part Place, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was originally planned to have a single male protagonist, a Japanese Monk with a much more interesting and authentic take on Sengoku Era Japan. Knowing this, I couldn’t help but feel like gamers were robbed of a much more exciting Assassin’s Creed game, only for it to be dashed away in order to score political points with the black activists, as the massive change in the game’s direction happened during the infamous BLM protests/riots.
Another common response from people who were in favor of Assassin’s Creed Shadows was “You don’t like AC Shadows simply because you are a racist”. For all those people, I would simply like to point out that Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation exists.
As an AC game set during 18th-century Colonial America, not only do you play as the first female assassin in the series, named Aveline, but she’s also the first black assassin in the series’ history. She was just as nibble and capable as all the other AC protagonists before her, and she fought against the Templars who were attempting to gain control of New Orleans following the end of the French and Indian War. As far as I remember, there was no controversy or outrage surrounding this game back in 2012, and was fairly well received by players. A game like this should be a game journo’s wet dream, and yet almost no gaming websites brought this up during the Assassin’s Creed: Shadows discussions, because this would have punched a big hole in their “racist gamers” narrative.
Final note
With all that set aside, would a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed game really have been controversial if it were released today? Sadly: Yes. Given how loosely these AC games like to use historical people and locations, a part of me simply cannot trust Ubisoft of today to depict this era of American history fairly. And considering that many leftist individuals were working on this game, it probably would have been filled with more historical revisionism and blatant propaganda, such as the Ku-Klux-Klan historically being the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party. They probably would have flipped that fact around and claimed that “the KKK was actually Republicans” or something of that nature. It would have also hammered the idea that “White supremacy is still a problem today, and that you should always be on the lookout for it, confront white supremacy, punch white supremacists, etc”.
It’s a shame that the gaming scene has reached a point where creations such as this would not be able to thrive due to how tense our society has become, but it is what it is. One can only hope that tensions around politics will simmer down within the next few years, so that maybe, just maybe, games like this would actually have a chance to be made, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.
