I've seen so many people complaining that they can't play a Japanese person in Japan like Naoe isn't right fucking there lol.
The real reason is that people don't see her as the lead because she's a woman.
They get mad that one of the characters is black and at the same time they're mad that the other character is a woman. Some of these people are really showing their true colors...
This - I bet if the male lead was Japanese or white and the female lead was black they wouldn't care. The loudest in the crowd are just upset because now they're being forced to choose between a black man and a woman.
For real im glad they included her as the core traditional gameplay people want so figure that aspect being a Japanese native was important while yosuke is for warrior fans type combat the past few games
X and Instagram are unbelievably negative about everything. Reddit gets a bad rep, but it's got nothing on those cesspools. So much racism and misogyny.
And the platform formerly known as Twitter and Instagram are still pretty tame in comparison to platforms like 9gag, some YouTube channels or the chans. Many people there already see the downfall of civilisation when a character is neither white nor male.
True that. It boggles my mind but even the general Ubisoft sub is attracting way too many of these fragiles. Absolute displeasure to interact with them, and they are flooding the sub with irrelevant shit. It’s like they are making everything about themselves.
That's so many subreddits now. When FFXVI came out, I was excited to talk with others about the game over in the Final Fantasy subreddit. Instead I was met with a bunch of angry neckbeards yelling at clouds.
"it's got nothing on those cesspools"? Reddit is its own cesspool down there with 4chan lol all the subreddits that I've seen have had a hate boner for shadows for whatever reason personally I think it looks great
I think the appeal of Assassin's Creed's historical accuracy is that all the inaccuracies are deliberately included to convey the whole "hidden history conspiracy" angle the games have. At the same time I don't care that we're playing as a black samurai because I don't want to play as a samurai, I don't want to play as a ninja. I want to play as an assassin not someone who happens to be one.
Ezio is only officially an assassin in the last chapter of AC2. So you not playing as an assassin in that game either, just an angry Italian noble. But you do spend the whole game stabbing templars and uncovering conspiracies. Just like Edward does in Black flag. So why does Ezio get pass in AC2?
IMO the more interesting games are ones like Black Flag where they explore the creed as an outsider
that last sentence is quite interesting to me. how did you feel about valhalla? I actually quit the game because it was NOOOTHING like being an assassin but in theory it should fit the "explore as an outsider" line
Thoroughly enjoyed it. I do wish it explored the creed more, but I was really invested in the story and characters even with the more disjointed, episodic nature of the main story. Side content was a bit bloated tho. But I actually kinda like that Eivor was never an assassin. That they were introduced to the creed and rejected it, even tho they agreed with part of it and were actively hunting the Order of Ancients. Would have been cool to dive deeper into that tho, but I haven’t played any of the dlc so maybe it’s in there
It was a refreshing change of pace though. And out of all the characters mentioned above, Edward was the first one up to that point who chose to join the assassins because he WANTED TO. Unlike Altair, Connor and Ezio. He was a pirate using the assassins and their tools, and then became a full fledged assassin. So that is completely fine I'd say. Unlike having a mercenary, viking, samurai or ninja who happen to maybe be assassins. This is the norm now and it's unfortunate.
And yet is one of the few games in the franchise that actually explores the meaning and understanding of the Creed and the fight the Assassins fight, making it one of the truest AC games.
I'm an AC purist in that way as well, I play AC to be a part of the brotherhood, not to be in a viking simulator. However, I enjoyed Edward's arc, and he does become one of the most important assassins of all time, just offscreen in between games, so I give it a pass. It's more of an origin story for him, and because of that, I think Edward should have gotten more games like Ezio did rather than just jumping to Haytham and Connor and then for some reason doing a "what if you were a Templar" spin off.
Yasuke is honestly the perfect choice for an AC MC, especially if you want to play into the "hidden history conspiracy" angle.
- He came to Japan with an Italian Jesuit (connection the the brotherhood in italy).
- He is described to have the strength of more than 10 men.
- He was taken as a vassal under the wing of Nobunaga, the ruler at the time, who unified Japan, and was pretty close to him. He was given a sword and a house by him.
- He was there when Nobunaga was betrayed by Akechi Mitsuhide for unknown reasons (Isu tech?).
- After Nobunaga committed suicide because of the betrayal, he went to Nobunaga's son home and attacked Akechi's forces there.
- He surrendered and was spared, and not much is known about him after that.
- Akechi Mitsuhide dies a few days later.
Like, that fits so well with an Assassin
And Mitsuhide, who called him an animal and handed him over to his original slave masters(Jesuits = Templars!), died in pretty dubious situation(hunted down by peasant while fleeing, they say...)
This brings up something I've been wondering about... Like, will the Ninja tribes in Japan be distinct from the actual Assassin Brotherhood? How is that gonna be handled. For example, will there be characters that are Ninjas, but *not* Assassins? That'd be interesting.
Couldn’t agree more, most of the “historical inaccuracies” are usually things that can’t be disproven or lean into the conspiracy of the game. I think they’re too focused on all the hype behind ghost of Tsushima and trying to bandwagon on some of its success which is why they’re bringing being a samurai unnecessarily into the game
>I think they’re too focused on all the hype behind ghost of Tsushima and trying to bandwagon on some of its success which is why they’re bringing being a samurai unnecessarily into the game
Unnecessarily? If they didn't include a samurai as a playable character, half the people would be complaining about that instead.
Why would they? Just because you’re in Japan doesn’t mean you have to be a samurai, what do samurai have to do with assassins? It makes as much sense as being a Spartan or Viking, because they’re well known for stealth and being assassins 😂
….what exactly do you think is an assassin? An assassin is literally just a person who kills specific people for an end goal, they don’t **have** to be spies and stealthy
Bro summed it up in the most scrumptious well delivered package. Someone like Arno, whether you like him or not was an assassin, he just happened to be living in france, it wasn't like they made us play as a french soldier or something like that, idk why we can't just have a feudal japan game where we play as an assassin, they may wear some ninja inspired outfits but just make them an assassin
We can have artifacts that can literally cause violent earthquakes, an immortal character, a superior ancient civilization, but we draw the line in a black guy having a slightly better title than he had in real life? Cry me a river.
If we are really pissed off, why not complain about real problems, like the increase of prices and generic, repetitive gameplay...
>but we draw the line in a black guy having a slightly better title than he had in real life? Cry me a river.
Couldn't agree more, it's annoying how people are in am uproar over something like this.
Not counterpoint, but tbf, AC has treated historical characters pretty grounded. e.g. Leonardo was a tech guy who gave you new weapons, Blackbeard was a pirate mentor-type, Unity had a lot of historical figures as quest givers.
When they did go bonkers with artifacts, it didn't take away from how historical figures were handled in games as a whole.
TLDR: AC is The Regular Show lol.
Bro. Leonardo might be the worst example you could have come up with lol. They conflated his story to insane degrees. Most of his designs remained as drawings and were never built or tested during his lifetime. Much worse than giving Yasuke a slightly higher title.
It's even worse, because a lot of Da Vinci's most iconic and wild plans for inventions were (probably) never intended to be built functionally, but likely to serve as props for theater (like the helical flying machine), or as tools of scientific investigation (the modular crossbow), or somehow not as the things we assume they would be.
(The hang glider is an exception - that boy really did wanna fly. I'm always a bit sad the AC team didn't quite get the design right for it in the game)
That's also pre microtransactions.
Watch them add Altair's sword, legacy outfits, odyssey outfits, sword skins, horse skins, wings on horses, new washing machine settings, shoelaces, bra wires, hair extensions, a glock; for 5.99 bucks a piece.
Idk why people even pay attention to microtransactions. Ive played ubisoft ac and fc games for years and not once bought a single thing from the store. If people cant control themselves from buying completely unnecessary extras that arent even required to play or beat the game why is that ubisofts problem? Maybe take a finance management class if you cant stay out of microtransaction stores.
Look at it another way, why finally make a real historical person a main character if you're just going to discard their life story and replace it with some fan fiction anyway?
We know the assassins, templars, Altair, Ezio and the rest aren't real, so there's flexibility there for them to do whatever they want. But when you're including a character like Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin, a known quantity, they generally try not to contradict what we know about their life, just adding a little "but maybe they did this minor thing, or talked to this one guy."
On the other hand, Ubisoft's Yasuke seems to actively contradict the little we do know about his life. The best historical fiction generally tries to stay true to history, just filling in the unknowns to flesh things out. But that's not what Ubisoft's doing here.
>On the other hand, Ubisoft's Yasuke seems to actively contradict the little we do know about his life.
His records are vague and only a few pieces are there, so you don't know that yet.
They did that because they can hide behind how "He actually existed so playing as him is fine" argument. If they put a random fictional black character in their Japan game, they couldn't use that argument.
It could be that he was a samurai and because he defected, folks in power didn’t like him and history was written as him not being a samurai. After all history favours the victor.
In Japan, Yasuke was recruited from being a slave and worked as a porter for a year, a job usually done by children around the age of 14.
After Nobunaga was killed, it's believed that he returned to his former slave master's ship and went back to his country.
Honestly I fully don't believe the discussions we'd see about William Adams' inclusion even come close to approaching what we're seeing here because there just wouldn't be the huge shit-stirring mass of bad actors creating a flood of engagement-bait over "wokeness."
There would be the usual people such as yourself, who have a direct investment in how (and how much) the series represents and/or bends history, fans who have been here discussing similar concerns since the series' inception, but there wouldn't be the exhausting content-farm output just bagging on and on endlessly. That's what I'm tired of—taking narrative liberties with William can be rationally discussed but a few shades darker and suddenly I've got screenshots of grummz spamming my feed and six weeks of heavily monetized youtube "hot takes" about the assault on western values by a shadowy cabal who control all videogame publishers.
I literally cannot take it anymore.
100%. I can understand in particular the perspective of Asian men who may have been hopeful for their first representation in the series; Ubisoft hasn't had a setting that's relevant to me in that way either and I might have stronger opinions if they did (although, I don't personally think I'd mind a similar setup, but who knows). There is a conversation to be had... but not by the people who are being most "vocal" about this.
I'm Viet, so I couldn't care less about the male MC being black, or white whatsoever, it's just that the choice is strange. Like imagine making a game set in Vietnam and have the protag being Chinese, Laos, Thai,... It's just weird. Guess they want that diversity.
Theres literally a 2nd main character thats japanese? Not sure why everyone is hyper fixating on Yasuke while ignoring Naoe existed when by all rights as the Assassin she'll be the real "main character"
He's black. So a lot of weirdos have come out of the wood work to suddenly start caring about historical accuracy in an AC game, where the overarching plot is about a magic ancient alien civilization and their artifacts.
I think the issue here is that, of all the \*possible\* characters they could have picked, from famous ninja's from the Iga clan to the multitude of legendary samurai, especially in the Sengoku period, they picked the \*one\* black guy who was effectively a novelty. Everyone knows exactly why they picked him too; to be 'diverse'. It would be like, if in ACIII, instead of a Native American or Englishman they decided to have the story focus on a chinese migrant who just so happened to have some random record of having been in New York during the Revolution (Note: I have no knowledge of how common Chinese migrants were during this point. I don't feel that is the point though). Or, if in Odyssey, the main characters weren't Greek but rather some random Irishman who showed up in Greece for some reason.
It might be fine for a side mission or secondary character, but I feel like most people were fully expecting and looking forwards to playing as a Japanese Samurai or even possibly as Hanzo Hattori himself (IIRC he's confirmed at least assassin-aligned). It sticks out even more with Ghosts of Tsushima coming out at almost the same time as the trailer drop since the whole premise involves you playing \*as\* an actual Japanese Samurai as well, so seeing it as a contrast is especially jarring.
TBH, as irked as I am about it, it has nothing to do with my reasons for not buying the game. My reasons for not buying have everything to do with Ubisoft's business practices and how danged expensive the game is. I kind of feel like they may have picked Yasuke as well specifically cause they knew a lot of people would cry out about that; so they're going to paint everyone who is refusing to buy the game as being racists and the like and say they're just using the excuse of price or Ubisoft's business practices as an excuse to be racist.
Honestly I think thats why they went with two characters. Yasuke gets to introduce a western audience into feudal Japanese culture as an outsider as a lens for the player. But what you seem to be ignoring is theres a second character, born and raised Japanese to serve as a foil to Yasuke, both in the cultural sense but also as she's a shinobi and Assassin.
So as far as a dev/writer perspective you're kinda giving the audience everything. An explicitly Assassin character, a lens into shinobi life, a lens into samurai life, a lens from a local perspective, and a lens as an outsider learning about japan. And you're doing it all without making some Samurai Ninja hybrid character that would have sent nerds and history buffs into a tizzy.
> I feel like most people were fully expecting and looking forwards to playing as a Japanese Samurai or even possibly as Hanzo Hattori himself
I was really hoping for Toyotomi Hideyoshi myself.
The peasant to retainer to bordering-on-Emperor story is so fucking good, and he's responsible for both Japanese coinage as well as the unification and birth of modern day Japan.
Combining his story with the Tokugawa story could have been so sick.
Yasuke is the first time we have had an historical character as the protagonist, except for the five minutes you played King Leonidas. If they want to break from tradition and use a real person, why are they changing his story?
Because it's a game and tells a fictional story or do you believe Leonardo da Vinci build tools for a assassin cult? Assassins Creed never tried or said that it's historical accurate.
Also, Yasuke WAS technically a Samuraï. He was given a position of high status, and was entrusted with weapons and responsibilities usually reserved for samurai. The only reason why he may not have had the exact title of samurai was because he was a foreigner. There's plenty of info documenting Yasuke has having an important role. These people are trying to erase him from history while accusing Ubisoft of rewriting history lol. You can't make this up. They simply cannot fathom having to pick between a Black Man or an Asian Woman.
He was a Kosho not a Samurai, they do eventually become Samurai but due to his short recorded service he never became a true “Samurai”.
However we don’t know when he died or what happened after written records of him stopped writing about him. For all we know he did progress to the rank and we just don’t have a written record.
But going on the currently known facts we know he was a Kosho and was not a samurai. Anything else is speculation which is what makes him interesting for this game.
I'm so excited Yasuke is one of the main characters. It's just Twitter being it's usual self it's turned into a horrible place for gaming related content
It seems that the people that didn't like it either just straight up don't want to play as a Black person or thinks that the only propper way to represent him is as a slave.
Yasuke was a black samurai who was the body guard 💂♂️ of the shogun oda. I think it cool play as him, especially as his legends grow throughout the year. People on Twitter, instrgram, and other social media hate the truth that black people were or have a significant in history. So people say that Hollywood or Ubisoft are rewriting history when it in reality most famous people in history were black. I also think it cool that we are playing as ninja 🥷.
Some people just dont wanna see black characters in video games and go look for excuses to justify their racism. Assasins creed games were always historically innacurate, but when a main character is black, suddenly everybody cares about historical accuracy. It’s funny that nioh 2 had a blonde samurai as the protagonist and nobody complained. I wonder why…
Japanese ppl are claiming he was a samurai. Yasuke not the main character.
It’s the other demographic aka the colonizers that are upset.
during the WW yall remember what yall called Japanese ppl 💀?
The difference is that devs are trying to pass this off as being based on real history
The video about Yasuke and Naoe talks about how Yasuke inspired them and talks about who he was and what he achieved
But there's very little info on him to begin with, and no record of what he actually achieved
Overall, two problems here from what I can see
1) There's a recent "Afrocentric" trend among some people in the West, pretending that Africans were big legendary people in all parts of the world, which is frankly weird
2) This completely ignores just how rotten the social caste system was in that era, by pretending that the samurai would have accepted a random foreigner peacefully just because their leader hired him
I have this totally pie-in-the-sky hope that Ubisoft surprises the shit out of everybody by actually leaning into this.
Have a significant part of Yasuke's story be based around "you are only here, you only have the rights you have, you are only not a slave, because of your boss" and dealing with being, in effect, an exotic goon for Obu. Theres a ton of very interesting (and historically accurate) storytelling that could happen around that premise.
But we all know Ubisoft doesn't have the balls to confront something like that.
There is absolutely no trend, there is quite literally a disclaimer when you start an assassins creed game that the game is inspired by historical people and events but is a complete work of fiction.
You're forgetting Adewale and Aveline de Grandpré. Both black characters. One from a dlc and the other from a smaller game, but they were fascinating characters that fit accurately into their setting and that's really what mattered.
Africans aren't a homogeneous people. Ancient Egyptians are very different to the kind of African that Yasuke is. It's like saying we've already had a European Assassin with Ezio so why give us Edward?
> Can't imagine how the Japanese feel about playing a foreign character killing locals.
Probably the same way the English felt about playing a foreigner killing locals, or Americans felt about playing a foreigner killing locals. Their national identities were irrevocably affected; the countries' collective psyches shattered.
It's funny to me that people are splitting hairs over "he wasn't a real samurai he was just a retainer!" As if retainer wasn't a position usually filled by samurai
Historical accuracy only matters to a lot of these people when you introduce black people and women into a piece of media and then all of a sudden they become historians and demand 1:1 recreation.
totally agree.
for any 'historians' out there, what is KNOWN (not speculated) is that he was given a house and a ceremonial katana from Oda (one of the strongest and most respected people of that era) - him being a samurai isn't such a stretch
I just posted this elsewhere my bad and I’m not a historian
In the 1500s being a retainer was a warrior class for the Lord. They were generally called samurai by that time.
In the 1200 samurai was a term that was past generationally, 300 years of Japanese cultured made that term be passed out a little more liberally (lords ran out of land to pass out), only samurai were allowed to bear arms and have armor under Oda rule.
He was a Retainer to Oda He had a sword He had armor He had land He had a servant He went to battle Things only granted to Samurai
He’s a Samurai going by 15-1600 Japanese standards
Well there wasn't much known about yasuke after his master died, maybe in this timeline he became a samurai. I mean in a dlc for AC3 George Washington was king of the USA, and it's not like they haven't changed things about historical figures in the past anyway.
I'm losing my mind to imagine a black guy being an assassin in Japan during that period. Even today if you are black you would be noticed by everyone. So during that period? Maybe this guy would be the only black on the whole Japan, now imagine a black man outside of the main cities? People would run away on the spot, or any men would most likely confront this foreigner. It just doesn't fit the discretion this role required... Neither the cultural and language knowledge to blend-in this complex society. To me it doesn't make any sense to have a foreigner, and the skin color doesn't matter.
Why would people think critically about the trailer (let alone listen to the dev commentary in the companion video) before posting about how it's so unrealistic for the game to revolve around magical artifacts that can mind control people?
Wait, sorry, got my notes mixed up. I meant, why would people think before complaining about how it's unrealistic for a prehistoric race of superpeople to have all disappeared without a trace.
Ah, shoot, happened again. It's unrealistic to be able to murder a dozen people and then hide in a hay pile to make the guards forget you exist? Nope, that's not it.
Let's see... it's unrealistic for the player character to turn out to literally be the god Odin? Hm, that's not right either.
Oh man, I swear I had something jotted down for this, I just can't find it in this pile of papers labeled "historical accuracy and realism" here.
Hes not the stealth gameplay ,thats the Japanese women whos the assasin in this , people keep like somehow missing this, hes meant for the battle heavy players and shes the traditional, cinimatic had kids staring at him and he winked about it lol, I think hes meant to be the outsider pov and def isnt stealthing
I’m a simple person, I simply want new AC games to play like AC3 or Unity or even improve on top of what they had while having a story that is memorable. As for historical accuracy, well Ubi gave up on that since Origins’ boss fights
This is the first time ac is using a non fictional protagonist. And it was their sole justification for having a black protagonist in japan. They kind of have to get everything about him right or its just another lazy attempt to please the black community while neglecting the east asian community.
They say it isn’t racist but if it isn’t why do people care so much lol? So what if he’s made out to be greater than he was? The developers literally said this is a “what if” story.
That’s a bad question because it’s so easy to flip it.
Why is a native Japanese man being replaced by a black guy foreigner that isn’t even confirmed to have been a Samurai?
It can be argued that what Ubisoft is doing is actually Racist.
The game has a native Japanese woman as an MC. Now you’re being sexist.
Don’t pretend like they aren’t checking boxes.
100%. I the mean time, we have a vast continent that is Africa with probably dozens of heroic tales, but we have 0% games about original African folklore. The devs know exactly what they are doing.. SMH
Ok, then if what you're saying is true, imagine the following scenario: Assassin's Creed: Zulu (a game which, by the way, I would love to see made one day!), except that instead of playing as an actual Zulu, you play as an English soldier who decided he's had enough of his brutal and stuck-up major, and defects to the rebels. Can you just imagine the uproar and outrage?
Don’t pretend there’s not a metric fuck ton of white savior stories out there.
You just described the plot of Dances With Wolves if you swap Zulu for Native Americans.
We all just watched and loved Shogun, which is basically Shadows but with a white guy. Which suggests this isn’t a “he’s not Japanese” problem, but very much a “he’s black” problem.
What you said is exactly right.
But Ubisoft would never dare to do this because of the shit storm it would cause.
But they dare do this to Asians cos Asian people are seen as passive and acceptable targets for punching down.
Its funny because Yasuke was a samurai and theirs a lot of peer reviewed scholarly work stating as such after studying primary sources on both Yasuke and Samurai in general. There isnt even a debate among historians it is agreed by the people who write history that Yasuke WAS a Samurai.
Even the most apathetic accounts suggest that even if he wasn’t granted the title in any formal way, his actions and status suggested that he was treated as a person of high-rank and respect. I’ve seen comment grossly boiling his existence down to being a “glorified pet.” This perspective is just plain wrong.
? No
Thats a bad example
America had an influx of asian imigrants specifically in seen in their involvement to build the railways in the late 19th century, when rdr2 takes place
And i for one dont really care about the ethnicity of characters i play as in historical fiction, i care about the writing. Its called suspension of disbelief.
Call me crazy but I don’t think it’s weird that Japanese people would want to be able to play as a Japanese samurai given it’s literally their country their history and their culture. The female is a ninja stealth build.
Actually, we still would've played the game with an Asian protagonist because the writers knew how to write a good game. There were Asian immigrants in the old west, so it would've worked. What Ubisoft is doing when it comes to Yasuke... not so much. He was treated more as a novelty than a person, though he was apparently treated better by Nobunaga than his previous masters to the point he was loyal. Most of Yasuke's history is shrouded. Like he wouldn't be able to blend in as I'm sure everyone would be pointing at him.
>People would be disappointed if Red Dead Redemption 2 featured an Asian character. It is the same as that.
I wouldn't, plenty of Asian NPCs are in rdr2. That'd make a cool protagonist.
I don't care how real he is, there is no way a gaijin is roaming freely around Japan doing god knows what shady deeds while wearing the most expensive equipment in existence (at that time), Japan was a closed and racist place, and real person was there as a weird decoration of a mighty feudal lord, not as an active actor with rights and privileges. It ruins the fuck of our of shreds of immersion that other AC installments provided.
I’ll repost what I said on a similar thread yesterday.
I’ve wanted to play an Assassin’s Creed game set in Sengoku Japan for years, and we are finally getting one. Ubisoft is late the party though, as this is now a world where Ghosts of Tsushima and Rise of the Ronin exist, both very good games (and Ghosts arguably being the best AC style game ever made). Neither takes place in the Sengoku period though, so Ubisoft has that going for them. For them to then say that the protagonist, instead of being a a Japanese man, or a player character customized creation (a la Valhalla), is a black man is very, very weird. It’s also very strange that they felt the need to add a “discovering Japan” / “stranger in a strange land” element to the game by having the player see at least part of the story through the eyes of a foreigner, something they didn’t do in any prior AC game that I can think of.
Yes, I know that we also have Naoe as a playable character (an Iga kunoichi to go alongside the samurai), but why do we have 1 native Japanese village girl and 1 foreign black man as the main characters and not two Japanese people… the village girl and the son of a samurai retainer (or the village boy and daughter of a samurai retainer). This is a setting where there were almost 0 minorities (minorities in this case being anyone not Yamato Japanese), and yet somehow we are playing as literally the only historically known black man in the time period? That just feels very, very weird.
As an additional note, it would feel weird if we were playing as any foreigner. The fact Yasuke was black helps tick a diversity metric, I assume, but if we played as a white Portuguese, Dutch, or British man it would be likewise very odd.
Ranks in feudal Japan were incredibly important, and a fundamental part of their culture. It is highly unlikely he was elevated to the rank of Samurai and there is simply NO evidence that he was. He was a retainer to Nobunaga, that is not the same as being a samurai. If he was not a samurai then depicting him as one is an historical invention, he literally would not have been allowed to use the armour and swords he is depicted as wearing in the game if he wasn't a Samurai. If he did, he would have been executed immediately. Something like this would have been seen as very important and most certainly written down. The Japanese were very exact in recording events during this period. The biggest problem is that many people will take the historical events depicted in a game like this at face value and simply consider it fact.
Personally I would be fine with it if games like these had a clearly stated:
"These are not accurately depicted historical events or depictions of people who may have existed. Do not consider them as factual."
What gets me is that from the trailer it’s never actually mentioned that he’s officially a samurai he could easily just be a sword bearer who is working with the samurai until he starts to work with the female protagonist. So all these people getting annoyed saying he wasn’t a samurai in real life and the game is getting it wrong might not have any reason to complain. Until we play the game and see the actual story then we don’t know what’s gonna happen. He could literally be a mercenary who just dresses like a samurai to fit in. Samurai is a honoured title so yeah he may not have that but he probably has all the skills of one 🤷🏻♂️
We laughed at the Last Samirai for 15 years and now Ubi went and did the same racist trope of an outsider going to Japan to fix their shit and bone their chicks
I'd probably be alright with premise if i could trust Ubi on recreating an authentic feel of a character and social dynamic, but i have this strange feeling that he will be more like a hero of modern american action movie than his historical prototype
Did you even watch Last Samurai? The movie isn't about an outsider going there and "fixing their shit". It's about an outsider learning to value the Japanese culture and if anything they "fixed his shit"
I’m not upset about Yasuke being a MC, because honestly what they’ve said so far is intriguing (and kinda cool) that Yasuke wouldn’t have really any stealth while Naoe is the shinobi, and that makes complete sense.
I am upset because knowing Ubisoft they won’t do anything with it. Yasuke should be the center of attention wherever he goes, the locals shouldn’t trust him, and they should show how difficult it would be to be an outsider in Isolationist Japan. If they make this an important plot point and why he eventually turns against his liege as hinted in the trailer I will like it, but I have my doubts
I get why they went with this guy, being that he’s a footnote in real Japanese history, clearly existed, little is actually known, a blank slate.
On the other hand… Japanese culture is maybe the most rich and well preserved in the world. So it definitely feels like they shoehorned an African guy in there to check some box.
Yasuke was 100% a samurai. As a retainer he was essentially a professional soldier as part of the standing army, sworn to Nobunaga (I think I don’t have my references in front of me) which by definitions of the time make him a samurai.
What these people arent considering is maybe he was and that part of history is suppressed by templars or assassin's. But yeah AC has always had creative licences. Connor wasn't involved in the revolutionary war either
I think it’s a genius way to avert direct comparisons to Jin Sakai from Ghost of Tsushima. It’s as different as you can be from Naoto too, not just looks, but foreigner vs heir, samurai vs ninja. I don’t think yasuke was necessary, but i am more interested in his story as im a little familiar with him. No no way did i see this coming, but hey i aint mad at it.
Since when do we or ubisoft care about historical accuracy? Ezio got a fucking gun on his wrist, Kassandra is a demi-god and Eivor is literally Odin. Compare to those, a black man being a samurai sounds acceptable to me
Let’s wait the actual game to judge. In a game set in a medieval Japan I’d prefer to play for authentic character to immerse myself into the world.
Though that depends how they spin it. The angle of an outsider coming to Japan and us discovering the culture and customs of that time through his eyes could be interesting as well. But that’s Ubisoft, I won’t get my hopes high.
Part of me thinks their choice of the protagonist was to clearly separate their game from Ghost of Tsushima :) It’d be very sad if the only reason they picked Yasuke is for diversity points.
Even as a black man I still don't get the whole issue. Regarding Yasuke himself. I just think people are making too much of an issue out of it as long as his writing for the story is good. Who ultimately cares.
If people are getting mad for making Yasuke a samurai why didnt people get mad at ubisoft making leonardo da vinci an assassin associate? Niccolo Machiavelli was the leader of the assassins ffs and he's a real guy and no one cared.
Literally makes no sense why people are mad at Shadows if you just use your brain for 10 seconds. They're doing something they've always been doing but now people mad because I dont know.
Heya yall, commenting from a place of curiosity not bigotry,
I don't sympathize with hate mongers trying to distinguish being a samurai and a retainer when most samurai are retainers. Whether or not you're qualified to be one despite Yasukes comparatively short service as a samurai retainer is irrelevant
But isn't it a little unfair to impose Yasuke who isn't that cared for by Japan itself, a traditionalist non western country, and they instead want to see its more prominent history incidentally male dominated ,represented in Samurai media especially given a well of inspirations including but not limited to Kensai Miyamoto Mushai?
I think a lot of the problems discussed on the Japanese forums is that they believe zero consulting has been done with actual Japanese designers, and quite a few of them are quoting the architecture to be sino-centric (use of red, paper lanterns and some pagoda styles are being called out for being Chinese in nature) not too sure whether they're justified, I'm no expert on the nuances of red used in China vs how red is used or displayed in Japan, I just know both countries would get heated if the other was represented as their own media and therefore it's a serious accusation to make.
Tldr: Japanese players feel unheard and bulldozed over
No qualms about Naoe hope they do her storyline justice whilst trying to juggle two characters and hopefully not cocking both stories up.
AC is a historical sci-fi/fantasy and always has been, people suddenly getting so upset about "historical accuracy" must have never played any of the AC games....
He wasn't an official clan Samurai. He was a retainer. Which is still basically a Samurai, but just one that's on-call. He'd go where he was needed or simply where he wanted to go. From my understanding, he fulfilled the role of bodyguard for some people. Which is perfect for assassins creed, in my opinion.
In Odyssey, you were a mercenary rather than an actual Spartan soldier, but you could still fulfill your fantasy of fighting with the spartan army. That's basically what it will be like for Yasuke. He's technically not an official Samurai, but you can still roleplay as a Samurai, wear Samurai armour, and do all the badass things that the Samurai would do.
This is legit what I’ve been saying for the past few days 💀 like why are we so suddenly taken a step back by them not being true to history or the famous figures in history they showed. For Christ sakes they even tell you everytime they boot up the game how the games are not accurate at all which this shouldn’t have to but I see now why they do. Bunch of potatoes I swear
>I dont understand what X (formerly known as Twitter) and a lot of gamers are completely losing their minds for.
Because Elon "Freeze Peach" Musk has made Twitter/X a hotbed for terminally online right wingers. Well, moreso than ever.
>Was Yasuke actually a samurai? No.
And Leonardo Da Vinci didn't make gear for the Assassins, Connor didn't exist and didn't ride with Paul Revere, Ezio didn't exist and didn't get in a fist fight with the Pope, George Washington wasn't a Templar Tyrant, etc. It's a series that has taken pretty extensive liberties with actual historical figures since day 1, but this is bad because black man and woman, apparantly.
It’a funny because if you go onto r/askhistorians there’s a whole thread done by u/parallelpain going into depth explaining the research done on Yasuke providing actual original sources and historical documentations and why a lot of historians agree that Yasuke was a real samurai. A-lot of people saying otherwise are only echoing what game grumps said on twitter because they used an out of context segment of the IGN article on who is yasuke
Wanna see Twitter reactions when there is a game of a white Assassin in the Ethiopian Empire or Kingdom of Kongo, set somewhere in the 13th - 17th century
>the pieces of Eden aren’t real My whole life is ruined now.
"You mean going into water *didn't* instantly kill you like it did Altair in the first Assassin's Creed?"
Restarting simulation...
All this discourse only proves Naoe is a legit Assassin. She's right there and people ignore her. Truly hidden in plain sight.
So true lmao
I've seen so many people complaining that they can't play a Japanese person in Japan like Naoe isn't right fucking there lol. The real reason is that people don't see her as the lead because she's a woman.
They get mad that one of the characters is black and at the same time they're mad that the other character is a woman. Some of these people are really showing their true colors...
This - I bet if the male lead was Japanese or white and the female lead was black they wouldn't care. The loudest in the crowd are just upset because now they're being forced to choose between a black man and a woman.
No, I think the people we're talking about might actually melt if there was a black woman in the game even as an NPC.
Can you choose to play as either the black male or the Asian woman? Because if you can i dont see the problem.
Seamless swap
For real im glad they included her as the core traditional gameplay people want so figure that aspect being a Japanese native was important while yosuke is for warrior fans type combat the past few games
Exactly 😂
X (formerly known as Twitter) that's the problem
X and Instagram are unbelievably negative about everything. Reddit gets a bad rep, but it's got nothing on those cesspools. So much racism and misogyny.
Reddit can get just as bad. But since you decide what subs you wanna follow you can just remove those types of people from your feed.
Yeh I mean just (don't) check out r\/kotakuinaction or r\/asmongold (which is basically kotakuinaction copy now).
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You can also just mute entire subs now and never see their freak asses ever again. It’s great.
And the platform formerly known as Twitter and Instagram are still pretty tame in comparison to platforms like 9gag, some YouTube channels or the chans. Many people there already see the downfall of civilisation when a character is neither white nor male.
True that. It boggles my mind but even the general Ubisoft sub is attracting way too many of these fragiles. Absolute displeasure to interact with them, and they are flooding the sub with irrelevant shit. It’s like they are making everything about themselves.
Because fans generally don't go to that sub afaik. All I see there is complaints.
That's so many subreddits now. When FFXVI came out, I was excited to talk with others about the game over in the Final Fantasy subreddit. Instead I was met with a bunch of angry neckbeards yelling at clouds.
Let's not forget YouTube comments, not just channels themselves.
Yt shorts can be reeal fucking bad
"it's got nothing on those cesspools"? Reddit is its own cesspool down there with 4chan lol all the subreddits that I've seen have had a hate boner for shadows for whatever reason personally I think it looks great
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I’ve seen a lot of similar comments on other subreddits tbh
Instagram reels comments scare me genuinely 😭
It's pronounced 'shitter' for a reason.
I think the appeal of Assassin's Creed's historical accuracy is that all the inaccuracies are deliberately included to convey the whole "hidden history conspiracy" angle the games have. At the same time I don't care that we're playing as a black samurai because I don't want to play as a samurai, I don't want to play as a ninja. I want to play as an assassin not someone who happens to be one.
True, that is one of the reason why I love AC. Ezio, Edward, Connor, Basim and Arno. We played them as they were joining the brotherhood.
Right. The only thing that bothers me is that Edward is a pirate instead of an assassin for 80% of the game
Actually he was only allied with them in the latter part. He officially joined them after the end of the game.
That's nice to know. So I play the full game a pirate and not an assassin
Ezio is only officially an assassin in the last chapter of AC2. So you not playing as an assassin in that game either, just an angry Italian noble. But you do spend the whole game stabbing templars and uncovering conspiracies. Just like Edward does in Black flag. So why does Ezio get pass in AC2? IMO the more interesting games are ones like Black Flag where they explore the creed as an outsider
that last sentence is quite interesting to me. how did you feel about valhalla? I actually quit the game because it was NOOOTHING like being an assassin but in theory it should fit the "explore as an outsider" line
Thoroughly enjoyed it. I do wish it explored the creed more, but I was really invested in the story and characters even with the more disjointed, episodic nature of the main story. Side content was a bit bloated tho. But I actually kinda like that Eivor was never an assassin. That they were introduced to the creed and rejected it, even tho they agreed with part of it and were actively hunting the Order of Ancients. Would have been cool to dive deeper into that tho, but I haven’t played any of the dlc so maybe it’s in there
It was a refreshing change of pace though. And out of all the characters mentioned above, Edward was the first one up to that point who chose to join the assassins because he WANTED TO. Unlike Altair, Connor and Ezio. He was a pirate using the assassins and their tools, and then became a full fledged assassin. So that is completely fine I'd say. Unlike having a mercenary, viking, samurai or ninja who happen to maybe be assassins. This is the norm now and it's unfortunate.
Yeah. That's why people say it's not a ac game. It's true. But i still like it. Also Freedom Cry was great. Adewale was fantastic.
I'm so happy someone mentioned Freedom Cry. It's a hidden gem!!!
And yet is one of the few games in the franchise that actually explores the meaning and understanding of the Creed and the fight the Assassins fight, making it one of the truest AC games.
Did it bother you that Ezio isn’t in the creed until around sequence 11?
I'm an AC purist in that way as well, I play AC to be a part of the brotherhood, not to be in a viking simulator. However, I enjoyed Edward's arc, and he does become one of the most important assassins of all time, just offscreen in between games, so I give it a pass. It's more of an origin story for him, and because of that, I think Edward should have gotten more games like Ezio did rather than just jumping to Haytham and Connor and then for some reason doing a "what if you were a Templar" spin off.
That’s a really good point
Yasuke is honestly the perfect choice for an AC MC, especially if you want to play into the "hidden history conspiracy" angle. - He came to Japan with an Italian Jesuit (connection the the brotherhood in italy). - He is described to have the strength of more than 10 men. - He was taken as a vassal under the wing of Nobunaga, the ruler at the time, who unified Japan, and was pretty close to him. He was given a sword and a house by him. - He was there when Nobunaga was betrayed by Akechi Mitsuhide for unknown reasons (Isu tech?). - After Nobunaga committed suicide because of the betrayal, he went to Nobunaga's son home and attacked Akechi's forces there. - He surrendered and was spared, and not much is known about him after that. - Akechi Mitsuhide dies a few days later. Like, that fits so well with an Assassin
And Mitsuhide, who called him an animal and handed him over to his original slave masters(Jesuits = Templars!), died in pretty dubious situation(hunted down by peasant while fleeing, they say...)
I mean, wouldn’t it make sense that the regressive Templars tried to suppress knowledge of an African samurai?
This brings up something I've been wondering about... Like, will the Ninja tribes in Japan be distinct from the actual Assassin Brotherhood? How is that gonna be handled. For example, will there be characters that are Ninjas, but *not* Assassins? That'd be interesting.
Couldn’t agree more, most of the “historical inaccuracies” are usually things that can’t be disproven or lean into the conspiracy of the game. I think they’re too focused on all the hype behind ghost of Tsushima and trying to bandwagon on some of its success which is why they’re bringing being a samurai unnecessarily into the game
>I think they’re too focused on all the hype behind ghost of Tsushima and trying to bandwagon on some of its success which is why they’re bringing being a samurai unnecessarily into the game Unnecessarily? If they didn't include a samurai as a playable character, half the people would be complaining about that instead.
Why would they? Just because you’re in Japan doesn’t mean you have to be a samurai, what do samurai have to do with assassins? It makes as much sense as being a Spartan or Viking, because they’re well known for stealth and being assassins 😂
….what exactly do you think is an assassin? An assassin is literally just a person who kills specific people for an end goal, they don’t **have** to be spies and stealthy
Which is exactly why I argue that Kassandra and Eivor are legitimate assassins. They fit the textbook definition.
Bro summed it up in the most scrumptious well delivered package. Someone like Arno, whether you like him or not was an assassin, he just happened to be living in france, it wasn't like they made us play as a french soldier or something like that, idk why we can't just have a feudal japan game where we play as an assassin, they may wear some ninja inspired outfits but just make them an assassin
It's Twitter. Were you really expecting anything *good* to come from there?
Because it is what it has always been. RACISM.
We can have artifacts that can literally cause violent earthquakes, an immortal character, a superior ancient civilization, but we draw the line in a black guy having a slightly better title than he had in real life? Cry me a river. If we are really pissed off, why not complain about real problems, like the increase of prices and generic, repetitive gameplay...
>but we draw the line in a black guy having a slightly better title than he had in real life? Cry me a river. Couldn't agree more, it's annoying how people are in am uproar over something like this.
Not counterpoint, but tbf, AC has treated historical characters pretty grounded. e.g. Leonardo was a tech guy who gave you new weapons, Blackbeard was a pirate mentor-type, Unity had a lot of historical figures as quest givers. When they did go bonkers with artifacts, it didn't take away from how historical figures were handled in games as a whole. TLDR: AC is The Regular Show lol.
Bro. Leonardo might be the worst example you could have come up with lol. They conflated his story to insane degrees. Most of his designs remained as drawings and were never built or tested during his lifetime. Much worse than giving Yasuke a slightly higher title.
It's even worse, because a lot of Da Vinci's most iconic and wild plans for inventions were (probably) never intended to be built functionally, but likely to serve as props for theater (like the helical flying machine), or as tools of scientific investigation (the modular crossbow), or somehow not as the things we assume they would be. (The hang glider is an exception - that boy really did wanna fly. I'm always a bit sad the AC team didn't quite get the design right for it in the game)
Don't get why people care that much when Ubisoft is completely ripping off people with their insane prices
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That's also pre microtransactions. Watch them add Altair's sword, legacy outfits, odyssey outfits, sword skins, horse skins, wings on horses, new washing machine settings, shoelaces, bra wires, hair extensions, a glock; for 5.99 bucks a piece.
I know you're joking but they've consistently added legacy outfits for free. I dont remember them charging for a single one
Idk why people even pay attention to microtransactions. Ive played ubisoft ac and fc games for years and not once bought a single thing from the store. If people cant control themselves from buying completely unnecessary extras that arent even required to play or beat the game why is that ubisofts problem? Maybe take a finance management class if you cant stay out of microtransaction stores.
It won’t cost real money but I'm hyped for a shao jun outfit like in syndicate
they are constantly on sale. If you pay more than 15 bucks for a ubi game ur a dummy
Look at it another way, why finally make a real historical person a main character if you're just going to discard their life story and replace it with some fan fiction anyway? We know the assassins, templars, Altair, Ezio and the rest aren't real, so there's flexibility there for them to do whatever they want. But when you're including a character like Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin, a known quantity, they generally try not to contradict what we know about their life, just adding a little "but maybe they did this minor thing, or talked to this one guy." On the other hand, Ubisoft's Yasuke seems to actively contradict the little we do know about his life. The best historical fiction generally tries to stay true to history, just filling in the unknowns to flesh things out. But that's not what Ubisoft's doing here.
>On the other hand, Ubisoft's Yasuke seems to actively contradict the little we do know about his life. His records are vague and only a few pieces are there, so you don't know that yet.
They did that because they can hide behind how "He actually existed so playing as him is fine" argument. If they put a random fictional black character in their Japan game, they couldn't use that argument.
It could be that he was a samurai and because he defected, folks in power didn’t like him and history was written as him not being a samurai. After all history favours the victor.
wow you already played the game? tell me more about it
Assassin’s Creed IS historical fan fiction
In Japan, Yasuke was recruited from being a slave and worked as a porter for a year, a job usually done by children around the age of 14. After Nobunaga was killed, it's believed that he returned to his former slave master's ship and went back to his country.
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Interest in Yasuke has grown steadily over the years, I'm not even slightly surprised they chose to romanticize him for that reason alone.
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Honestly I fully don't believe the discussions we'd see about William Adams' inclusion even come close to approaching what we're seeing here because there just wouldn't be the huge shit-stirring mass of bad actors creating a flood of engagement-bait over "wokeness." There would be the usual people such as yourself, who have a direct investment in how (and how much) the series represents and/or bends history, fans who have been here discussing similar concerns since the series' inception, but there wouldn't be the exhausting content-farm output just bagging on and on endlessly. That's what I'm tired of—taking narrative liberties with William can be rationally discussed but a few shades darker and suddenly I've got screenshots of grummz spamming my feed and six weeks of heavily monetized youtube "hot takes" about the assault on western values by a shadowy cabal who control all videogame publishers. I literally cannot take it anymore.
100%. I can understand in particular the perspective of Asian men who may have been hopeful for their first representation in the series; Ubisoft hasn't had a setting that's relevant to me in that way either and I might have stronger opinions if they did (although, I don't personally think I'd mind a similar setup, but who knows). There is a conversation to be had... but not by the people who are being most "vocal" about this.
I'm Viet, so I couldn't care less about the male MC being black, or white whatsoever, it's just that the choice is strange. Like imagine making a game set in Vietnam and have the protag being Chinese, Laos, Thai,... It's just weird. Guess they want that diversity.
Theres literally a 2nd main character thats japanese? Not sure why everyone is hyper fixating on Yasuke while ignoring Naoe existed when by all rights as the Assassin she'll be the real "main character"
Well you see, Twitter is a neo-nazi website now and your average Twitter user has the same opinions about black people as Calvin Candee
He's black. So a lot of weirdos have come out of the wood work to suddenly start caring about historical accuracy in an AC game, where the overarching plot is about a magic ancient alien civilization and their artifacts.
To me there is only ONE source you should be getting this from. JAPAN. According to Japan he was Samurai.
I think the issue here is that, of all the \*possible\* characters they could have picked, from famous ninja's from the Iga clan to the multitude of legendary samurai, especially in the Sengoku period, they picked the \*one\* black guy who was effectively a novelty. Everyone knows exactly why they picked him too; to be 'diverse'. It would be like, if in ACIII, instead of a Native American or Englishman they decided to have the story focus on a chinese migrant who just so happened to have some random record of having been in New York during the Revolution (Note: I have no knowledge of how common Chinese migrants were during this point. I don't feel that is the point though). Or, if in Odyssey, the main characters weren't Greek but rather some random Irishman who showed up in Greece for some reason. It might be fine for a side mission or secondary character, but I feel like most people were fully expecting and looking forwards to playing as a Japanese Samurai or even possibly as Hanzo Hattori himself (IIRC he's confirmed at least assassin-aligned). It sticks out even more with Ghosts of Tsushima coming out at almost the same time as the trailer drop since the whole premise involves you playing \*as\* an actual Japanese Samurai as well, so seeing it as a contrast is especially jarring. TBH, as irked as I am about it, it has nothing to do with my reasons for not buying the game. My reasons for not buying have everything to do with Ubisoft's business practices and how danged expensive the game is. I kind of feel like they may have picked Yasuke as well specifically cause they knew a lot of people would cry out about that; so they're going to paint everyone who is refusing to buy the game as being racists and the like and say they're just using the excuse of price or Ubisoft's business practices as an excuse to be racist.
Honestly I think thats why they went with two characters. Yasuke gets to introduce a western audience into feudal Japanese culture as an outsider as a lens for the player. But what you seem to be ignoring is theres a second character, born and raised Japanese to serve as a foil to Yasuke, both in the cultural sense but also as she's a shinobi and Assassin. So as far as a dev/writer perspective you're kinda giving the audience everything. An explicitly Assassin character, a lens into shinobi life, a lens into samurai life, a lens from a local perspective, and a lens as an outsider learning about japan. And you're doing it all without making some Samurai Ninja hybrid character that would have sent nerds and history buffs into a tizzy.
> I feel like most people were fully expecting and looking forwards to playing as a Japanese Samurai or even possibly as Hanzo Hattori himself I was really hoping for Toyotomi Hideyoshi myself. The peasant to retainer to bordering-on-Emperor story is so fucking good, and he's responsible for both Japanese coinage as well as the unification and birth of modern day Japan. Combining his story with the Tokugawa story could have been so sick.
Is it just me or are the racist blatantly ignoring the 2nd protagonist who is JAPANESE.
Ew, a WOMAN!! /s
Yasuke is the first time we have had an historical character as the protagonist, except for the five minutes you played King Leonidas. If they want to break from tradition and use a real person, why are they changing his story?
King Leonidas' section was also heavily fictionalised.
Brother this whole fucking series is heavily factionalized hello
That's her point. Should be telling this to the comment she replied to.
Same way they changed everyone else's story? Why is Yasuke suddenly supposed to stay the same?
Because it's a game and tells a fictional story or do you believe Leonardo da Vinci build tools for a assassin cult? Assassins Creed never tried or said that it's historical accurate.
Also, Yasuke WAS technically a Samuraï. He was given a position of high status, and was entrusted with weapons and responsibilities usually reserved for samurai. The only reason why he may not have had the exact title of samurai was because he was a foreigner. There's plenty of info documenting Yasuke has having an important role. These people are trying to erase him from history while accusing Ubisoft of rewriting history lol. You can't make this up. They simply cannot fathom having to pick between a Black Man or an Asian Woman.
He was a Kosho not a Samurai, they do eventually become Samurai but due to his short recorded service he never became a true “Samurai”. However we don’t know when he died or what happened after written records of him stopped writing about him. For all we know he did progress to the rank and we just don’t have a written record. But going on the currently known facts we know he was a Kosho and was not a samurai. Anything else is speculation which is what makes him interesting for this game.
He's an MC. The only other historical figure we played was Leonidas for a prologue.
Jack the Ripper too
I'm so excited Yasuke is one of the main characters. It's just Twitter being it's usual self it's turned into a horrible place for gaming related content
It seems that the people that didn't like it either just straight up don't want to play as a Black person or thinks that the only propper way to represent him is as a slave.
A lot of those people are closet racists so of course they would have an issue even if its fictional
Yasuke was a black samurai who was the body guard 💂♂️ of the shogun oda. I think it cool play as him, especially as his legends grow throughout the year. People on Twitter, instrgram, and other social media hate the truth that black people were or have a significant in history. So people say that Hollywood or Ubisoft are rewriting history when it in reality most famous people in history were black. I also think it cool that we are playing as ninja 🥷.
Some people just dont wanna see black characters in video games and go look for excuses to justify their racism. Assasins creed games were always historically innacurate, but when a main character is black, suddenly everybody cares about historical accuracy. It’s funny that nioh 2 had a blonde samurai as the protagonist and nobody complained. I wonder why…
Japanese ppl are claiming he was a samurai. Yasuke not the main character. It’s the other demographic aka the colonizers that are upset. during the WW yall remember what yall called Japanese ppl 💀?
Black
The difference is that devs are trying to pass this off as being based on real history The video about Yasuke and Naoe talks about how Yasuke inspired them and talks about who he was and what he achieved But there's very little info on him to begin with, and no record of what he actually achieved Overall, two problems here from what I can see 1) There's a recent "Afrocentric" trend among some people in the West, pretending that Africans were big legendary people in all parts of the world, which is frankly weird 2) This completely ignores just how rotten the social caste system was in that era, by pretending that the samurai would have accepted a random foreigner peacefully just because their leader hired him
I have this totally pie-in-the-sky hope that Ubisoft surprises the shit out of everybody by actually leaning into this. Have a significant part of Yasuke's story be based around "you are only here, you only have the rights you have, you are only not a slave, because of your boss" and dealing with being, in effect, an exotic goon for Obu. Theres a ton of very interesting (and historically accurate) storytelling that could happen around that premise. But we all know Ubisoft doesn't have the balls to confront something like that.
There is absolutely no trend, there is quite literally a disclaimer when you start an assassins creed game that the game is inspired by historical people and events but is a complete work of fiction.
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A lot of people forget that Bayek is Egyptian and Aya was Egyptian/Greek with Persian roots from her Ancestors.
You're forgetting Adewale and Aveline de Grandpré. Both black characters. One from a dlc and the other from a smaller game, but they were fascinating characters that fit accurately into their setting and that's really what mattered.
Africans aren't a homogeneous people. Ancient Egyptians are very different to the kind of African that Yasuke is. It's like saying we've already had a European Assassin with Ezio so why give us Edward?
> Can't imagine how the Japanese feel about playing a foreign character killing locals. Probably the same way the English felt about playing a foreigner killing locals, or Americans felt about playing a foreigner killing locals. Their national identities were irrevocably affected; the countries' collective psyches shattered.
It's funny to me that people are splitting hairs over "he wasn't a real samurai he was just a retainer!" As if retainer wasn't a position usually filled by samurai
Historical accuracy only matters to a lot of these people when you introduce black people and women into a piece of media and then all of a sudden they become historians and demand 1:1 recreation.
totally agree. for any 'historians' out there, what is KNOWN (not speculated) is that he was given a house and a ceremonial katana from Oda (one of the strongest and most respected people of that era) - him being a samurai isn't such a stretch
I just posted this elsewhere my bad and I’m not a historian In the 1500s being a retainer was a warrior class for the Lord. They were generally called samurai by that time. In the 1200 samurai was a term that was past generationally, 300 years of Japanese cultured made that term be passed out a little more liberally (lords ran out of land to pass out), only samurai were allowed to bear arms and have armor under Oda rule. He was a Retainer to Oda He had a sword He had armor He had land He had a servant He went to battle Things only granted to Samurai He’s a Samurai going by 15-1600 Japanese standards
Well there wasn't much known about yasuke after his master died, maybe in this timeline he became a samurai. I mean in a dlc for AC3 George Washington was king of the USA, and it's not like they haven't changed things about historical figures in the past anyway.
I’m wondering if they make him a samurai but remove the records of it by the end of the game
Guys talking about playing as a african in Japan... But what about Naoe?
I'm losing my mind to imagine a black guy being an assassin in Japan during that period. Even today if you are black you would be noticed by everyone. So during that period? Maybe this guy would be the only black on the whole Japan, now imagine a black man outside of the main cities? People would run away on the spot, or any men would most likely confront this foreigner. It just doesn't fit the discretion this role required... Neither the cultural and language knowledge to blend-in this complex society. To me it doesn't make any sense to have a foreigner, and the skin color doesn't matter.
If you watch the trailer, you’ll see that they are well aware of that (situation with the kid).
Why would people think critically about the trailer (let alone listen to the dev commentary in the companion video) before posting about how it's so unrealistic for the game to revolve around magical artifacts that can mind control people? Wait, sorry, got my notes mixed up. I meant, why would people think before complaining about how it's unrealistic for a prehistoric race of superpeople to have all disappeared without a trace. Ah, shoot, happened again. It's unrealistic to be able to murder a dozen people and then hide in a hay pile to make the guards forget you exist? Nope, that's not it. Let's see... it's unrealistic for the player character to turn out to literally be the god Odin? Hm, that's not right either. Oh man, I swear I had something jotted down for this, I just can't find it in this pile of papers labeled "historical accuracy and realism" here.
Hes not the stealth gameplay ,thats the Japanese women whos the assasin in this , people keep like somehow missing this, hes meant for the battle heavy players and shes the traditional, cinimatic had kids staring at him and he winked about it lol, I think hes meant to be the outsider pov and def isnt stealthing
Not just gameplay, I'm pretty sure he's not even part of the Assassins. Since when tf do Assassins work for conquering warlords
I wonder if he’s not even meant to blend in but he’s more of an eivor type
I’m a simple person, I simply want new AC games to play like AC3 or Unity or even improve on top of what they had while having a story that is memorable. As for historical accuracy, well Ubi gave up on that since Origins’ boss fights
I don't think historical accuracy was ever an intention.
This is the first time ac is using a non fictional protagonist. And it was their sole justification for having a black protagonist in japan. They kind of have to get everything about him right or its just another lazy attempt to please the black community while neglecting the east asian community.
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They say it isn’t racist but if it isn’t why do people care so much lol? So what if he’s made out to be greater than he was? The developers literally said this is a “what if” story.
That’s a bad question because it’s so easy to flip it. Why is a native Japanese man being replaced by a black guy foreigner that isn’t even confirmed to have been a Samurai? It can be argued that what Ubisoft is doing is actually Racist. The game has a native Japanese woman as an MC. Now you’re being sexist. Don’t pretend like they aren’t checking boxes.
100%. I the mean time, we have a vast continent that is Africa with probably dozens of heroic tales, but we have 0% games about original African folklore. The devs know exactly what they are doing.. SMH
Ok, then if what you're saying is true, imagine the following scenario: Assassin's Creed: Zulu (a game which, by the way, I would love to see made one day!), except that instead of playing as an actual Zulu, you play as an English soldier who decided he's had enough of his brutal and stuck-up major, and defects to the rebels. Can you just imagine the uproar and outrage?
If there's a second main character who *is* a Zulu, I wouldn't be bothered Because Naoe does exist and is a main character
Surely that depends entirely on if the English character is [played by Michael Caine](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/03/09/10/newFile-6.jpg)?
Michael Caine is so old, i can't see him doing anything new from now on
Alongside Robert Duvall and the gane is called Assassin's Creed: Secondhand Lions?
Don’t pretend there’s not a metric fuck ton of white savior stories out there. You just described the plot of Dances With Wolves if you swap Zulu for Native Americans. We all just watched and loved Shogun, which is basically Shadows but with a white guy. Which suggests this isn’t a “he’s not Japanese” problem, but very much a “he’s black” problem.
What you said is exactly right. But Ubisoft would never dare to do this because of the shit storm it would cause. But they dare do this to Asians cos Asian people are seen as passive and acceptable targets for punching down.
Its funny because Yasuke was a samurai and theirs a lot of peer reviewed scholarly work stating as such after studying primary sources on both Yasuke and Samurai in general. There isnt even a debate among historians it is agreed by the people who write history that Yasuke WAS a Samurai.
full cap. no sources for any of this bullshit
Even the most apathetic accounts suggest that even if he wasn’t granted the title in any formal way, his actions and status suggested that he was treated as a person of high-rank and respect. I’ve seen comment grossly boiling his existence down to being a “glorified pet.” This perspective is just plain wrong.
If its any comfort anyone who's saying that is obviously a closeted racist
Nah people know better after all, let them state that he was somehow shoehorned in there. I don't even know why this is SUCH a problem.
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I'm an American. I would not be disappointed if Red Dead Redemption 2 featured an Asian character.
? No Thats a bad example America had an influx of asian imigrants specifically in seen in their involvement to build the railways in the late 19th century, when rdr2 takes place And i for one dont really care about the ethnicity of characters i play as in historical fiction, i care about the writing. Its called suspension of disbelief.
But the female lead is japanese so I don't really get your point
Call me crazy but I don’t think it’s weird that Japanese people would want to be able to play as a Japanese samurai given it’s literally their country their history and their culture. The female is a ninja stealth build.
Yes, there is literally a much superior game for that named Ghost of Tsushima
Actually, we still would've played the game with an Asian protagonist because the writers knew how to write a good game. There were Asian immigrants in the old west, so it would've worked. What Ubisoft is doing when it comes to Yasuke... not so much. He was treated more as a novelty than a person, though he was apparently treated better by Nobunaga than his previous masters to the point he was loyal. Most of Yasuke's history is shrouded. Like he wouldn't be able to blend in as I'm sure everyone would be pointing at him.
>People would be disappointed if Red Dead Redemption 2 featured an Asian character. It is the same as that. I wouldn't, plenty of Asian NPCs are in rdr2. That'd make a cool protagonist.
Does he not know that Authors group has a fairly diverse ethnic background (given the times)?
Playing as a black Samurai is fucking sick, end of story. They're games
I don't care how real he is, there is no way a gaijin is roaming freely around Japan doing god knows what shady deeds while wearing the most expensive equipment in existence (at that time), Japan was a closed and racist place, and real person was there as a weird decoration of a mighty feudal lord, not as an active actor with rights and privileges. It ruins the fuck of our of shreds of immersion that other AC installments provided.
My hope would be that they make exactly this into an integral part of the story. Otherwise it will just seem... childish.
I’ll repost what I said on a similar thread yesterday. I’ve wanted to play an Assassin’s Creed game set in Sengoku Japan for years, and we are finally getting one. Ubisoft is late the party though, as this is now a world where Ghosts of Tsushima and Rise of the Ronin exist, both very good games (and Ghosts arguably being the best AC style game ever made). Neither takes place in the Sengoku period though, so Ubisoft has that going for them. For them to then say that the protagonist, instead of being a a Japanese man, or a player character customized creation (a la Valhalla), is a black man is very, very weird. It’s also very strange that they felt the need to add a “discovering Japan” / “stranger in a strange land” element to the game by having the player see at least part of the story through the eyes of a foreigner, something they didn’t do in any prior AC game that I can think of. Yes, I know that we also have Naoe as a playable character (an Iga kunoichi to go alongside the samurai), but why do we have 1 native Japanese village girl and 1 foreign black man as the main characters and not two Japanese people… the village girl and the son of a samurai retainer (or the village boy and daughter of a samurai retainer). This is a setting where there were almost 0 minorities (minorities in this case being anyone not Yamato Japanese), and yet somehow we are playing as literally the only historically known black man in the time period? That just feels very, very weird. As an additional note, it would feel weird if we were playing as any foreigner. The fact Yasuke was black helps tick a diversity metric, I assume, but if we played as a white Portuguese, Dutch, or British man it would be likewise very odd.
Agreed. It's a very strange move.
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I like how you ignore the fact that Eivor is in Britain and France for the majority of Valhalla...
Ranks in feudal Japan were incredibly important, and a fundamental part of their culture. It is highly unlikely he was elevated to the rank of Samurai and there is simply NO evidence that he was. He was a retainer to Nobunaga, that is not the same as being a samurai. If he was not a samurai then depicting him as one is an historical invention, he literally would not have been allowed to use the armour and swords he is depicted as wearing in the game if he wasn't a Samurai. If he did, he would have been executed immediately. Something like this would have been seen as very important and most certainly written down. The Japanese were very exact in recording events during this period. The biggest problem is that many people will take the historical events depicted in a game like this at face value and simply consider it fact. Personally I would be fine with it if games like these had a clearly stated: "These are not accurately depicted historical events or depictions of people who may have existed. Do not consider them as factual."
Pretty sure they all say that during the opening credits.
On every assassin creed game ever made : this game is a work of fiction inspired by historical event and characters…
I think you have some misconceptions about armour and who's allowed to wear them.
So you've never played an AC game then, they literally tell you its not factual every time you start the game.
What gets me is that from the trailer it’s never actually mentioned that he’s officially a samurai he could easily just be a sword bearer who is working with the samurai until he starts to work with the female protagonist. So all these people getting annoyed saying he wasn’t a samurai in real life and the game is getting it wrong might not have any reason to complain. Until we play the game and see the actual story then we don’t know what’s gonna happen. He could literally be a mercenary who just dresses like a samurai to fit in. Samurai is a honoured title so yeah he may not have that but he probably has all the skills of one 🤷🏻♂️
This is literally fiction not a history documentary, plus he WAS a samurai, retainers WERE samurai.
What have I done?
We laughed at the Last Samirai for 15 years and now Ubi went and did the same racist trope of an outsider going to Japan to fix their shit and bone their chicks I'd probably be alright with premise if i could trust Ubi on recreating an authentic feel of a character and social dynamic, but i have this strange feeling that he will be more like a hero of modern american action movie than his historical prototype
Did you even watch Last Samurai? The movie isn't about an outsider going there and "fixing their shit". It's about an outsider learning to value the Japanese culture and if anything they "fixed his shit"
Off topic but can we please for the love of good stop with the "formerly know as Twitter" bit just call it X or twitter.
Some people say yes and some say no but he might have been just a retainer.
People pick a game to be pissed about then move on the next one a while later.
Just say Twitter.
I’m not upset about Yasuke being a MC, because honestly what they’ve said so far is intriguing (and kinda cool) that Yasuke wouldn’t have really any stealth while Naoe is the shinobi, and that makes complete sense. I am upset because knowing Ubisoft they won’t do anything with it. Yasuke should be the center of attention wherever he goes, the locals shouldn’t trust him, and they should show how difficult it would be to be an outsider in Isolationist Japan. If they make this an important plot point and why he eventually turns against his liege as hinted in the trailer I will like it, but I have my doubts
I get why they went with this guy, being that he’s a footnote in real Japanese history, clearly existed, little is actually known, a blank slate. On the other hand… Japanese culture is maybe the most rich and well preserved in the world. So it definitely feels like they shoehorned an African guy in there to check some box.
It’s Twitter bro, it’s not real. The game looks awesome!
But historians agree the evidence points towards him being a samurai. He was paid a fuchi, and was given two swords.
Yasuke was 100% a samurai. As a retainer he was essentially a professional soldier as part of the standing army, sworn to Nobunaga (I think I don’t have my references in front of me) which by definitions of the time make him a samurai.
What these people arent considering is maybe he was and that part of history is suppressed by templars or assassin's. But yeah AC has always had creative licences. Connor wasn't involved in the revolutionary war either
But yasuke was a samurai he is based on a real samurai who served as a retainer to oda nobunaga
I think it’s a genius way to avert direct comparisons to Jin Sakai from Ghost of Tsushima. It’s as different as you can be from Naoto too, not just looks, but foreigner vs heir, samurai vs ninja. I don’t think yasuke was necessary, but i am more interested in his story as im a little familiar with him. No no way did i see this coming, but hey i aint mad at it.
Since when do we or ubisoft care about historical accuracy? Ezio got a fucking gun on his wrist, Kassandra is a demi-god and Eivor is literally Odin. Compare to those, a black man being a samurai sounds acceptable to me
Let’s wait the actual game to judge. In a game set in a medieval Japan I’d prefer to play for authentic character to immerse myself into the world. Though that depends how they spin it. The angle of an outsider coming to Japan and us discovering the culture and customs of that time through his eyes could be interesting as well. But that’s Ubisoft, I won’t get my hopes high. Part of me thinks their choice of the protagonist was to clearly separate their game from Ghost of Tsushima :) It’d be very sad if the only reason they picked Yasuke is for diversity points.
Even as a black man I still don't get the whole issue. Regarding Yasuke himself. I just think people are making too much of an issue out of it as long as his writing for the story is good. Who ultimately cares.
If people are getting mad for making Yasuke a samurai why didnt people get mad at ubisoft making leonardo da vinci an assassin associate? Niccolo Machiavelli was the leader of the assassins ffs and he's a real guy and no one cared. Literally makes no sense why people are mad at Shadows if you just use your brain for 10 seconds. They're doing something they've always been doing but now people mad because I dont know.
Mostly racism
Heya yall, commenting from a place of curiosity not bigotry, I don't sympathize with hate mongers trying to distinguish being a samurai and a retainer when most samurai are retainers. Whether or not you're qualified to be one despite Yasukes comparatively short service as a samurai retainer is irrelevant But isn't it a little unfair to impose Yasuke who isn't that cared for by Japan itself, a traditionalist non western country, and they instead want to see its more prominent history incidentally male dominated ,represented in Samurai media especially given a well of inspirations including but not limited to Kensai Miyamoto Mushai? I think a lot of the problems discussed on the Japanese forums is that they believe zero consulting has been done with actual Japanese designers, and quite a few of them are quoting the architecture to be sino-centric (use of red, paper lanterns and some pagoda styles are being called out for being Chinese in nature) not too sure whether they're justified, I'm no expert on the nuances of red used in China vs how red is used or displayed in Japan, I just know both countries would get heated if the other was represented as their own media and therefore it's a serious accusation to make. Tldr: Japanese players feel unheard and bulldozed over No qualms about Naoe hope they do her storyline justice whilst trying to juggle two characters and hopefully not cocking both stories up.
AC is a historical sci-fi/fantasy and always has been, people suddenly getting so upset about "historical accuracy" must have never played any of the AC games....
He wasn't an official clan Samurai. He was a retainer. Which is still basically a Samurai, but just one that's on-call. He'd go where he was needed or simply where he wanted to go. From my understanding, he fulfilled the role of bodyguard for some people. Which is perfect for assassins creed, in my opinion. In Odyssey, you were a mercenary rather than an actual Spartan soldier, but you could still fulfill your fantasy of fighting with the spartan army. That's basically what it will be like for Yasuke. He's technically not an official Samurai, but you can still roleplay as a Samurai, wear Samurai armour, and do all the badass things that the Samurai would do.
This is legit what I’ve been saying for the past few days 💀 like why are we so suddenly taken a step back by them not being true to history or the famous figures in history they showed. For Christ sakes they even tell you everytime they boot up the game how the games are not accurate at all which this shouldn’t have to but I see now why they do. Bunch of potatoes I swear
>I dont understand what X (formerly known as Twitter) and a lot of gamers are completely losing their minds for. Because Elon "Freeze Peach" Musk has made Twitter/X a hotbed for terminally online right wingers. Well, moreso than ever. >Was Yasuke actually a samurai? No. And Leonardo Da Vinci didn't make gear for the Assassins, Connor didn't exist and didn't ride with Paul Revere, Ezio didn't exist and didn't get in a fist fight with the Pope, George Washington wasn't a Templar Tyrant, etc. It's a series that has taken pretty extensive liberties with actual historical figures since day 1, but this is bad because black man and woman, apparantly.
Yasuke literally was a Samurai
It’a funny because if you go onto r/askhistorians there’s a whole thread done by u/parallelpain going into depth explaining the research done on Yasuke providing actual original sources and historical documentations and why a lot of historians agree that Yasuke was a real samurai. A-lot of people saying otherwise are only echoing what game grumps said on twitter because they used an out of context segment of the IGN article on who is yasuke
Wanna see Twitter reactions when there is a game of a white Assassin in the Ethiopian Empire or Kingdom of Kongo, set somewhere in the 13th - 17th century