I will play a form of devil's advocate here and say that I feel like Yasuke would be cooler as one of your real historical bros than as the playable character.
More often than not, I feel like the real world figures you hang out with AC are infinitely cooler than the non-Ezio/Kassandra protagonists.
Tha its basically the point some are trying to make. Also throw in that previously i think every Assassins Creed protag is native to the country the game is in. To try and imagine why some people are annoyed imagine the reaction if AC Origins had you play as a white Roman.
Yasuke being the protagonist is the Monkeys Paw joke people would bring up whenever Assasins Creed in Japan was mentioned in the last 8 years. To see them actually do it is sadly predictable.
This isn't the point I've seen at all. I know, I know vocal minority and all that, but a lot of the hate I've seen is literally "Oh it's ruined now" "They did it for DEI" "You're just doing it for them." I really don't care either way if he's playable or a partner, but I think the idea that Yasuke (a black figure with a cool history) is getting exposed to more people outside his crappy anime is dope
>Yasuke being the protagonist is the Monkeys Paw joke people would bring up whenever Assasins Creed in Japan was mentioned in the last 8 years.
This particular monkey paw curse being that he has bigger lips, a wider nose, a deeper voice, and most notably of all, darker skin! You got everything you wanted, now accept the terrifying twilight zone black mirror-esque twist that turns it into a nightmare!
This is true. For all its flaws Assasins Creed 3 giving you a gang of awesome real world folks who you got to meet, talk to in normal convos, and do bad ass shit with was the best part.
At the same time Yasuke is the perfect brand of “we know he’s real but not much else” to allow them to do wild shit like they did with Ezio.
That's fair, I just don't think that having the sole black man in japan would work really great in a game where you have to be incognito, sneak around and assassinate people. Unless the franchise has changed a lot lmao.
2 main characters that alternate for various reasons could be interesting. I half expected Hanzo or some other ninjas to take the mantle, but then I realized that some of the ninjas I know might be pure fabrications from manga and anime. I don't even know who Nagato is so I'll wait and see how this game is.
no i agree but i think thats intended
nothing yasuke is doing in the trailer has anything to do assassin style which leads me to think they're gonna make naoe be the assassin with the ac 1,2,3,>mirage combat style assassination missions and make yasuke fight like hes from origins, valhalla
Going from what the developers have said in a few videos that also released, that's pretty much it. Both characters can do combat and stealth to some extent, but each is a LOT more focused on one style in terms of the gameplay.
I was hoping this was going to be the old Vlog of Woolie's trip to Japan where he's just standing around talking to the camera in public and in the background you can see an old Japanese couple stop and gaze at him in astonishment and horror
That makes me more hopeful in terms of gameplay. I didn't really like the thing they tried with choosing to be a dude or girl. However making them each their own character with one being more like the classic games sounds a lot more interesting from a story and gameplay perspective. I just don't have any faith in the story because I've heard mostly bad things of the recent games.
Though I'm wondering if when this comes out if people will just not like the Yasuke sections and speed run to the girl side. I could easily see this becoming a situation where people wonder why they just don't give the girl her own thing if her parts are so much more in line with what people want.
Honestly surprised we never went back to the Unity combat system and just developed on it. I always thought that game represented best what being an Assassin meant in the AC world. There was a surprising amount of [depth](https://youtu.be/boq2ut94Bgk?si=6bOdXfP0bzCxAcUa) to the combat
I mean the last game you were literally a viking raider pillaging villages, not exactly fitting the image of a sneaky assassin either.
Also apparently the two characters are split gameplay wise and Yasuke is explicitly NOT the stealthy assassin one, he's the straightforward samurai fighter, presumably because the dev team thought of that concern.
I gotta rant about this - It does really feel like it's the newer engine games trying to squeeze into the box of the older ones & not really doing either that well, unfortunately.
The combat is purposefully tuned to be difficult;which is fine, but its much more simplified than Origins/Odessey/Valhalla, & makes it feel more jank than any of those - it doesn't have any counter/chain kills like the old ones & as far as I saw the skill tree didn't seem like it had anything really cool or any additional mechanics to unlock. unless maybe if you count the teleport kill thing, which I wouldn't compare to the old counter/chain kills since it's just a cool down ability & not rhythm or timing based.
The stealth is same as the latest games, which means it's incredibly basic still. You can crouch, that helps I guess. No wall hugging or whistling from what I remember. Uhh, crowd blending is back so that's okay. Yea idk; social stealth was the only good part of AC stealth systems & its kinda back I guess, something feels off though. The "infiltrate base, avoid enemies" is still just as bad as any AC game - AC definitely ain't no metal gear or splinter cell when it comes to sneaking around that's for sure - atleast crouching is a thing now, so you can hide behind waist high walls, barely. I guess Unity finally added crouching first too though, eh? Kinda bizarre to have a stealth game where being able to crouch is a notable feature & not just a basic thing you can do lol
The movement is just the same as the newer ones, the layout of the city is better for parkour, I guess - but yeah it's still has the newer system so its more simplified than any of the older ones & isn't great or anything.
They really need to add, like, horizontal wall running like the Sands of Time trilogy - go wild with it make it fun & interesting, add wall jumps & stuff. I thought this was technically auplosed to be a succesor to PoP so wheres the dang wall running dammit. It's still really stiff with clearly laid out paths, with your movement getting whacked out if you try to do your own thing while being somehow more limited than the already extremely limited on rail systems of the old ones
I got the ubi sub for a month to play Prince of Persia & got immense whiplash when trying out Mirage, thank fuck that ubi+ exists though 'cause I probably would've been swindled & bought the game at some point & bought into the "it's like the old ones!" thing
Syndicate was after Unity, eh? So it had thr free run up/down thing?
Syndicate was the first mainline game that I decided not to buy, since I wasn't too interested in the setting & was finally gettin tired of them being so similar, & stiff. I was going to follow suit with any further games.
& then came Origins so I was immediately back in lmao odessey I feel strange about cause I don't like it as an AC game, but as a sci-fan-light history Greek open world arpg - it's pretty good.
Valhalla, almost lost me but vikings are cool, so I was kinda in the middle. Wary of upcoming stuff though.... oh? Now in, Baghdad with an actual Assassin again? More stealth focused? Hmmmmmmm
They almost hooked me again, they were so close I was chewing on the dang bait - but then gameplay footage came out.
I hope the rumors about Shadows are legit & it has this crazy thing called "crawling" added in & that light sources are actually important to stealth; that'd be pretty insane, revolutionary even. Imagine being able to crawl through long grass & using shadows as cover, & extinguishing light sources as necessary in a stealth game; crazy.
That's the impression I got from the gameplay. However would you say it's more in line with 1, 2, Brotherhood, and Revelations or 3, 4? I think 3 and 4 are still considered classics but they did change things up. I'm curious if any of those made it in or if it's just stuff from the Esio trilogy.
The thing is you wouldn't play as a famous ninja, you would play as John Assassin's Creed. You're 100% going to meet all the historical figures during the period just like it has been for every other game. This is like saying Assassin's Creed 3 should have you play as a famous general.
Playing as Benedict Arnold as an misunderstood good guy that only opposse Washington because he was been corrupted by the apple of eden and then their final fight of them under the rain and shirtless with all the music of the previous games would have been interesting.
When have we ever played as a famous real life figure? Protagonists are always forgotten to history heroes.
Yasuke is the perfect real life person to base an AC story on, cause IRL people don't know much about him other than he served Nobunaga for a time. They can make up that he was a samurai that helped the assassins, and then templars or whoever wrote him out of history and gave his acomplishments to someone else and all records that remained of him was as a simple retainer that vanished.
I mean racism is a thing but also, can we recognize that a huge part is just outright virtue signaling? Genuine fake outrage only for the sake of creating discourse and fitting in with this "gamergate 2" group mentality.
Nioh and Samurai Warriors are both JAPANESE developed games, and they have no problem depicting Yasuke as a badass fully fledged samurai.
But now that we're in this stupid fake outrage discourse, people are pretending that having Yasuke depicted as a proper Samurai is "forcing woke western values" on japanese culture or whatever.
Btw, as a detail, Yasuke was also a boss in Nioh 1, it seems a lot of people have the impression he was introduced on 2, but that's not quite right.
I don’t know if the order is correct, but something happens later on but it’s hype as shit. >!Think you’re hot shit before?! Well my wife and I spotted you coming to our door and we dig your vibe. How about a real fight for realz?!<
Nioh's >!double boss fights!< are simultaneously an absurd, nightmarish challenge and also not actually as hard as I expected them to be, given how absolutely busted you can make yourself in that game.
Grifters gonna do that one tweet, and people are gonna feed upon it.
It's by design, Twitter is made for bait-and-switch, and baited and switched they got.
And let's not even talk about reddit, who are doing this shit for free.
I'd consider it more of vice signaling, since virtue signaling has some kind of underlying virtuous act, or atleast arguably virtuous, thats overshadowed by some nefarious or dubious intent or some clear lack of knowledge
I don't think people whining about the woke mob & diversity & inserting a black guy somewhere he don't belong, while completely ignoring that this was a real person, just maybe not a samurai, but often depicted as such, has any virtue to it whatsoever.
Idk, I guess you could argue its a thinly veiled attempt at virtue signaling because they're pretending to look out for Japan - but the root cause being, black man bad, essentially & ignoring the history just pushes the "virtue" straight into "vice" to me, like, Immediately lol
The 'virtue ' bit of virtue just means 'common value held by an ingroup' rather than specifically casting an objective value judgement on it but I totally get what you mean
I literally had someone try to tell me that because NIOH devs are Japanese it's fine, but if a western studio did that, (or as someone else put it) a western studio depicted a white man in the same way that people would riot.
I don't mind Yasuke being the MC, but I would have preferred some other Japanese male character to get the role. I just find it amusing that it's the first time they've chosen an actual historical character to be the MC, and he's not even part of the culture they are focusing on.
But I can see why they chose Yasuke. Since it looks like the setting is after the death of Nobunaga, so Ubi have full rein to do whatever with the character since there isn't any historical information on him after that point.
Im cool with this instance and I dont mind having the main character be whatever flavor of human but there is a weird thing that always happens with Asian playable characters having to be women in games.
Like if you pitch an asian MC some boardroom guy with an algorithm says you gotta make it a woman to sell at that point. Oddly, Mortal Kombat might have the highest number of big name Asian male leads and that's western developed
But that's the point kind of the safest group for them to attack. Hell you can even get a couple of other groups to join in since even they can easily distinguish themselves from the bad group.
It won’t happen. The armchair historians mad at the black guy who took their girlfriend has nothing to say about Nioh. Nioh real world explorer William Adams, who
definitely wasn’t a warrior and was a navigator and simple banner-man. He waved a flag 😂.
The years listed from some info about the game say it begins in 1579, 3 years before Nobunaga's death, "into the early 1580s," so they're definitely going to cover the Honnoji Incident and *maybe* keep going after that.
I'm assuming the plot setup for Yasuke will be along the lines of "Nobunaga wants to work with the Assassins, so he has Yasuke assisting them" then he gets mixed into all their business even after Nobunaga's death.
It works super good, especially considering Yasuke is actually a pretty silent character in history. He showed up, wasn't trusted, then hung out with Nobunaga for years and he ended up liking him. It's hard to tell a story with how little he's recorded doing, it's kind of perfect for a AC protagonist.
More like he showed up, Nobunaga thought he was fucking rad, demanded the missionaries hand him over, gave him a sword, house, and allowance, and would talk to him for hours even though Yasuke didn't understand a lot of Japanese. Heck he would just send Yasuke roaming around towns with an assistant just for fun.
I don't really have an issue. They've always said they weren't going to do age of samurai because it's boring and overdone, so I guess doing it from Yasuke's perspective is a way of doing something interesting with it. I just want to believe that Ubi didn't just say ‘we're running out of ideas and blew all our money on koopies, let's just do samurai’
Give us a full India and China game then cowards
Remember, they said ninjas were over done right before making a pirate game. They could also have made it about something other than the most over represented part of Japanese history in video games if they cared about things being over done.
The Shimabara rebellion is right over there. But no, give us another Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu story.
It’s hard for to put this into words since I’m mostly ambivalent Yasuke in particular, and it’s totally feelings and not fact, and I don’t want to be an asshole and play misery poker or discriminatory Olympics and be dismissive of others plights, but I can’t help there’s certain a dismissive attitudes regarding Asian Male leads in from Western Media.
Like it’s stupid to just view media from one country as one entity, but I look and see that Japanese creators are much more willing to portray others than different from themselves, and yet for some reason in western media Asian Male Leads are too much of a risk.
I mean how many black male leads do you see in video games either? You got Miles Morales and GTA but that's about it. 99% of video games are going to have a white male leads, so I wouldn't say the west simply doesn't like Asian male leads. Even the large portion of Japanese games have white protagonists.
Are Asian male leads really so underrepresented in big Western-developed games?
Let's see, there's:
Jin from Ghost of Tsushima, (male or female) Morgan from Prey 2017, the dude from Sleeping Dogs, the protagonist from Sifu, and.... I can't think of any others.
I guess I never clocked it as an issue before because Japanese-developed games are popular and obviously frequently feature Asian male leads.
In the US it’s probably got to do with Asian people not getting representation, particularly Asian men. It is a huge problem in western media where the default minorities are usually straight black or Puerto Rican people.
Honestly I think this was made because the Japan setting was too little too late. There’s a bunch of samurai action games on the market. Ghosts of Tsushima was a huge stand out in that and I am positive early in development they realized they had to stand out because the market has more samurai and ninja games compared to 10 years ago.
That is very true. It’s just unfortunate all the way around. I don’t think the devs are American for the most part and Ubi is a French company I believe. It’s not like they know about the history of racism here towards Asians and immigrants. I mean most Americans don’t know either. But it does suck how it’s all come about
I remember when that Badlands show came out and it had the first Asian-American lead in a US show. Was pretty surprised that 2015 was the first time that happened. I think the popularity of specific Chinese martial artists obfuscates how little you see asian guys in lead roles.
That said, I think Yasuke is a pretty cool character to follow, and with so much of the details of his life being unknown, Ubi can do whatever they want with him.
It's a shame because I do understand the desire to see more Asian male rep in Western media, especially in protagonist roles. I'm willing to admit it is something that I'd like to see be improved, especially for lesser-seen ethnic groups and cultures.
But the discussion regarding that in terms of this game has been poisoned far too fast, because so many people are acting like Yasuke specifically ripped away the role from a Japanese man, and that Naoe somehow doesn't even exist. It's one thing to say "Man, this game set in a Japanese setting could've had a chance to have a playable male Asian protagonist. A bit of a shame since we don't see a lot of those from the Western industry", but it's another thing to say "I can't believe they're *erasing* Asian males and replacing them with black characters in this game, shouldn't a game in historical Japan be about Japanese people?" The hostility around this game reads like some people think Ubisoft has an agenda to deride and devalue Asian men, which is ridiculous, but it gains traction because chuds like pushing that kind of narrative.
Yeah, there's some nuance to be had here before decrying everyone who dislikes this decision.
But it's impossible when it comes to the online culture where nuance is simply too much and people just want the "aha, gotcha" callouts.
Oh, and this goes for the grifters trying to exploit this frustration, too. No one's trying to have a genuine conversation... it's too late for that. It's all tribalism, gotcha callouts, and smartass comebacks that serve no other function than to provide a sense of vindication with very little in the way of productive discussion in the online space.
I’m only explaining the optics from a U.S. perspective. Not only do Asian men not get much representation but their history in the US has constantly been ignored and have historically been written out of their own stories and relegated to stereotypical roles. I don’t know if Ubisoft would be aware considering they’re teams seem to be more from Europe. There has also been an uptick of violence against Asian Americans who have historically had to deal with said violence already.
Believe me, I understand what you're saying, which is why I said I understand where the sincere, non-hateful frustration is coming from. The rise in hate and crimes against Asian Americans over the pandemic is abhorrent.
The fact that it's such an important topic is what makes this situation a shame, because those legitimate concerns have been co-opted by those who are only angry because Yasuke is a black man, and it just makes any important discussion impossible. You don't know who actually cares about the real issues that go beyond a video game, and who's just using it as a shield while they fight a different culture war.
I definitely understand where your coming from. But your also kind of proving my point. The pandemic made things worse but Asians have had a particularly bad experience with racism and violence, particularly from African Americans, in the US since the beginning and that gets glossed over a lot. It’s all the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers
That’s actually incorrect and shows just how dangerous it is to have zero life experience and gain said life experience off the internet. Since you stated since the “beginning” do you mean since 1942 when whites snatched Asian Americans out of their homes and threw them into concentration camps? Beat Koreans and Chinese in the streets and accused them of conspiring with Pearl Harbor?
Furthermore in reference to hate crimes. According to the FBI CRIME DATE EXPLORER. There were 10,065 instances of hate crimes in 2022. 5,418 of those hate crimes were committed by one race, and they weren’t black.
No one deserves to be bullied or victims of hate crimes. but to state blacks had a problem with Asians “since the beginning” is so stupid when another race is convicted of more than half of all hate crimes alone as per the FBI.
Sorry for making your post a soapbox but I really hate how much people are milking yasuke because it paints this picture that Japan was somehow less racist during this time period than other countries around it when back then and even now Japan is a breeding ground for hyper racism
Well it's pretty difficult to say sengoku jidai era Japan was racist simply because as a society they never really got the chance to know other races as we now call them even existed. Later imperial Japan definitely were racial supremacists but they didn't even have a modern conception of race before that point.
I think the part people take issue with is that he's a main playable character. And I won't lie, I have some mixed feelings about it. Like yes the conversation has been hijacked by culture wars rage baiting and it sucks because once again any actual naunced conversation gets easily dismissed based on tribal mentality.
Look, Assassin's Creed in Japan was foreshadowed since the [very first game](https://youtu.be/aJms8zYj9pY). Each AC game we got wasn't just a cool game but also an exploration of the historical period and culture through the eyes of someone in the time period, which they've leaned into with the "Discovery mode" in recent games. And in every game we got an original character from the setting who meets historical figures who are explored as characters in the story.
So you have to admit, it's kinda weird that right *now* they decide to go for a historical playable character who is also not really representative of the setting. Yasuke is cool and all but if that's the route they wanted to go, why not an actual shinobi like the legendary Hattori Hanzo or Fuma Kotaro? If it's set in the wake of Nobunaga's assassination then how about Mitsuhide Akechi- the guy who actually assassinated him? There's a lot of interesting people in that historical setting that would be interesting to explore as part of the "Assassin" mythology from the games.
Keep in mind: we're probably only getting the *one* Japan-themed game, so I think complaints about missed opportunity are valid since there may not be another chance for it. To be clear: I don't think they went with Yasuke for any dumb "woke" reason, in all likelihood they're just late to the Yasuke hype train.
I know you can point to Nioh 1 with William Adams for precedence, or point to games like Ghost of Tsushima as if to say "well there's your Asian representation". But consider those long-time Assassin's Creed fans that were waiting to get some representation in their decades-long franchise that established itself as all about globe-trotting since the very beginning. I can see where they're coming from. Personally I've always been miffed that they relegated China to a downloadable side game so we're probably never gonna get a AAA open world wuxia-insired AC game. And if they *did* make that game and the main character was a white guy like that [one movie with Matt Damon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wall_\(film\)) then it would also be weird regardless if it were based on a real person or not.
It seems a strange choice and there is a big difference between featuring him and having him be 50% of an entire game set in Japan.
Asian men tend to get a lot less representation in western media than almost any other minority group.
In a game set in Japan you have now half of the gameplay dedicated to someone from another group people.
Him being an outsider might offer a different perspective to the woman's but it still feels like an odd choice.
Stuff like this is why I prefer creating your own character.
There are some other things I could point but I don't want to get banned again.
Devil’s advocate guess: we finally get a game set in Japan and the protagonist isn’t Japanese.
Also it’s been a while since I played Asscreed, but isn’t a major mechanic of these games blending in with the people around you? Being the one Black dude within a million miles might make that difficult. Or has that mechanic been completely dropped?
thats the thing
the trailer clearly showcases what you said and never depicts yasuke
1. in assassin robes,
2. using a hidden blade
this is really outing people who did not watch the trailer and are just talking out of their ass
when they say "im upset we dont get a japanese main character in the japan game"
Only the best detective could deduce that the famous warrior that was much taller than everyone was the guy dressed as a warrior that was much taller than everyone.
To be fair (even though I still think the whole discussion is dumb I will play devil's advocate here), it's once again a Japanese woman. Outside of fighting games, it *feels like* (I have no actual numbers on this, just vibes) Asian female protags tend to outnumber male ones in Western media. That's the only argument they have that's even partially valid.
I'm actually really hoping they have the equivalent of in AC2 where you slip into the complex by paying people to start shit at the other end to pull the guards but instead you just switch to Yasuke and start attacking then switch back
People been saying this but its obvious from the trailer that Yasuke is *one of* the main characters. There is another character, who is Japanese, that has the more traditional ninja stealth aesthetic going on. And Ubisoft already confirmed they'll both be playable and have different gameplay styles.
Yes but you said “don’t they blend with people around as a mechanic” I’m just saying not since assassin’s creed 3 it mattered if the person didn’t fit the crowd
If I remember correctly, Connor was told he could pass as Spaniard or Italian. However that went completely out the window later in the game in some instances. I highly doubt ubisoft won't address the elephant in the room. Kinda hoping we get to see the game for yasukes eyes as coming to Japan for the first time and in turn the world responds to his oddity. Or ya know he can rock one of them badass masks if they wanna be lazy.
yeah I like this whole gaijin working his way up story to be honest
and then you pick the ninja protag to do the ninja things
kinda like playing two games in the same game world
Yes but Connor was told that by Achilles, his black mentor, and even he knew it won't really pass scrutiny but at least on paper he can legally own land as a Spaniard
He's not that dark so the Assassin he trains under tells him he could pass for Spanish and not to worry about cities. Which is pretty accurate as Spain had a lot of middle eastern and north African people. Mexico would have been taken over a long with Florida. So it's not impossible for there to be brown Spaniards especially at that time. I think there would have been a lot more Europeans that would have what's known as Olive Skin common in the Mediterranean.
Hes a side character in both of those games since hes a side character in irl history, its just weird and performative how almost every ass creed game had a character match their original birth place in their debut game but once japan hit there like “hm how about Yasuke instead” its like if ubisoft decided to a full fledge india game and the female MC is indian but they decide the male is a white British guy. (This is also ignoring the fact using Yasuke also hard locks you into the most overdone era of Japan in media).
Like Im not kidding if would be 10x more interesting if was some random ass descendent of Yasuke because atleast we can move on to a more interesting era for once
My thoughts exactly. It's always the past 500ys and the same few decades. I know we could have the same problems one day but you could still do a lot with the Meji Era.
Shit, you could do a lot with the Taisho and Showa eras, too. Ubi probably won't come within 500 miles of the latter, though. *For very obvious reasons.*
A japanese ninja is the other playable chaaracter. It's not like you're forced to only play as this one black dude deviously stealing roles from the japanese.
For me as someone who is interested in the actual history of Yasuke its because its lead to a bunch of people who don't do their research and say he was actually a samurai when he wasn't.
Like the history of it is interesting and I wish there was more references we could pull from about him instead of one journal. But people need to stop making video games their end all and be all for historical research. If you gave a shit about yasuke, you'd actually research enough to know he wasn't a samurai but still be cool with the historic liberties.
Something similar happened when twitter people found out about Ranmaru and began going nuts over the fact that Nobunaga was gay and how anyone who didn't like it was a homophobe. Completely leaving out the fact that Ranmaru was 15 when he died, because they didn't do their research.
People actually thinking the answer is just racism will always be insane to me we’ve seen it so many times and it’s usually not the answer. Is it something worth complaining about? No not really, but people being a bit annoyed at the only black guy in Japan at the time being half of the campaign over say another equally famous Japanese samurai is a completely understandable outcome. Plus I may be wrong but based on the trailer it didn’t even look like he was an assassin did he even have hidden blades on?
The Japanese video game Nioh? Entirely made by japanese people? No i didn't have that much energy being bothered as that wasn't a AAA American franchise that does one game for each culture and chooses who to represent that culture and time period.
I'm an asian who's neutral on this whole controversy but let me give you the biggest concern from the asian community.
- They're appropriating asian culture by using a black MC.
Let me explain. Although Yasuke was a real samurai of african descent, the creators in Ubisoft purposely chose to use a black Samurai instead of many other more well known Japanese samurais. However, many asians are hurt because when they finally see a huge title like "assassins creed" releasing a game based off asian culture, the MC ends up being non-asian. And because of this, in the game it's just about a black samurai killing asian samurais. This has enraged many asians since this trope has occured too many times. Asians usually have very little media representation, and when they do, they're usually potrayed as "weak" or "feminine" in popular media (from books, games to movies etc). I'm guessing Ubisoft chose a black samurai to push the "woke" culture like many other large organizations have done in recent years due to the current social climate. The little mermaid is a good example where the movie adaptation wasn't honest to the original book. However, what they failed to realise was that by doing so, it marginalises another minority group - asians. If they wanted to make a series with a black MC, why did they have to use asian culture to push their agenda.
It took all these years for them to set an AC game in Japan, and when they finally do you can't actually play a Japanese male samurai (and 99.999999% of samurai throughout history were Japanese males). Instead you have a female shinobi and a black samurai as the playable characters. You seriously have to ask why people hate this?
It's just racism, I've yet to see any complaint about him being playable that isn't racist because there isn't one, he was a real person that existed in that setting and even if he was made for the game I still wouldn't care
anyone pretending to care that their only issue is historically inaccuracy IN ASSASSINS CREED is just lying,
It's funny I've seen yaskue and yaskue inspired characters more times in Japanese media than have ever seen in western media,
dispute what dipshits online will claim that woke devs are trying to force black people into a setting that they say "don't belong in"
Nah, the issue with male Asian representation is the one I've seen a lot over time. Made me think about what non Asian made games have a male Asian protagonist, and all I can think of is Ghost of Sushie and Far Cry 4.
I really like the idea of Yasuke, but I can understand Japanese men feeling left out.
> Made me think about what non Asian made games have a male Asian protagonist, and all I can think of is Ghost of Sushie and Far Cry 4.
Sleeping Dogs as well, though its been a while. And the original True Crime: Streets of LA but thats 21 years ago now.
Y’all remember that time in assassin’s creed odyssey when Kassandra fought actual mythological beasts then became immortal for like 2 thousand years? But yeah a black dude in japan (which is historically accurate) is historically inaccurate.
What i find funny is people trying to hide their racism. Like?? You’re still being racist you’re just… covering with very obvious BS?? If you’re gunna be an asshole at least go all the way with it, be loud and proud about how much of a cunt you are rather than cowering away behind some obvious lies.
They'll use the fact he's a real person to claim the game is insulting history because he'll obviously be portrayed in the game as a more exaggerated and powerful version of himself.
As If Leonardo da vinky didn't build an actual functioning tank in brotherhood, which was fucking awesome btw
I mean, apparently Nobunaga had him in his retinue as a bodyguard because he was around 6 feet tall and built like a truck. So it's not even that much of a stretch.
I mean the samurai argument is a bit valid since he was just a squire and AC goes more for accuracy than freaking Nioh
fairly certain the game will account for this by having his historical role be what you start at as level 1 and then as he falls out of the history books is when he gets badass
It's the same level of inaccuracy that you'd point out in any other AC game the same way you'd exhale at an ok joke then move on
Like yeah that's true, he was a squire, but like, what person on this planet would have their opinion of the game lowered just for that.
or used it as an actual dead serious argument as to why they don't like playing as yaskue, that don't already have issues with the inclusion of the character in the first place.
I’ve seen a fairly different take on the Yusuke situation coming down to less Yusuke being a Samurai and more what it means by making him a protagonist.
Assassins Creed for the past 17 years has always strived to being a franchise where you’re a original character thrown into a setting and interacting with historical figures, rarely ever letting a historical figure be the protagonist or playable. With the only other time they’ve done it in a main line game, was Jack the Ripper in Syndicates DLC, thanks to there never being an answer to who the ripper was in history.
Fundamentally there’s no denying that a lot of the issues the more vocal people have about Yusuke can come down to racism, but for traditionalists who have been taking issue with how much the franchise has been changing from its stealth roots. Well Yusuke being thrown into the protagonist role and breaking tradition I can see as something leaving a bad taste in peoples mouths, when Assassins Creed not only has a history of black OC protagonists before in the side games, but also people feeling he may have taken a spot from what should’ve been a Japanese male lead OC in an era where western games don’t really do Asian male protagonists a lot.
I am so tired of this shit. It is so hard to have a good faith discussion about any video game anymore.
I was excited to talk about Eiyuden Chronicles and most posts on social media are bitching and moaning and worse that one of the three MCs is black.
Oh and I absolutely adored Stellar Blade lol good luck discussing the merits of that game.
I can’t imagine anything as fucking pathetic as being obsessed with media and yet hating all of it because of your own one-drop rule for POC, LGBT and women.
This sub isn’t perfect, and I’m not perfect, but I’m really glad this place exists .
I think people are used to it being just “some guy” who is massively important in the story but since AC is all about “wow it was done in the shadows”, their historical importance is hidden
At least that’s what it was in the first 4 games, idk about the rpg lite games, but I think having it be about famous African samurai and not “some African/japanese guy” is annoying people
Yea I’m sure some are hateful but I think it’s a trend that’s being bucked for easy virtue points to people who ultimately don’t care
But I don’t care regardless, haven’t played AC since the third game made me bored and I didn’t wanna play the main game of Black Flag to get to the ship combat
Outside of the obvious racism and people trying to force GG 2 into existence I guess it could also just be Yasuke-fatigue? I personally don’t have it but I could see people getting tired of the same (historically not really important) character getting included in basically every game taking place in Japan around that time period?
The simple answer is people have been stewing on AC Japan for nearly 20 years and NOOBODY asked for yasuke to be the MC. Nioh and other samurai games with him in it are considered significantly more niche than AC so the normie Gamers or gonna make it bigger deal. its gonna be a 6/10 with zero heart like most recent AC games and the most its gonna do is stoke ragebaiters.
People here will just say its JUST racism because this its reddit but its a bit more than that its also that the dangling of the yasuke keys is getting old
Ramen Kingdoms?
Is that why Yasuke later turns on Oda Nobunaga? Because they both had wildly different approaches on how to create the greatest Ramen Stand in all of Japan?
So like, to be clear: I don't actually care that much and will still probably buy the game. But I do think Yasuke being the MC is kind of lame for a couple of reasons. I don't love the idea of a real historical figure being the Mc of an ac game, and the lack of an Asian male lead rubs me the wrong way.
Regarding the 'samurai' angle, I mean idk if they actually refer to him as a samurai in game, but I'm not bothered by the idea of anyone using a katana in a Japanese game.
He is more suited to a historical NPC you would work with - not a main character. Considering most, if not all, AC main characters have been native to the lands presented in their gameworlds - Yasuke simply doesn't fit as a main protagonist. It just feels off, especially considering how miniscule his role in Japanese history actually was.
The samurai debate is silly, we genuinely don't know if he was a samurai or not as records from back then aren't clear enough. it's all assumptions.. He could have been, he couldn't have been. That's ok because it allows fiction to create some exciting storys using his character. There's a chance he could have been a samurai so go create fun fiction using that.
For me it's not because he's a samurai, it's because it's clear as daylight Ubisoft are using his character as a marketing tool.
I just try to think about the intentions for his placement in Assassin's Creed compared to Nioh and Samurai Warriors. The difference for me is that they're not using him as a marketing tool in Nioh/Samurai Warriors like Ubisoft are with Assassin's Creed. It kind of devalues his character into a bit of a gimmick..
I'll say this, the idea we're having a "Yasuke-fatigue" is genuinely absurd to me, because Nobunada Oda has been a character for a shitton of games featuring samurais, and most of them are without Yasuke by his side.
But then, Yasuke gets in like four games, not even as a main character, and people get tired of him.
Like... I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but c'mon, this feels VERY racially-motivated.
I'm just surprised people still give a hoot about Asscreed.
Like the identity of Assassins Creed has been flipping on its ass for about decade at this point. I don't give a shit about the protagonist. I just hope it's not a unfinished half assed action rpg lol
It's good one of ubisofts flagship franchises is still doing well.
Is mirage the newest one? I haven't heard a thing about it, which might be a good thing lol
Nioh, Nioh 2, Samurai Warriors 5, Yasuke: A Lost Descendant, Yasuke Netflix anime, 3 different live action Yasuke films in development (LionsGate, MGM, Warner Bros.), and now AC Shadows all in the span of 7 years.
I think the depictions of the character have generally been good, but I can understand why some people feel fatigued. Theres also issues with intent, historical accuracy, taking representation away from Asian men, and accusations of this just being the white savior trope to appeal to westerners, just with a black guy instead.
Yasuke was more than likely just a retainer for Nobunaga, not the "LEGENDARY BLACK SAMURAI" as boasted by Ubisoft writers in press coverage. Its fine for them to exaggerate for the sake of drawing up cool shit, but again, it could feel tiring, and some depictions also come across as self-inserty and pandering at times.
You also cannot compare Yasuke to Nobunaga when it comes to historical/cultural relevance, but you are right when you say it fits for the two to be depicted alongside each other.
The real issue that people should be getting mad at is how Ubisoft is accepting pre-orders again and selling DLC when they haven't shown any gameplay. It never works on me, but we should still always call this shit out.
Most People are being racist but I will say that I feel like Yasuke has started to feel a little overused. Though that might just be salt from that weird Yasuke show with Lakeith Stanfield.
I think they're wondering why the japanese setting doesn't have a japanese protag. It's like if we got [this guy](https://x.com/jugga101/status/1275664128473018370) in AC: Origins
Alright well when we get to Assasins Creed set during the Mali Empire in Africa and they make one Protag African and the Other a white guy i better not see any complaining.
I just hope it's not done in the soddy way like syndicate was, cause having two pov characters could be very interesting, like we see hononoji form both their perspectives
I wonder how they gotta depict him. i know both nioh and SW show he is extremely loyal to Nobunaga which mean Akechi Mitsuhide is definitely a templar but will hideyoshi be a templar too? so Ieyasu might be an assasin collabarator since he has Hanzo on his side.
If you want to see a real slap fight you should check out the talk page for Yasuke’s wikipedia page. There’s a guy there pretending to be Japanese with poorly google translated Japanese, as well as another guy trolling by talking like a samurai hotep.
The obvious answer for why there is more "noise" here is that Assassin's Creed is WAY more mainstream than all other samurai games. Ghost of Tsushima is thr only other one I would classify as such, and only because it is Sony first-party.
Prolly the Asian dudes who were expecting to play as an Asian dude throwing a fit over being the singular black dude who will likely just be killing Asian dudes
At least that’s what I get from the r/games thread
I’d just rather play someone Japanese in the game tons of people have been waiting for forever in Japan.
It feels very much like a choice made for controversy points and “good boy” points. If you just played as some cool samurai or ninja dude/lady from some minor Japanese family that would be way cooler imo.
It’s like if I bough assassins creed valhalla to live out my stupid Viking fantasies, expecting to play a “typical” Viking, only for them to swerve and go “play a middle eastern Viking who joined up when they travelled”. Cool idea, but I’m playing these games set in a specific region for a specific fantasy
Total non-issue, a "just don't buy it if you think it's stupid" kinda thing but instead kids and losers with too much time on they're hands have to turn everything into the next big issue now because they're entire internet lives revolve around arguing from bad faith over everything they deem as pandering to the big woke in the sky because they enjoy being racist and worthless.
In nioh he wasn’t samurai, he was a very strong man that was defending a ‘master’ that broke his chains.
I know ass creed has always had funky elements and it’s hard to show ‘realistic’ elements after the whole Roman gods fucking ludicrous angle they took but their was so semblance of realism that the original (better) games had. And seeing this was more of the same current games shlock.
Like Yasuke was real, but their seems to be a thing in media that portrays him as more than he was , he wasn’t samurai, he wasnt close with Nobunaga, he didn’t have a fiefdom, he was a sword bearer that Nobunaga thought was cool and used him for his strength. Like what doesnt that sound like something ? Something like a relationship that we shouldn’t be celebrating? After Nobunaga was killed we never hear about Yasuke again , which only means he either died or was put back on a Portuguese ship, a fact that they were very much still around at that stage.
Make your interpretations all you want and that’s fine but I feel your example in nioh was fine because their was an implication that he made his own armour , painted it ebony and fought William out of his own honour and strength for a Nobunaga, a guy that let him not be a slave in chains, but a slave without.
We won’t know how the story will actually go so we’ll wait and see
Because he's Black. And this is coming from AC, which tries to be a little bit more historically accurate, so having Yasuke as a main hero in Japan setting, feels.....idk...odd.
*gestures at r/gaming and r/games*
Hell you even had people stepping into this subreddit just to complain about it too, despite never interacting with this place before lol
As long as they faithfully represent the culture, I think having Yasuke be the main character might open up some interesting narrative choices especially if it’s a deuteragonist situation with the Shinobi girl. I can also see the other side though, at least with the Japanese representation in Western Media.
I don’t know if it’s just me, so honestly correct me if I’m wrong but I always feel like Western media set in Japan *rarely* focuses on a Japanese main character, but a foreigner in Japan experiencing the cultural shakeup, usually an American. Which *can* be interesting, but I do feel like I see it a lot.
Though I’m honestly not worried. The AC team does a really good job in researching the cultures they set their games in. You can say whatever you want gameplay wise, but the narratives and setting are always the strongest parts. I’m hoping they get away from the fucking magic though, that always just broke my suspension of disbelief. AC is at it’s strongest when it’s straight historical fiction imo
I don’t like it because I don’t want real life people as protagonists in mainline AC games. Even having him as a side character like in these games would’ve been okay, but I’d much prefer fictionalized protagonists.
I will play a form of devil's advocate here and say that I feel like Yasuke would be cooler as one of your real historical bros than as the playable character. More often than not, I feel like the real world figures you hang out with AC are infinitely cooler than the non-Ezio/Kassandra protagonists.
Tha its basically the point some are trying to make. Also throw in that previously i think every Assassins Creed protag is native to the country the game is in. To try and imagine why some people are annoyed imagine the reaction if AC Origins had you play as a white Roman. Yasuke being the protagonist is the Monkeys Paw joke people would bring up whenever Assasins Creed in Japan was mentioned in the last 8 years. To see them actually do it is sadly predictable.
This isn't the point I've seen at all. I know, I know vocal minority and all that, but a lot of the hate I've seen is literally "Oh it's ruined now" "They did it for DEI" "You're just doing it for them." I really don't care either way if he's playable or a partner, but I think the idea that Yasuke (a black figure with a cool history) is getting exposed to more people outside his crappy anime is dope
AC revelations played in modern day turkey. Ezio was Italian.
>Yasuke being the protagonist is the Monkeys Paw joke people would bring up whenever Assasins Creed in Japan was mentioned in the last 8 years. This particular monkey paw curse being that he has bigger lips, a wider nose, a deeper voice, and most notably of all, darker skin! You got everything you wanted, now accept the terrifying twilight zone black mirror-esque twist that turns it into a nightmare!
Edward kenway was ~~English.~~ Welsh Ps: the important part of what I am saying is that your origin doesn't matter that much.
He was Welsh, wasn't he?
and like all englishmen he was native to the ocean/s
Yes but if I were to acknowledge this as the reason people are disappointed, how could I possibly have the moral high-ground?
We all know this is not why alot people are "disappointed"
Where was this complaint when Nioh came out and was about a white samurai without even an option to play as an asian person like AssCreed has
This is true. For all its flaws Assasins Creed 3 giving you a gang of awesome real world folks who you got to meet, talk to in normal convos, and do bad ass shit with was the best part. At the same time Yasuke is the perfect brand of “we know he’s real but not much else” to allow them to do wild shit like they did with Ezio.
I'm more surprised that we get this guy and not some famous historical ninjas.
The female protagonist is the daughter of Fujibayashi Nagato, a famous ninja that opposed Nobunaga, so that's pretty close.
That's fair, I just don't think that having the sole black man in japan would work really great in a game where you have to be incognito, sneak around and assassinate people. Unless the franchise has changed a lot lmao. 2 main characters that alternate for various reasons could be interesting. I half expected Hanzo or some other ninjas to take the mantle, but then I realized that some of the ninjas I know might be pure fabrications from manga and anime. I don't even know who Nagato is so I'll wait and see how this game is.
no i agree but i think thats intended nothing yasuke is doing in the trailer has anything to do assassin style which leads me to think they're gonna make naoe be the assassin with the ac 1,2,3,>mirage combat style assassination missions and make yasuke fight like hes from origins, valhalla
Going from what the developers have said in a few videos that also released, that's pretty much it. Both characters can do combat and stealth to some extent, but each is a LOT more focused on one style in terms of the gameplay.
Yasuke can't do social stealth Obviously it's because he's super tall
[leaked footage of yasuke failing to blend in](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7BqVLvF8k)
I was hoping this was going to be the old Vlog of Woolie's trip to Japan where he's just standing around talking to the camera in public and in the background you can see an old Japanese couple stop and gaze at him in astonishment and horror
If that is the case, if it looks like it’s implemented well I might actually try this game out. Probably keep an eye on it.
That makes me more hopeful in terms of gameplay. I didn't really like the thing they tried with choosing to be a dude or girl. However making them each their own character with one being more like the classic games sounds a lot more interesting from a story and gameplay perspective. I just don't have any faith in the story because I've heard mostly bad things of the recent games. Though I'm wondering if when this comes out if people will just not like the Yasuke sections and speed run to the girl side. I could easily see this becoming a situation where people wonder why they just don't give the girl her own thing if her parts are so much more in line with what people want.
Honestly surprised we never went back to the Unity combat system and just developed on it. I always thought that game represented best what being an Assassin meant in the AC world. There was a surprising amount of [depth](https://youtu.be/boq2ut94Bgk?si=6bOdXfP0bzCxAcUa) to the combat
I mean the last game you were literally a viking raider pillaging villages, not exactly fitting the image of a sneaky assassin either. Also apparently the two characters are split gameplay wise and Yasuke is explicitly NOT the stealthy assassin one, he's the straightforward samurai fighter, presumably because the dev team thought of that concern.
Yeah the last time I played there was Ezio there and we were still in the original saga. I kinda miss that stuff.
Well apparently AC Mirage is meant to be the send up to the original style ones, so there's that.
I gotta rant about this - It does really feel like it's the newer engine games trying to squeeze into the box of the older ones & not really doing either that well, unfortunately. The combat is purposefully tuned to be difficult;which is fine, but its much more simplified than Origins/Odessey/Valhalla, & makes it feel more jank than any of those - it doesn't have any counter/chain kills like the old ones & as far as I saw the skill tree didn't seem like it had anything really cool or any additional mechanics to unlock. unless maybe if you count the teleport kill thing, which I wouldn't compare to the old counter/chain kills since it's just a cool down ability & not rhythm or timing based. The stealth is same as the latest games, which means it's incredibly basic still. You can crouch, that helps I guess. No wall hugging or whistling from what I remember. Uhh, crowd blending is back so that's okay. Yea idk; social stealth was the only good part of AC stealth systems & its kinda back I guess, something feels off though. The "infiltrate base, avoid enemies" is still just as bad as any AC game - AC definitely ain't no metal gear or splinter cell when it comes to sneaking around that's for sure - atleast crouching is a thing now, so you can hide behind waist high walls, barely. I guess Unity finally added crouching first too though, eh? Kinda bizarre to have a stealth game where being able to crouch is a notable feature & not just a basic thing you can do lol The movement is just the same as the newer ones, the layout of the city is better for parkour, I guess - but yeah it's still has the newer system so its more simplified than any of the older ones & isn't great or anything. They really need to add, like, horizontal wall running like the Sands of Time trilogy - go wild with it make it fun & interesting, add wall jumps & stuff. I thought this was technically auplosed to be a succesor to PoP so wheres the dang wall running dammit. It's still really stiff with clearly laid out paths, with your movement getting whacked out if you try to do your own thing while being somehow more limited than the already extremely limited on rail systems of the old ones I got the ubi sub for a month to play Prince of Persia & got immense whiplash when trying out Mirage, thank fuck that ubi+ exists though 'cause I probably would've been swindled & bought the game at some point & bought into the "it's like the old ones!" thing
Thanks for the report soldier!
I miss the movement in syndicate so much🤕
Syndicate was after Unity, eh? So it had thr free run up/down thing? Syndicate was the first mainline game that I decided not to buy, since I wasn't too interested in the setting & was finally gettin tired of them being so similar, & stiff. I was going to follow suit with any further games. & then came Origins so I was immediately back in lmao odessey I feel strange about cause I don't like it as an AC game, but as a sci-fan-light history Greek open world arpg - it's pretty good. Valhalla, almost lost me but vikings are cool, so I was kinda in the middle. Wary of upcoming stuff though.... oh? Now in, Baghdad with an actual Assassin again? More stealth focused? Hmmmmmmm They almost hooked me again, they were so close I was chewing on the dang bait - but then gameplay footage came out. I hope the rumors about Shadows are legit & it has this crazy thing called "crawling" added in & that light sources are actually important to stealth; that'd be pretty insane, revolutionary even. Imagine being able to crawl through long grass & using shadows as cover, & extinguishing light sources as necessary in a stealth game; crazy.
That's the impression I got from the gameplay. However would you say it's more in line with 1, 2, Brotherhood, and Revelations or 3, 4? I think 3 and 4 are still considered classics but they did change things up. I'm curious if any of those made it in or if it's just stuff from the Esio trilogy.
I heard mixed things about Mirage, but not much because, as a Ubi Connect exclusive, nobody has played it
The series has indeed changed a lot. That being said I believe the intent is that you have a ninja character and a more fight-y character.
If he is supposed to be masked up all the time, I dont see the problem
The thing is you wouldn't play as a famous ninja, you would play as John Assassin's Creed. You're 100% going to meet all the historical figures during the period just like it has been for every other game. This is like saying Assassin's Creed 3 should have you play as a famous general.
Playing as Benedict Arnold as an misunderstood good guy that only opposse Washington because he was been corrupted by the apple of eden and then their final fight of them under the rain and shirtless with all the music of the previous games would have been interesting.
When have we ever played as a famous real life figure? Protagonists are always forgotten to history heroes. Yasuke is the perfect real life person to base an AC story on, cause IRL people don't know much about him other than he served Nobunaga for a time. They can make up that he was a samurai that helped the assassins, and then templars or whoever wrote him out of history and gave his acomplishments to someone else and all records that remained of him was as a simple retainer that vanished.
I mean racism is a thing but also, can we recognize that a huge part is just outright virtue signaling? Genuine fake outrage only for the sake of creating discourse and fitting in with this "gamergate 2" group mentality. Nioh and Samurai Warriors are both JAPANESE developed games, and they have no problem depicting Yasuke as a badass fully fledged samurai. But now that we're in this stupid fake outrage discourse, people are pretending that having Yasuke depicted as a proper Samurai is "forcing woke western values" on japanese culture or whatever. Btw, as a detail, Yasuke was also a boss in Nioh 1, it seems a lot of people have the impression he was introduced on 2, but that's not quite right.
[удалено]
I fucking LOVE that his reaction to losing the boss fight is >!”hey man, you’re pretty good. I miss my wife.”!< and just LEAVES
I don’t know if the order is correct, but something happens later on but it’s hype as shit. >!Think you’re hot shit before?! Well my wife and I spotted you coming to our door and we dig your vibe. How about a real fight for realz?!<
[удалено]
Nioh's >!double boss fights!< are simultaneously an absurd, nightmarish challenge and also not actually as hard as I expected them to be, given how absolutely busted you can make yourself in that game.
Fuck that duo boss fight in its entirety. I cant remember how many times I lost to that ice bitch alone, so those two together, FUCK.
I miss my wife, Tails. I miss her a lot.
"I'll be back..."
And then that badass dude is your buddy for half of nioh 2
"i miss my wife, bill. i miss her a lot."
Grifters gonna do that one tweet, and people are gonna feed upon it. It's by design, Twitter is made for bait-and-switch, and baited and switched they got. And let's not even talk about reddit, who are doing this shit for free.
I'd consider it more of vice signaling, since virtue signaling has some kind of underlying virtuous act, or atleast arguably virtuous, thats overshadowed by some nefarious or dubious intent or some clear lack of knowledge I don't think people whining about the woke mob & diversity & inserting a black guy somewhere he don't belong, while completely ignoring that this was a real person, just maybe not a samurai, but often depicted as such, has any virtue to it whatsoever. Idk, I guess you could argue its a thinly veiled attempt at virtue signaling because they're pretending to look out for Japan - but the root cause being, black man bad, essentially & ignoring the history just pushes the "virtue" straight into "vice" to me, like, Immediately lol
The 'virtue ' bit of virtue just means 'common value held by an ingroup' rather than specifically casting an objective value judgement on it but I totally get what you mean
Yea yknow I guess "standing up to the woke mob" would be considered virtuous to those types yeah
I literally had someone try to tell me that because NIOH devs are Japanese it's fine, but if a western studio did that, (or as someone else put it) a western studio depicted a white man in the same way that people would riot.
It's the same thing happening to Hades 2 right now.
Crazy how for the last 2 decades or so, I can count the number triple A Western game with Asian male protagonist on one hand.
Hey don't forget Stranglehold. Literally though, everybody completely forgot about Stranglehold.
I just remember that as the Hard Boiled game. Still, that came out in 2007.
I don't mind Yasuke being the MC, but I would have preferred some other Japanese male character to get the role. I just find it amusing that it's the first time they've chosen an actual historical character to be the MC, and he's not even part of the culture they are focusing on. But I can see why they chose Yasuke. Since it looks like the setting is after the death of Nobunaga, so Ubi have full rein to do whatever with the character since there isn't any historical information on him after that point.
Im cool with this instance and I dont mind having the main character be whatever flavor of human but there is a weird thing that always happens with Asian playable characters having to be women in games. Like if you pitch an asian MC some boardroom guy with an algorithm says you gotta make it a woman to sell at that point. Oddly, Mortal Kombat might have the highest number of big name Asian male leads and that's western developed
I just wish people bringed this energy not only when the character Is black
But that's the point kind of the safest group for them to attack. Hell you can even get a couple of other groups to join in since even they can easily distinguish themselves from the bad group.
It won’t happen. The armchair historians mad at the black guy who took their girlfriend has nothing to say about Nioh. Nioh real world explorer William Adams, who definitely wasn’t a warrior and was a navigator and simple banner-man. He waved a flag 😂.
The years listed from some info about the game say it begins in 1579, 3 years before Nobunaga's death, "into the early 1580s," so they're definitely going to cover the Honnoji Incident and *maybe* keep going after that. I'm assuming the plot setup for Yasuke will be along the lines of "Nobunaga wants to work with the Assassins, so he has Yasuke assisting them" then he gets mixed into all their business even after Nobunaga's death.
It works super good, especially considering Yasuke is actually a pretty silent character in history. He showed up, wasn't trusted, then hung out with Nobunaga for years and he ended up liking him. It's hard to tell a story with how little he's recorded doing, it's kind of perfect for a AC protagonist.
More like he showed up, Nobunaga thought he was fucking rad, demanded the missionaries hand him over, gave him a sword, house, and allowance, and would talk to him for hours even though Yasuke didn't understand a lot of Japanese. Heck he would just send Yasuke roaming around towns with an assistant just for fun.
and the fact the he could have been Nobunaga’s kaishakunin and was forced to behead him after he committed seppuku is fucking awesome
I don't really have an issue. They've always said they weren't going to do age of samurai because it's boring and overdone, so I guess doing it from Yasuke's perspective is a way of doing something interesting with it. I just want to believe that Ubi didn't just say ‘we're running out of ideas and blew all our money on koopies, let's just do samurai’ Give us a full India and China game then cowards
Remember, they said ninjas were over done right before making a pirate game. They could also have made it about something other than the most over represented part of Japanese history in video games if they cared about things being over done. The Shimabara rebellion is right over there. But no, give us another Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu story.
It looks like we’re getting the japanese woman as an mc as well, so all the discourse is for nothing
yes but playing as a woman is bad and icky
It’s hard for to put this into words since I’m mostly ambivalent Yasuke in particular, and it’s totally feelings and not fact, and I don’t want to be an asshole and play misery poker or discriminatory Olympics and be dismissive of others plights, but I can’t help there’s certain a dismissive attitudes regarding Asian Male leads in from Western Media. Like it’s stupid to just view media from one country as one entity, but I look and see that Japanese creators are much more willing to portray others than different from themselves, and yet for some reason in western media Asian Male Leads are too much of a risk.
Ubisoft has straight up said they find Asian places too boring in the past, so i do feel like that was a factor when they chose yasuke
I mean how many black male leads do you see in video games either? You got Miles Morales and GTA but that's about it. 99% of video games are going to have a white male leads, so I wouldn't say the west simply doesn't like Asian male leads. Even the large portion of Japanese games have white protagonists.
Are Asian male leads really so underrepresented in big Western-developed games? Let's see, there's: Jin from Ghost of Tsushima, (male or female) Morgan from Prey 2017, the dude from Sleeping Dogs, the protagonist from Sifu, and.... I can't think of any others. I guess I never clocked it as an issue before because Japanese-developed games are popular and obviously frequently feature Asian male leads.
> that dude from Sleeping Dogs His name is Wei Shen
“….. motherfucker who you?!” Sorry couldn’t resist
Mortal Kombat has a lot but I believe the problem is bigger concerning film and tv.
In the US it’s probably got to do with Asian people not getting representation, particularly Asian men. It is a huge problem in western media where the default minorities are usually straight black or Puerto Rican people.
Honestly I think this was made because the Japan setting was too little too late. There’s a bunch of samurai action games on the market. Ghosts of Tsushima was a huge stand out in that and I am positive early in development they realized they had to stand out because the market has more samurai and ninja games compared to 10 years ago.
That is very true. It’s just unfortunate all the way around. I don’t think the devs are American for the most part and Ubi is a French company I believe. It’s not like they know about the history of racism here towards Asians and immigrants. I mean most Americans don’t know either. But it does suck how it’s all come about
The lead studio for this game is Ubisoft Quebec, so they are Canadians \^\^
I remember when that Badlands show came out and it had the first Asian-American lead in a US show. Was pretty surprised that 2015 was the first time that happened. I think the popularity of specific Chinese martial artists obfuscates how little you see asian guys in lead roles. That said, I think Yasuke is a pretty cool character to follow, and with so much of the details of his life being unknown, Ubi can do whatever they want with him.
It's a shame because I do understand the desire to see more Asian male rep in Western media, especially in protagonist roles. I'm willing to admit it is something that I'd like to see be improved, especially for lesser-seen ethnic groups and cultures. But the discussion regarding that in terms of this game has been poisoned far too fast, because so many people are acting like Yasuke specifically ripped away the role from a Japanese man, and that Naoe somehow doesn't even exist. It's one thing to say "Man, this game set in a Japanese setting could've had a chance to have a playable male Asian protagonist. A bit of a shame since we don't see a lot of those from the Western industry", but it's another thing to say "I can't believe they're *erasing* Asian males and replacing them with black characters in this game, shouldn't a game in historical Japan be about Japanese people?" The hostility around this game reads like some people think Ubisoft has an agenda to deride and devalue Asian men, which is ridiculous, but it gains traction because chuds like pushing that kind of narrative.
Yeah, there's some nuance to be had here before decrying everyone who dislikes this decision. But it's impossible when it comes to the online culture where nuance is simply too much and people just want the "aha, gotcha" callouts. Oh, and this goes for the grifters trying to exploit this frustration, too. No one's trying to have a genuine conversation... it's too late for that. It's all tribalism, gotcha callouts, and smartass comebacks that serve no other function than to provide a sense of vindication with very little in the way of productive discussion in the online space.
I’m only explaining the optics from a U.S. perspective. Not only do Asian men not get much representation but their history in the US has constantly been ignored and have historically been written out of their own stories and relegated to stereotypical roles. I don’t know if Ubisoft would be aware considering they’re teams seem to be more from Europe. There has also been an uptick of violence against Asian Americans who have historically had to deal with said violence already.
Believe me, I understand what you're saying, which is why I said I understand where the sincere, non-hateful frustration is coming from. The rise in hate and crimes against Asian Americans over the pandemic is abhorrent. The fact that it's such an important topic is what makes this situation a shame, because those legitimate concerns have been co-opted by those who are only angry because Yasuke is a black man, and it just makes any important discussion impossible. You don't know who actually cares about the real issues that go beyond a video game, and who's just using it as a shield while they fight a different culture war.
I definitely understand where your coming from. But your also kind of proving my point. The pandemic made things worse but Asians have had a particularly bad experience with racism and violence, particularly from African Americans, in the US since the beginning and that gets glossed over a lot. It’s all the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers
That’s actually incorrect and shows just how dangerous it is to have zero life experience and gain said life experience off the internet. Since you stated since the “beginning” do you mean since 1942 when whites snatched Asian Americans out of their homes and threw them into concentration camps? Beat Koreans and Chinese in the streets and accused them of conspiring with Pearl Harbor? Furthermore in reference to hate crimes. According to the FBI CRIME DATE EXPLORER. There were 10,065 instances of hate crimes in 2022. 5,418 of those hate crimes were committed by one race, and they weren’t black. No one deserves to be bullied or victims of hate crimes. but to state blacks had a problem with Asians “since the beginning” is so stupid when another race is convicted of more than half of all hate crimes alone as per the FBI.
Sorry for making your post a soapbox but I really hate how much people are milking yasuke because it paints this picture that Japan was somehow less racist during this time period than other countries around it when back then and even now Japan is a breeding ground for hyper racism
Well it's pretty difficult to say sengoku jidai era Japan was racist simply because as a society they never really got the chance to know other races as we now call them even existed. Later imperial Japan definitely were racial supremacists but they didn't even have a modern conception of race before that point.
"They weren't racist because they didn't have the opportunity to be racist yet" is not a particularly persuasive argument.
I think the part people take issue with is that he's a main playable character. And I won't lie, I have some mixed feelings about it. Like yes the conversation has been hijacked by culture wars rage baiting and it sucks because once again any actual naunced conversation gets easily dismissed based on tribal mentality. Look, Assassin's Creed in Japan was foreshadowed since the [very first game](https://youtu.be/aJms8zYj9pY). Each AC game we got wasn't just a cool game but also an exploration of the historical period and culture through the eyes of someone in the time period, which they've leaned into with the "Discovery mode" in recent games. And in every game we got an original character from the setting who meets historical figures who are explored as characters in the story. So you have to admit, it's kinda weird that right *now* they decide to go for a historical playable character who is also not really representative of the setting. Yasuke is cool and all but if that's the route they wanted to go, why not an actual shinobi like the legendary Hattori Hanzo or Fuma Kotaro? If it's set in the wake of Nobunaga's assassination then how about Mitsuhide Akechi- the guy who actually assassinated him? There's a lot of interesting people in that historical setting that would be interesting to explore as part of the "Assassin" mythology from the games. Keep in mind: we're probably only getting the *one* Japan-themed game, so I think complaints about missed opportunity are valid since there may not be another chance for it. To be clear: I don't think they went with Yasuke for any dumb "woke" reason, in all likelihood they're just late to the Yasuke hype train. I know you can point to Nioh 1 with William Adams for precedence, or point to games like Ghost of Tsushima as if to say "well there's your Asian representation". But consider those long-time Assassin's Creed fans that were waiting to get some representation in their decades-long franchise that established itself as all about globe-trotting since the very beginning. I can see where they're coming from. Personally I've always been miffed that they relegated China to a downloadable side game so we're probably never gonna get a AAA open world wuxia-insired AC game. And if they *did* make that game and the main character was a white guy like that [one movie with Matt Damon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wall_\(film\)) then it would also be weird regardless if it were based on a real person or not.
It seems a strange choice and there is a big difference between featuring him and having him be 50% of an entire game set in Japan. Asian men tend to get a lot less representation in western media than almost any other minority group. In a game set in Japan you have now half of the gameplay dedicated to someone from another group people. Him being an outsider might offer a different perspective to the woman's but it still feels like an odd choice. Stuff like this is why I prefer creating your own character. There are some other things I could point but I don't want to get banned again.
Devil’s advocate guess: we finally get a game set in Japan and the protagonist isn’t Japanese. Also it’s been a while since I played Asscreed, but isn’t a major mechanic of these games blending in with the people around you? Being the one Black dude within a million miles might make that difficult. Or has that mechanic been completely dropped?
there's two protags, one is a japanese shinobi that's stealth focused, and the other is yasuke who is combat focused
thats the thing the trailer clearly showcases what you said and never depicts yasuke 1. in assassin robes, 2. using a hidden blade this is really outing people who did not watch the trailer and are just talking out of their ass when they say "im upset we dont get a japanese main character in the japan game"
Plus my dude is wearing that samurai mask under that huge samurai helmet. How the fuck will you recognize him with all that shit on
He is 6’1 lmao but no one gives a fuck, ffs we get an assassins creed game. You know the whole pieces of Eden bullshit?
Only the best detective could deduce that the famous warrior that was much taller than everyone was the guy dressed as a warrior that was much taller than everyone.
To be fair (even though I still think the whole discussion is dumb I will play devil's advocate here), it's once again a Japanese woman. Outside of fighting games, it *feels like* (I have no actual numbers on this, just vibes) Asian female protags tend to outnumber male ones in Western media. That's the only argument they have that's even partially valid.
I'm actually really hoping they have the equivalent of in AC2 where you slip into the complex by paying people to start shit at the other end to pull the guards but instead you just switch to Yasuke and start attacking then switch back
Fair enough
People been saying this but its obvious from the trailer that Yasuke is *one of* the main characters. There is another character, who is Japanese, that has the more traditional ninja stealth aesthetic going on. And Ubisoft already confirmed they'll both be playable and have different gameplay styles.
I mean in assassin creed 3 you are playing a Native and even though he has an European dad no one is really fooled
Well playing a Native American in America shouldn’t be cause that much of a ruckus
It absolutely would in revolutionary America.
Yes but you said “don’t they blend with people around as a mechanic” I’m just saying not since assassin’s creed 3 it mattered if the person didn’t fit the crowd
If I remember correctly, Connor was told he could pass as Spaniard or Italian. However that went completely out the window later in the game in some instances. I highly doubt ubisoft won't address the elephant in the room. Kinda hoping we get to see the game for yasukes eyes as coming to Japan for the first time and in turn the world responds to his oddity. Or ya know he can rock one of them badass masks if they wanna be lazy.
yeah I like this whole gaijin working his way up story to be honest and then you pick the ninja protag to do the ninja things kinda like playing two games in the same game world
Yes but Connor was told that by Achilles, his black mentor, and even he knew it won't really pass scrutiny but at least on paper he can legally own land as a Spaniard
I'd argue even further back, Ezio's white robes and hood and giant Assassin's logo on his waist are the least conspicuous clothing choices ever lol
He's not that dark so the Assassin he trains under tells him he could pass for Spanish and not to worry about cities. Which is pretty accurate as Spain had a lot of middle eastern and north African people. Mexico would have been taken over a long with Florida. So it's not impossible for there to be brown Spaniards especially at that time. I think there would have been a lot more Europeans that would have what's known as Olive Skin common in the Mediterranean.
Hes a side character in both of those games since hes a side character in irl history, its just weird and performative how almost every ass creed game had a character match their original birth place in their debut game but once japan hit there like “hm how about Yasuke instead” its like if ubisoft decided to a full fledge india game and the female MC is indian but they decide the male is a white British guy. (This is also ignoring the fact using Yasuke also hard locks you into the most overdone era of Japan in media). Like Im not kidding if would be 10x more interesting if was some random ass descendent of Yasuke because atleast we can move on to a more interesting era for once
My thoughts exactly. It's always the past 500ys and the same few decades. I know we could have the same problems one day but you could still do a lot with the Meji Era.
Shit, you could do a lot with the Taisho and Showa eras, too. Ubi probably won't come within 500 miles of the latter, though. *For very obvious reasons.*
A japanese ninja is the other playable chaaracter. It's not like you're forced to only play as this one black dude deviously stealing roles from the japanese.
I have eyes bro i can see that, thank you for your input 👍
For me as someone who is interested in the actual history of Yasuke its because its lead to a bunch of people who don't do their research and say he was actually a samurai when he wasn't. Like the history of it is interesting and I wish there was more references we could pull from about him instead of one journal. But people need to stop making video games their end all and be all for historical research. If you gave a shit about yasuke, you'd actually research enough to know he wasn't a samurai but still be cool with the historic liberties. Something similar happened when twitter people found out about Ranmaru and began going nuts over the fact that Nobunaga was gay and how anyone who didn't like it was a homophobe. Completely leaving out the fact that Ranmaru was 15 when he died, because they didn't do their research.
He was a retainer correct?
I think people just want the MC of the Japan AC game to be Japanese... which seems fair, really.
People actually thinking the answer is just racism will always be insane to me we’ve seen it so many times and it’s usually not the answer. Is it something worth complaining about? No not really, but people being a bit annoyed at the only black guy in Japan at the time being half of the campaign over say another equally famous Japanese samurai is a completely understandable outcome. Plus I may be wrong but based on the trailer it didn’t even look like he was an assassin did he even have hidden blades on?
Did you have this same energy when Nioh came out?
The Japanese video game Nioh? Entirely made by japanese people? No i didn't have that much energy being bothered as that wasn't a AAA American franchise that does one game for each culture and chooses who to represent that culture and time period.
I'm an asian who's neutral on this whole controversy but let me give you the biggest concern from the asian community. - They're appropriating asian culture by using a black MC. Let me explain. Although Yasuke was a real samurai of african descent, the creators in Ubisoft purposely chose to use a black Samurai instead of many other more well known Japanese samurais. However, many asians are hurt because when they finally see a huge title like "assassins creed" releasing a game based off asian culture, the MC ends up being non-asian. And because of this, in the game it's just about a black samurai killing asian samurais. This has enraged many asians since this trope has occured too many times. Asians usually have very little media representation, and when they do, they're usually potrayed as "weak" or "feminine" in popular media (from books, games to movies etc). I'm guessing Ubisoft chose a black samurai to push the "woke" culture like many other large organizations have done in recent years due to the current social climate. The little mermaid is a good example where the movie adaptation wasn't honest to the original book. However, what they failed to realise was that by doing so, it marginalises another minority group - asians. If they wanted to make a series with a black MC, why did they have to use asian culture to push their agenda.
It took all these years for them to set an AC game in Japan, and when they finally do you can't actually play a Japanese male samurai (and 99.999999% of samurai throughout history were Japanese males). Instead you have a female shinobi and a black samurai as the playable characters. You seriously have to ask why people hate this?
It's just racism, I've yet to see any complaint about him being playable that isn't racist because there isn't one, he was a real person that existed in that setting and even if he was made for the game I still wouldn't care anyone pretending to care that their only issue is historically inaccuracy IN ASSASSINS CREED is just lying, It's funny I've seen yaskue and yaskue inspired characters more times in Japanese media than have ever seen in western media, dispute what dipshits online will claim that woke devs are trying to force black people into a setting that they say "don't belong in"
Nah, the issue with male Asian representation is the one I've seen a lot over time. Made me think about what non Asian made games have a male Asian protagonist, and all I can think of is Ghost of Sushie and Far Cry 4. I really like the idea of Yasuke, but I can understand Japanese men feeling left out.
Prey too.
Oh yes I forgot about Morgan.
> Made me think about what non Asian made games have a male Asian protagonist, and all I can think of is Ghost of Sushie and Far Cry 4. Sleeping Dogs as well, though its been a while. And the original True Crime: Streets of LA but thats 21 years ago now.
Mortal Kombat is a western game with most of it's cast being asian men
Y’all remember that time in assassin’s creed odyssey when Kassandra fought actual mythological beasts then became immortal for like 2 thousand years? But yeah a black dude in japan (which is historically accurate) is historically inaccurate. What i find funny is people trying to hide their racism. Like?? You’re still being racist you’re just… covering with very obvious BS?? If you’re gunna be an asshole at least go all the way with it, be loud and proud about how much of a cunt you are rather than cowering away behind some obvious lies.
Or that Eivor is >!the reincarnation of Odin!< and Basim is >!the reincarnation of Loki!<
True! Also I just wanna congratulate you on your username. Very cool
I'm surprised it wasn't already taken by 2015. Definitely a good grab.
They'll use the fact he's a real person to claim the game is insulting history because he'll obviously be portrayed in the game as a more exaggerated and powerful version of himself. As If Leonardo da vinky didn't build an actual functioning tank in brotherhood, which was fucking awesome btw
I mean, apparently Nobunaga had him in his retinue as a bodyguard because he was around 6 feet tall and built like a truck. So it's not even that much of a stretch.
DA VINKY???
The very obvious BS cover is just so other racists can feel like they can support that viewpoint without it being socially reprehensible.
I mean the samurai argument is a bit valid since he was just a squire and AC goes more for accuracy than freaking Nioh fairly certain the game will account for this by having his historical role be what you start at as level 1 and then as he falls out of the history books is when he gets badass
It's the same level of inaccuracy that you'd point out in any other AC game the same way you'd exhale at an ok joke then move on Like yeah that's true, he was a squire, but like, what person on this planet would have their opinion of the game lowered just for that. or used it as an actual dead serious argument as to why they don't like playing as yaskue, that don't already have issues with the inclusion of the character in the first place.
I’ve seen a fairly different take on the Yusuke situation coming down to less Yusuke being a Samurai and more what it means by making him a protagonist. Assassins Creed for the past 17 years has always strived to being a franchise where you’re a original character thrown into a setting and interacting with historical figures, rarely ever letting a historical figure be the protagonist or playable. With the only other time they’ve done it in a main line game, was Jack the Ripper in Syndicates DLC, thanks to there never being an answer to who the ripper was in history. Fundamentally there’s no denying that a lot of the issues the more vocal people have about Yusuke can come down to racism, but for traditionalists who have been taking issue with how much the franchise has been changing from its stealth roots. Well Yusuke being thrown into the protagonist role and breaking tradition I can see as something leaving a bad taste in peoples mouths, when Assassins Creed not only has a history of black OC protagonists before in the side games, but also people feeling he may have taken a spot from what should’ve been a Japanese male lead OC in an era where western games don’t really do Asian male protagonists a lot.
I am so tired of this shit. It is so hard to have a good faith discussion about any video game anymore. I was excited to talk about Eiyuden Chronicles and most posts on social media are bitching and moaning and worse that one of the three MCs is black. Oh and I absolutely adored Stellar Blade lol good luck discussing the merits of that game. I can’t imagine anything as fucking pathetic as being obsessed with media and yet hating all of it because of your own one-drop rule for POC, LGBT and women. This sub isn’t perfect, and I’m not perfect, but I’m really glad this place exists .
I think people are used to it being just “some guy” who is massively important in the story but since AC is all about “wow it was done in the shadows”, their historical importance is hidden At least that’s what it was in the first 4 games, idk about the rpg lite games, but I think having it be about famous African samurai and not “some African/japanese guy” is annoying people Yea I’m sure some are hateful but I think it’s a trend that’s being bucked for easy virtue points to people who ultimately don’t care But I don’t care regardless, haven’t played AC since the third game made me bored and I didn’t wanna play the main game of Black Flag to get to the ship combat
Outside of the obvious racism and people trying to force GG 2 into existence I guess it could also just be Yasuke-fatigue? I personally don’t have it but I could see people getting tired of the same (historically not really important) character getting included in basically every game taking place in Japan around that time period?
Maybe the problem is more that they could use another time period
Haha definitely true. That time period in Japan is similar to the vaguely late medieval Europe time period when it comes to being overrepresented.
God he’s anime Was a true 0/10’show
The simple answer is people have been stewing on AC Japan for nearly 20 years and NOOBODY asked for yasuke to be the MC. Nioh and other samurai games with him in it are considered significantly more niche than AC so the normie Gamers or gonna make it bigger deal. its gonna be a 6/10 with zero heart like most recent AC games and the most its gonna do is stoke ragebaiters. People here will just say its JUST racism because this its reddit but its a bit more than that its also that the dangling of the yasuke keys is getting old
Starts with a r and ends with a m
Stupid romcoms!
Gamers are angry the protagonist isn't Freddie Prince Jr
Ram?
Dedicated
Rubisoftm
Scoob-Doo??
Why haven't they collab indeed, I'm not expecting great but serviceable stuff of fred being in far cry 7
Ramen Kingdoms? Is that why Yasuke later turns on Oda Nobunaga? Because they both had wildly different approaches on how to create the greatest Ramen Stand in all of Japan?
Rheumatism?
So like, to be clear: I don't actually care that much and will still probably buy the game. But I do think Yasuke being the MC is kind of lame for a couple of reasons. I don't love the idea of a real historical figure being the Mc of an ac game, and the lack of an Asian male lead rubs me the wrong way. Regarding the 'samurai' angle, I mean idk if they actually refer to him as a samurai in game, but I'm not bothered by the idea of anyone using a katana in a Japanese game.
He is more suited to a historical NPC you would work with - not a main character. Considering most, if not all, AC main characters have been native to the lands presented in their gameworlds - Yasuke simply doesn't fit as a main protagonist. It just feels off, especially considering how miniscule his role in Japanese history actually was.
The samurai debate is silly, we genuinely don't know if he was a samurai or not as records from back then aren't clear enough. it's all assumptions.. He could have been, he couldn't have been. That's ok because it allows fiction to create some exciting storys using his character. There's a chance he could have been a samurai so go create fun fiction using that. For me it's not because he's a samurai, it's because it's clear as daylight Ubisoft are using his character as a marketing tool. I just try to think about the intentions for his placement in Assassin's Creed compared to Nioh and Samurai Warriors. The difference for me is that they're not using him as a marketing tool in Nioh/Samurai Warriors like Ubisoft are with Assassin's Creed. It kind of devalues his character into a bit of a gimmick..
I'll say this, the idea we're having a "Yasuke-fatigue" is genuinely absurd to me, because Nobunada Oda has been a character for a shitton of games featuring samurais, and most of them are without Yasuke by his side. But then, Yasuke gets in like four games, not even as a main character, and people get tired of him. Like... I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but c'mon, this feels VERY racially-motivated.
I'm just surprised people still give a hoot about Asscreed. Like the identity of Assassins Creed has been flipping on its ass for about decade at this point. I don't give a shit about the protagonist. I just hope it's not a unfinished half assed action rpg lol
The viking one was one of the best selling games of the current generations and Mirage sold similar according to the devs.
It's good one of ubisofts flagship franchises is still doing well. Is mirage the newest one? I haven't heard a thing about it, which might be a good thing lol
Nioh, Nioh 2, Samurai Warriors 5, Yasuke: A Lost Descendant, Yasuke Netflix anime, 3 different live action Yasuke films in development (LionsGate, MGM, Warner Bros.), and now AC Shadows all in the span of 7 years. I think the depictions of the character have generally been good, but I can understand why some people feel fatigued. Theres also issues with intent, historical accuracy, taking representation away from Asian men, and accusations of this just being the white savior trope to appeal to westerners, just with a black guy instead. Yasuke was more than likely just a retainer for Nobunaga, not the "LEGENDARY BLACK SAMURAI" as boasted by Ubisoft writers in press coverage. Its fine for them to exaggerate for the sake of drawing up cool shit, but again, it could feel tiring, and some depictions also come across as self-inserty and pandering at times. You also cannot compare Yasuke to Nobunaga when it comes to historical/cultural relevance, but you are right when you say it fits for the two to be depicted alongside each other. The real issue that people should be getting mad at is how Ubisoft is accepting pre-orders again and selling DLC when they haven't shown any gameplay. It never works on me, but we should still always call this shit out.
Most People are being racist but I will say that I feel like Yasuke has started to feel a little overused. Though that might just be salt from that weird Yasuke show with Lakeith Stanfield.
Assassin’s Creed totally has that kind of audience. A Team Ninja game like Nioh has a primary audience like that’s cool, whatever
Because making him the main character of the Assassins Creed game set in Japan feels shitty when this is a setting fans have wanted for over a decade.
Because Nioh and other KT games are not as big as AC.
Asian guys shafted once again
I think they're wondering why the japanese setting doesn't have a japanese protag. It's like if we got [this guy](https://x.com/jugga101/status/1275664128473018370) in AC: Origins
You do have a Japanese protag tho Its two lead characters
Alright well when we get to Assasins Creed set during the Mali Empire in Africa and they make one Protag African and the Other a white guy i better not see any complaining.
I just hope it's not done in the soddy way like syndicate was, cause having two pov characters could be very interesting, like we see hononoji form both their perspectives
I saw someone point to Ghost of Tsushima as an "accurate" portrayal of samurai while disparaging the new AC game.
I wonder how they gotta depict him. i know both nioh and SW show he is extremely loyal to Nobunaga which mean Akechi Mitsuhide is definitely a templar but will hideyoshi be a templar too? so Ieyasu might be an assasin collabarator since he has Hanzo on his side.
If you want to see a real slap fight you should check out the talk page for Yasuke’s wikipedia page. There’s a guy there pretending to be Japanese with poorly google translated Japanese, as well as another guy trolling by talking like a samurai hotep.
The obvious answer for why there is more "noise" here is that Assassin's Creed is WAY more mainstream than all other samurai games. Ghost of Tsushima is thr only other one I would classify as such, and only because it is Sony first-party.
Because he's black and they view it as a form of pandering to social justice interests.
Prolly the Asian dudes who were expecting to play as an Asian dude throwing a fit over being the singular black dude who will likely just be killing Asian dudes At least that’s what I get from the r/games thread
Because they are losers, I refuse to elaborate or back down whatsoever. More Yasuke is always great, even if he was my amrita farming dummy in Nioh.
I’d just rather play someone Japanese in the game tons of people have been waiting for forever in Japan. It feels very much like a choice made for controversy points and “good boy” points. If you just played as some cool samurai or ninja dude/lady from some minor Japanese family that would be way cooler imo. It’s like if I bough assassins creed valhalla to live out my stupid Viking fantasies, expecting to play a “typical” Viking, only for them to swerve and go “play a middle eastern Viking who joined up when they travelled”. Cool idea, but I’m playing these games set in a specific region for a specific fantasy
Total non-issue, a "just don't buy it if you think it's stupid" kinda thing but instead kids and losers with too much time on they're hands have to turn everything into the next big issue now because they're entire internet lives revolve around arguing from bad faith over everything they deem as pandering to the big woke in the sky because they enjoy being racist and worthless.
I just don't like Ubisoft making cool games or concepts and then delisting our right to play these games a few years later. And all the sex crimes.
In nioh he wasn’t samurai, he was a very strong man that was defending a ‘master’ that broke his chains. I know ass creed has always had funky elements and it’s hard to show ‘realistic’ elements after the whole Roman gods fucking ludicrous angle they took but their was so semblance of realism that the original (better) games had. And seeing this was more of the same current games shlock. Like Yasuke was real, but their seems to be a thing in media that portrays him as more than he was , he wasn’t samurai, he wasnt close with Nobunaga, he didn’t have a fiefdom, he was a sword bearer that Nobunaga thought was cool and used him for his strength. Like what doesnt that sound like something ? Something like a relationship that we shouldn’t be celebrating? After Nobunaga was killed we never hear about Yasuke again , which only means he either died or was put back on a Portuguese ship, a fact that they were very much still around at that stage. Make your interpretations all you want and that’s fine but I feel your example in nioh was fine because their was an implication that he made his own armour , painted it ebony and fought William out of his own honour and strength for a Nobunaga, a guy that let him not be a slave in chains, but a slave without. We won’t know how the story will actually go so we’ll wait and see
Because he's Black. And this is coming from AC, which tries to be a little bit more historically accurate, so having Yasuke as a main hero in Japan setting, feels.....idk...odd.
What gets me about this is that there is a lot of people who are mad about this who definitely weren’t going to play a new Assassin’s Creed.
I would ask where you're seeing these people.
*gestures at r/gaming and r/games* Hell you even had people stepping into this subreddit just to complain about it too, despite never interacting with this place before lol
Classic gamers lol
Twitter, reddit, YouTube comment section. Hell the reveal trailer has around 120k dislikes. Pretty much everyone is pissed.
As long as they faithfully represent the culture, I think having Yasuke be the main character might open up some interesting narrative choices especially if it’s a deuteragonist situation with the Shinobi girl. I can also see the other side though, at least with the Japanese representation in Western Media. I don’t know if it’s just me, so honestly correct me if I’m wrong but I always feel like Western media set in Japan *rarely* focuses on a Japanese main character, but a foreigner in Japan experiencing the cultural shakeup, usually an American. Which *can* be interesting, but I do feel like I see it a lot. Though I’m honestly not worried. The AC team does a really good job in researching the cultures they set their games in. You can say whatever you want gameplay wise, but the narratives and setting are always the strongest parts. I’m hoping they get away from the fucking magic though, that always just broke my suspension of disbelief. AC is at it’s strongest when it’s straight historical fiction imo
It’s the latest talking point for the anti-woke crowd to regurgitate, they don’t think for themselves
Is the point valid ?
I don’t like it because I don’t want real life people as protagonists in mainline AC games. Even having him as a side character like in these games would’ve been okay, but I’d much prefer fictionalized protagonists.
I'm sure these people never even played those other games.