even if they had a clean record regarding business practice and workplace , AC titles are a sleep inducing slog fest , extremely long , big map filled with repetitive missions , they are so mediocre they are only worth getting on heavy discount if you really want to play them
isn't the game director of this known to be predatory towards women in the workplace? From what I read most of the team at this particular place avoided working on this game because of him.
I feel you. They can still produce something like that though, like that one audio recording of Desmond's and Shaun conversation in Valhalla it just won't be the main theme again and just feel disconnected to the whole game.
@@shukudaidesu I never heard that before, I gave up during Odyssey and never finished it. Good to hear they have some connection to the Desmond story for the older players, who have stuck with the games.
AC lost it's uniqueness when the "weight" of what it means to be an Assassin is not conveyed properly for a long time. Now, it's just a bunch of edgy people wandering around in hoods stabbing others.
@@L0STV1K1NG96 Judging by your other comments on this channel you seem like your a massive ubisoft fanboy so I am not going to bother engaging with you 👍
Next up Assassin’s Creed Shadows Woke Me Edit: This is a joke about his video Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Broke Me, and i’m making fun of the term rather than making an actual statement :) Chill out
“Hey where’d that 6’5 black man go who killed that fuderal lord? Excuse me suspicious black stranger sitting on a bench. Have you seen the only black guy in Japan?” Yasuke: “Sorry, I haven’t.”
History student here. My issue isn't criticism for them being representative, it is rather HOW they are choosing to go about enacting such representation. Given the fact that I personally like that Yasuke is being included, my issue is how, he's being included. It IS cool that Yasuke is being included, but NOT how he's being included. Unlike other historical characters, Darwin, Dickens, Da Vinci etc, they were supporting characters. They still had plausible claim to who they generally were historically. However to me, the issue with Yasuke here, is that because of the fact that he's being made a playable character, they're stretching the truth or historical plausibility further than it was. Yasuke was never a samurai, he merely became a retainer under Nobunaga. Secondly, as a retainer and as he was accepted into Nobunaga's circle, he would've been expected to have assimilated into Japanese culture. This would mean he would've needed to at least look Japanese and conform to their culture to the best of his ability. My issue here is that if you take Yasuke out of Sengoku Japan, he looks exactly in place in the modern world - which is a massive issue. For a start, he wouldn't be wearing dreadlocks, secondly, if he is supposed to be a samurai in this game, which he is, then why is he allowed to retain so much of his African heritage, this wouldn't fly with Japanese people at the time. Even today as someone who is friends with Japanese people and those who live in Japan, Japan has a very strict expectation of people, including foreigners in regards to the standards of their behaviour, ethics and general way they carry themselves. Ubisoft is taking the idea of Yasuke and stretching it to extremes. He wasn't a retainer, no he was a full-blown samurai. Secondly as a samurai it's clear looking at the footage being shown that his practice is ridiculous, doing such things as slamming the tsuba (crossguard) of the katana into the saya (sheath) multiple times in the trailer without care for the sword itself shows Ubisoft have VERY LITTLE actual faith in doing the game justice which is the problem. As someone who studies kendo and other forms of HMA it made me cringe tremendously hard. You just don't do that with Japanese swords as it can damage its structural integrity. Another thing regarding historical accounts. He was considered tall, yet he's not just tall he's physically towering over every single person he comes across, essentially the Sengoku equivalent of William J Blaskovich. Ubisoft is taking everything to extremes with representing this character. He looks out of place for a game set in this period as a character we're supposed to play as and I would rather they stick closer to the history or the plausible ideas of what he got upto, as they did with characters like Leonardo. Sure they stretched things such as having him make tanks/flying machines, but we know he did make those plans, they just never existed. It's not like he was made a royal or became someone he wasn't/ They're making a historical figure now a playable character and in doing this are stretching the plausibility of the history alongside the actual history much further than they did with others. Take Connor for example, they removed scalping as a feature for the fact that not only was it disturbing, but they learned that the tribe he was associated with would not have performed scalping. With Yasuke, he's being made to look like any modern person today, rather than an individual who would've fit the period of the game, not to mention why do we even need dual characters? What's wrong with having a female lead? Why does there HAVE to be a male character to play as? You mention "They work in the shadows as a part of history that won't be heavily documented. And sometimes won't be documented at all." Yes, but Yasuke is confirmed to not even be an assassin, he doesn't even have a hidden blade. He's not part of the Creed and this has already been confirmed, he's merely working with assassin's, not as one. "Simply deciding you want your protagonist to be a black samurai which is A-typical because you want to represent that in a story is a choice like any other." It's not the same as an inanimate choice though really, is it? It's being done deliberately. Choosing a character purely based on the colour of their skin and no other metric is not how good characters are written. Filling a game with modern looking characters rather than doing the character justice, they're choosing to bastardise the reality of who Yasuke was, also forgetting to mention any of his prior life and brushing that over in favour of big tall black samurai. Having a character of a certain race in the game just because and then bastardising a real character's name just because isn't doing any good to the possibility of the writing, what is known historically of Yasuke is not much, but what is known is quite clear, Ubisoft are making a deliberate choice to ignore that. Choosing to have a black character just because isn't good writing or development. They also, if you watched Ubisoft's other videos make convenient excuses to having two characters over one with things like - "We can't have samurai and a shinobi in one character." Which is a stupid argument in and of itself when you consider that Samurai was a social designation, not a job description, Shinobi was the inverse. ANYONE of any class could do work as a shinobi, so their arguments they make in the first place are paper thin. - Moving onto the game itself. The architecture and design of the game isn't even Japanese, it's Chinese. It has Chinese lanterns, buildings and architecture. Swords are worn in the wrong position, slammed into the saya and not given the proper treatment these weapons should be given to ensure proper functionality. It is very clear to me that Ubisoft are far more comfortable with making shit up than actually trying to authentically represent Japan considering it doesn't even look like Japan to those that know what they're looking at. It's obvious they've taken elements of Asian culture, pop-culture, myths and whatnot then just spread it into a game.
I feel like most of the criticism thus far about this game focusing on Yasuke is because that is one of the few pieces of Japanese history that most westerners really have a grasp on that was also shown in this game. Most aren't going to know all the differences between Chinese and Japanese architecture, the minutae of the history and culture, and definitely the piece about the saya you pointed out. We focus on it because that is the small piece we understand to be verifiably wrong. Lazerz wrongly focuses on this part and ignores all the other criticism that other people with more experience with Japanese culture (like you) are bringing forth.
Your entire essay is for a pre-rendered trailer and could've easily been summarized as: I would prefer Yasuke to be a supporting character like the other historical figures before him... Geez wait for the game to release dude.
absolutely nobody would've been bothered by this comment without the parentheses, people like to reduce and simplify things so they don't have to think so hard to make their worthless opinion
@@byksEBM Yes, good energy... funny how you could've said at any point of human existence and it still would "apply", thats how meaningful what you're saying is
honsetly my biggest gribe with this is that ubisoft who once declined doing things like vikings and samurai because they were too mainstream and they wanted to highlight less explored parts of history have just jumped on the biggest hype train surrounding japanese history. It feels like everyone is making a media project surrounding yasuke now.
“Highlight the less explored parts of history” If they said this and this really was their intent they failed 15 years ago with AC2. Renaissance Italy is hardly a less explored part of history.
"Those topics aren't gonna colonize themselves" right x) the typical American way of approaching something. Make it about them even if it means revising already written history and culture. Bonus points if it's from another country altogether.
With all due respect, I heavily disagree with you. it is, fundamentally, at it's core wrong. Every single Assassin's Creed game, the playable choices were always representative of the setting and time period of where the game took place for the broad stroke. This has held true for every single Assassin's Creed entry. All of a sudden, when it comes to setting it in Japan, Japanese people are only given one half of that choice and that's not fair to them. They can play as a Japanese female, but not as a Japanese male. This wasn't how Syndicate was handled, or Odyssey, or Valhalla. The historical tug of war over Yasuke's title of retainer being samurai or not, isn't the bigger point. It's a demographics issue, straight up, and done so in a way that was deliberately a snub and designed *to* insight the backlash, since it wasn't the shinobi/assassin style character it was done to, it was the samurai style character it was done to. Every AC game gave the regional demographic their due, except for this one, and that's not right. It's the equivalent of telling the Japanese people that they weren't worth the effort.
it is now hear me out because you may be too dumb to understand a fucking video game. It isnt real the characters have no bearing on the real world and if the games good its good if its bad its bad.
@@mrunknown6070 it only makes sense for a digital copy to require an internet connection for installation, if you're buying the physical copy that data should already be on the disc, Xbox does this shitty practice as well and now Ubisoft is doing it, it's bad because if those games become unavailable digitally it means even the disc won't preserve the existence of the media
@@moritakaishida7963 agreed but I would hate the game industry more generally since this does feel less like a ubi only problem. Still it is good to point them out.
The problem is, when you already have an enigmatic character like Hattori Hanzo, who is in AC lore an Assassin as well as Shinobi AND Samurai, the job should have already been easy for Ubisoft and they wouldn’t have to make the stupid excuse of not being able to mix both fantasies into one person.
Ghost of Tsushima blended both types of fantasies perfectly. This game will never hit that bar. That is the dumbest excuse when we live in a world GoT exists. Japanese people are offended. That's all that matters to me. Anyone who is not Japanese or knows the real history of Yatsuke (who is barely a footnote in history) can take their wokeness and see themselves out. Or just keep supporting this trash company, your choice!
Glad you know everything about making video games. Glad you are a professional in the industry who is a history buff and have a tract record of making revenue from video games. Oh wait youre not any of those things. Save that for the pros.
Main characters in every Assassin's Creed game have always been fictional characters based on their country of origin. Any historical figure has always been a side character or supporting character. Now, they have made an exception for this game to have a real person, an African man in a Japanese land setting, as their main character. They claim he was a historical legendary samurai who was only in Japan for 13 months, without any surname or wars and battles to his name. He was only a retainer or helper for Oda Nobunaga because of his unique skin at that time. If you say all AC games are fiction, then why make a real person the main character and change history ? Why can't we have both characters be Japanese ?
To claim people criticizing this character for being African are racist, we would need a consistent and balanced equivalency from the same people in the past. I don’t recall any criticism or Islamophobia of Basim being middle eastern. Probably because he was in Baghdad. I do not recall any racism toward Bayek being Egyptian/african. Probably because he was in Africa. I don’t recall any negative anti Native American sentiments toward Connor. Probably because he was in America. No matter how you twist it, this choice was intentionally made for a reason. And that reason wasn’t solely “art”, nor was it concocted within the incredibly well thought out confines of “filling in historical gaps” lore of AC. (You and I both know Ubisoft Quebec isn’t that deep with AC lore.. they made Odyssey lol. Great video and perspective overall, as always. Extremely well laid out within the lore and I respect your take. The extremists on both sides are annoying. But I’m sure there are plenty of Japanese men who would have loved to have been represented in their own history in an AC game. Tough luck to them I guess.
How much does assassins creed sell in Japan? I googled it and couldn't figure that out but apparently there are people here that think this game is received like Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, Persona or any huge game from any Japanese developer. They didnt care about assassins creed before, I doubt they're crying about it now.
In fairness, there were some 'we wuz kangz' comments when Origins was announced, but that was a minority. Bayek (though played by a black man) didn't look black in the trailer, and even if he was, they could've just made him Nubian (from northern Sudan), and it would've still worked. This is coming from someone who fully supports calling out real wewuzzery (which Shadows, by contrast, is).
finally some sense with the ending, both of the sides to the extreme are annoying. No yasuke being black is not a problem, however I don't want to play as a tall brawler with no hidden blade who does not represent japanese culture well in my feudal japan ac game, a yasuke game about him being set in nigeria and eventually moving to japan would have been great, for example
I kind of love how you're deliberately choosing to forget that amongst the HUNDREDS of ip set in feudal Japan, there's a shitload Japanese Mc and when it's not, it's a white guy(shogun, nioh, 47 ronin, the last samurai etc). The setting's been done to death and it's absurd to act like the Japanese were STARVED for representation. Another thing I loved is how you deliberately ignored AC revelations, black flag, and Valhalla where the MCs are not from the main setting and are foreigners.
while i know you aren't a ubishill you don't understand what makes media "woke" and why people are calling ACS that. the things you say in the video are right but they have no relation to the subject and don't counter it.
my issue is that no AC before this one had a historical figure as the main character. how cool was it when we met leonardo, or when we met macchieveli, even when we met cleopatra. itt would’ve been just as cool if we met yasuke as we played the game and he became an ally? as a black, african man, i can tell you they used him as a selling point because they knew it would cause unrest.
@@thatemocat How is it out of place if he is part of that history? He is literally part of Japanese. How is it anymore out of place than literal fictional elements from being assassin creed
LazerzZ is a little off. The complaints are centered around the entirely fictitious history that Ubisoft fabricated. Yusoke was an inconsequential laborer who accompanied a Jesuit missionary group to Japan. The Japanese nobility saw him as a novelty, thought he was amusing, and wanted to keep him at court to show off. To avoid legal taboos, he was made a 'retainer' to justify him being close to the nobility. He surrendered in what was very likely the first actual battle he'd ever been in. Japanese records report that he was disarmed and taken to prison, where he functionally disappears from the historical record entirely. He was no more legendary than local fast food burger flipper. This is akin to Ubisoft fabricating a story about how the local janitor is a legendary warrior who singlehandedly defeated Nazi Germany. Had they wrote this using a fictional Japanese samurai or retainer, nobody would have blinked. Its the act of cultural vandalism thats angering gamers, with Japanese players especially annoyed. As far the price goes, I actually honestly don't have an issue with the price. Games have not kept pace with inflation and the 70 USD price point is technically the 'cheapest' they've ever been. A 50 USD game in 1995 is comparable to a 120 USD game today, so that 110 USD Gold Edition is actually what most games should, by all rights, cost today.
One of the worst takes ever it’s because Ubisoft is saying Yasuke was a samurai and even tried to change history by changing wiki and dismissing actual evidence but no let’s defend Ubisoft. You seem as woke as Ubisoft is if you can actually defend this bull. Hell their so called expert wrote a book on monks having relationships with boys. If you can defend that then there’s something wrong with you
I think the point he is trying to convey is that, Ubisoft maybe going the route of, yasuke was actually a samurai but due to his affliations to the assassin's brotherhood and other factors he was possibly removed from the historical records. This isn't the first time they have put a spin to historical events. Because at the end of the day, assassin's creed is a scfi game (with the animus and first civ stuff) but yet again it is Ubisoft lol, they may just have put Yasuke in the game, to fulfill a diversity, equality and inclusion quota. Who knows lol
And yet we now have two east asian AC games with 0 east asian male leads. In all other AC games the characters fitted into the inhabitant list of people living widely in those specific regions by that time. And as soon as it comes to a second east asian AC game the male mc gets switched for a complete (even if historically correct) outsider. From what videos I saw about that trailer the japanese people seemed to be the most pissed... and rightfully tho I think. I think Yasuke would have fit perfectly as a side character, with whom you might even play some flashbacks.
Technically this will be the third game taking place in Asia, the other two were chronicles but one of the protagonists was a male Indian. I could be wrong, but I don't think Japanese people are that pissed off, more of puzzled because they can't play as a Japanese samurai instead, and I think it's really just westerners that are pissed the most
I think AC is at its best when the assassins are all fictional and the templars are all historic. Yasuke and Nobunaga being villains could have been really cool.
@@kingpanther424 Hi. Kingpanther thanks for answering. Well first of all India is not East Asia :) and the east asian median and the indian median really don't look much alike. They are puzzled yes, but when you go through videos and X with japanese comments a good lot of them are pretty pissed as well. They say that Yasuke is boasted everywhere except Japan and that they would have really prefered to play as a japanese ninja.
@@EvilParagon4 As Nobunaga was on a pretty ruthless conquest to unite Japan, making him a "Templar" would acutally make sense :) Maybe together with Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu but those two overpower the shinobi (Assassins)
The racism you are missing is from Ubisoft, they have a foreigner who was in Japan for less than a year as a retainer, become a master samurai in that tiny amount of time, so good he is better than the native Japanese who had spent their lifetime training and learning to be samurai. This implies that a black man is superior to japanese and is able to master what took them a lifetime in just a year showing that Japanese people are inferior. This also does not go into the implications of a foreigner colonist committing ethnic cleansing against a native population.
@@Xaa25there were pirates in the caribbean and the nords went to england. those are both correct. the issue is that we’ve never had a main character be a historical figure. it’s never been like that, and it never should.
You are fundamentally wrong when you say that casting Yasuke as the male mc is thematically as Assassin's Creed as it gets. No mc prior to this game was so sociobiologically detached from the people, places and events within the story's setting. It's very inconsistent to the choices of previous games and only serves to highlight how out of place and forced the character feels as the male mc.
@@jayjay24155revelation is the converging point between ezio and altair. There were tons of white pirates in the Caribbean during that time period. Evior is also racially accurate for a game set during that time period. What do you mean?
I agree with your points James but I feel that Ubisoft chose these main characters just to pander and try and look ‘inclusive’, not because they think it’s what AC is supposed to be about. I doubt they care a bit about what AC was meant to be about as you described it in this vid.
I also think he makes good points, and then having Yasuke might work in that context, but I also agree with you in that I strongly doubt that any of the purple hairs behind this project gave that even a second of thought, this was purely about pandering.
Dude there is an Asian MC in there, the game have ALWAYS been inclusive it's a AC. What are you talking about. If you want to play a samurai game there is ghost sekiro.
@@lip124 I dont even care what race the character is. I just think ubisoft is doing this to cover their own backs and not doing it to try to be a good AC as is talked about in the vid
Well we will never know, and who cares, if their good characters that work and don’t feel like Ubisoft tokenizing because of their history of sexism, then I dint care, I just want to invest in a character, so we’ll see
That's what annoys me, they could write a black mc perfectly, an ex assassin and now slave in a foreign land, but no he will simply be a samurai, combat focused and no stealth characteristic of assassin's, and the girl seems like a shinobi with a hidden blade just because, since Ubisoft previously said shinobis and assassins were different things so seems like none of the main characters in this next ac game will be assassins, that's what people should be angry about.
Finally someone gets it. Black or purple guy, don’t care. But him being just a samurai defeats the purpose of what lazerzzs was saying. This isn’t representation as he’s not even being taken by the creed. Or maybe he is but he decides not to be an assassin or act like them
@@diegovcf4 Black Flag forgone the idea of stealth. You can't be stealth when you're sailing a ship around. Personally though I prefer the option of stealth or straight no bars held combat.
You answered your own question: "how can history be woke?" When the people recording and reciting it twist and warp it to fit their agenda. Also, it's laughable how you quote "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted" and then act like your interpretation of Assassin's Creed is the true way of viewing it.
Funny that the "Anti woke" have become the "woke" but can't see it. Two sides of the same Outrage culture coin. Yes they're pushing their Agenda, and you are pushing your counter agenda. End of the day we all make our own decisions with our wallets.
@Neowulf2066 I've observed many of the counter-arguments to the backlash online is constantly mutating from "Yasuke was real, deal with it" to "lol, its just a fictional video game bro." Almost as if they are just searching for anything to justify the choice without really believing what they are saying. Motivated reasoning.
>game set in the Holy Land, play as a Syrian man >game set in Italy, play as an Italian man >game set in the American Colonies, play as both a British and Native man >game set in the Caribbean, play as a Welsh privateer >game set in France, play as a French man >game set in England, play as English twins >game set in Egypt, play as an Egyptian man >game set in Greece, play as a Greek man >game set in Norway and Viking-invaded England, play as a Norwegian man >game set in Iraq, play as an Arab man ... >game set in Feudal Japan, play as an African man
I don’t care if “HE ACTUALLY EXISTED” (not a samurai but sure) or the fact that it’s AC so it’s “NEVER HISTORICALLY ACCURATE” The fact that it took them 2 decades of fans constantly asking for them make an AC Japan game, only for them to SPECIFICALLY choose the era when a black guy lived so that they could make him the main character, are we Asians not worth representing anymore? I am an Asian male and I know many Japanese male friends who are also heartbroken because of this, like literally yesterday my friend from Japan said his little brother has been crying all day because AC is literally his favourite game franchise and he just wanted to play as a cool Ninja dude, wow, I’m just so appalled! The way they just said we don’t matter
Yep "woke" is anti-asian now too. They're also apparently anti-Jewish as well. So much for being the group that's pro equality, huh? Welcome to the trenches brother, I think they finally bit off more than they can chew this time
The girl is Japanese, are you one of those people who really care that much about playing as a woman? if no then you get your asian representation, if yes then you still have ghost of Tsushima.
it's almost like you ignored the entire point of the video. If people are heartbroken over this, they should blame themselves. Their lack of perspective is their issue, it's not Ubisoft's choices. It's a video game, disposable pop culture entertainment, not a statement of your worth as an individual or the worth of those like you. If their "heart" is that deeply invested in an Asian-protagonist lead video game, they can create their own, and be the change they want to see in the world, rather than bellyaching over the artistic choices of others who are freely following their own vision.
I got bored with the series years ago and pretty much all Ubisoft games along with it. Only so many times I can wonder around an soulless map filled with filler content and vast distances to cover that add nothing to the experience.
@@SBM-wl6mn I understand. I 100% that game out of sheer spite and have never truly recovered since. I couldn't even completely my playthrough of it, I just checked out with the DLC.
The last good Ubisoft game I played was Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. I used to look forward to their new games, but man that was such a long time ago.
Played every game up to black flag,. Picked up Origin because I liked Ancient Egypt. Then rushed through Odyssey. Haven't played anything since. Overtime they crammed AC with so much low effort content like collectibles and stupid crafting systems that make you go through a big open world that is not fun to explore. I just want the old style back with a linear storyline with a cool protagonist. Let me parkour on continuous buildings without touching the ground again. Vast lands of nothing to trot through is not it.
My friend who’s originally from Japan told me Yasuke was indeed nothing more than a curiosity kept alive due to being so extraordinary in a country that never seen them. It would be a disgrace for any non Japanese with the right pedigree to ever be trained as a Samurai. I just don’t get why they finally make a Feudal Japan AC and they pull this. He said the comments on the Japanese sites hate this and are pissed which their culture doesn’t really express in public.
No disrespect but a lot of Japanese people weren't even taught the atrocities their military did in WWII, so I rather listen to credited historians and look for sources myself than to listen to your friend.
@kingpanther424 Well, the dude's friend is right, I would suggest looking it up, but currently some people are trying to edit the wiki page of Yasuke to make it look like he was a samurai when in reality he was just a oddity kept in a guilded cage
@@hshdjddhd7559 even if you're right, this is a fictional game and people shouldn't be frothing at the mouth because there's a black person in their game. AC has always been tweaking history. It's always been like this.
@@smellycat57 No, it hasn't? Not a single other main character I can think of from Altaïr to Edward to Bayek of Siwa were actually people, but even characters like say Conner Kennway made sense to the setting. Conner may not be what you typically think when discussing the American Revolution, but Native Americans are... well native to America, and they had a role on both sides of the war. Yasuke was an anomaly in a foreign land kept around as a sideshow for an actually important figure, Oda Nobunaga. The only reason why Yasuke is being used by Ubisoft is so that people like you would have an easier time defending a game that takes place in feudal Japan having a non-Japanese main character. I get that we should focus efforts into hating on stuff like the overpriced special editions or Ubisoft's track record of mid to dogshit video games but ignoring the issue of DEI and the... for lack of a better word "wokeness" of this project would be underselling how much we shouldn't support games like AC Shadows. Also, sorry for this long paragraph, I just needed to fully explain my point of view.
Forced DEI nonsense is killing games. This game looks like trash and it just feels forced, like all DEI. It’s shoved down people’s throats and the game companies are bullied into hiring these people so they don’t get called racist or bigots in the mainstream (if you think I’m exaggerating go look at what sweet baby is trying to do to game science with their upcoming debut Black Myth Wukong). Game companies that have a spine and tell these companies where to go and how to get there are the games with character, charm, and depth.
If they made Assassins creed India, and made the protagonist a Portugese trader just because he existed in the time period, I’d be pretty pissed too. I hope the game bombs.
@unmotivated_might In AC 4 you play as a white guy in the Carribean, no one cared In Ac Revelations, you play as an Italian guy in the Ottoman Empire and no one cared
It's the same blackwashing that's going on everywhere. And Edward being the protagonist in Black Flag makes sense, and Origins is an AC game set in Africa and the protagonist is African and almost everyone likes that game. There is no racism. Having an African protagonist in a game set in Feudal Japan in a franchise which has always chosen a protagonist of an ethnicity common in the setting, is wokeness, no matter how deep in the barrel you lot have to scrape to find that one African who lived in Feudal Japan for like 5 years or whatever. We know this is wokeness thinly described as being historically accurate quit trying to be intelligent.
@@YoureMy_Valentinetheir comebacks are always things they take from blacks like Whitewashing IS a actual thing theres many things still be uncovered that was thought to be made by whites but turned out it was a hidden fact that the design comes from slaves or ancient africa and the phrase Woke simply comes from Afro centrist 😂
My stance has nothing to do with lore or politics or any such nonsense. I believe that the playable character in the Assassin's Creed game set in Japan should be Japanese. Yasuke was a neat guy, I'm sure. He would probably be a great character to interact with in the game. But the player should represent the local population in some symbolic way, just like Altair, Ezio, Conner, etc. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation.
I definetly agree. Locals have more stakes in a story because they are part of the culture, and have a the same worldview at first, until the assassins arrive.
@@Starsteam1 Yes you are correct. I have no problem playing as a woman (I played Kassandra in Odyssey), but Ubisoft has stated that the characters have different playstyles and missions. If I want to play the samurai missions from a Japanese POV, I will not have the option to do so.
@@Starsteam1 And I think that's great! I can't find the post, but the way I understood it was that the missions and storylines would still be locked behind the characters themselves. Just because i'm an assassin with a big weapon/clunky armor (which is odd either way imo), does not mean that I am a samurai
@@TheLudvigbb Assassins creed is supposed to be about stealth and limited combat capabilities. There's plenty of modern games where you play as a samurai.
Exactly, and this argument is ignored or suppressed under the idiotic DEI arguments. The core problem is that masculine representation for East Asians have once again been discriminated.
Tired of the “he was never even a samurai” angle. It doesn’t matter if he was a samurai. The point is, we wanted to play as a Japanese male protagonist in a game set in Japan. The reaction would have been the same if he was Mexican, Persian, Swedish, or Russian.
I sincerely doubt the reaction would've been the same if they used William Adams (Another western born samurai) as the samurai character. That choice would've been defended by the same people complaining about Yasuke, using historical accuracy as justification. Besides, why is it so important that the Japanese character is male? Video games have plenty of Japanese male protagonists. Yakuza, Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, and that is to name a few. Why not give the protagonist role to a woman for once?
I don't really care as long as the protagonist is well written whether it's a man or woman is irrelevant. What people should be skeptical of this game for is Ubisoft's "get used to not owning your games" mentality. And instead the discourse is centered around nonsense. Many reasons to distrust Ubisoft and their games lately, I just think the debate is focused on such a non issue that it's crazy
Before you run off to print this incredible quote on a t-shirt, consider this. Not all ideas are born equal. You need to decide which ones are worth pouring time and effort into realizing. How do you do that without being critical?
@slybootsstan1809 That's where execution comes in. Making a story about a teen who was bit by a spider and has spider powers can sound dumb to those who couldn't see the potential, especially at the time of its inception. But how they executed the idea is what makes it so good. And to be honest, that can apply to any idea.
@@BlackSnoopi I agree, I can't count how many times I've criticized an Idea and when they executed it, I was like oh this actually bangs. I'm very opinionated about stuff but sometimes I genuinely feel we can give things a chance. Assassin's Creed has always bent history, and now it's crazy that we are losing our minds because a game is bending history. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.
@@maesterchiYou said it yourself, don't criticize the idea but the execution of the idea. Perhaps that's what people are doing and you disagree or don't understand. Consider why Assassin's Creed and Ubisoft specifically are receiving this criticism. Consider for a moment why Nioh 2 didn't receive this criticism despite having the same character. Maybe instead of dismissing the idea that the criticism might be valid outright, really think about it even if you disagree.
All you need to know about this is that the Japanese audience is pissed. Could have had the guy just appear as a side character but the choice to make him a main character had been a massive turn off for a lot of people.
As a black man….I’m seriously tired of these companies pandering to my race. It’s like they’re patting me on the head and saying “see we did this for you” smh I understand the “history” behind the character but #1 we don’t know for fact that he was even a samurai at all and #2 out of all the iconic figures in Japanese history they decide to choose THIS guy who was barely even “iconic.” It’s so obvious on what they’re trying to accomplish. Even Japanese people are confused on this decision. Don’t try to tell me I just hate women or I’m bringing down my own race because Assassin Creed Odyssey, Origins and Assassins Creed 3 were some of my favorite diverse games of the series.
@@aaronharrell12 I feel like you’re the type of person that is celebrating this but riot when they make an assassin’s creed game in Africa and the protagonist is a white guy.
As a black man I will speak for us how you spoke for us and say you arent black. Lol. Honestly havent play assassin creed since the 2nd game. Generally dont like ubisoft games due to their repetition and pacing. This game looks cool, dont need companies trying to pander to the antiwoke crowd and stop trying new things.
@@TKBTKB1122 I dont play ubisoft games, really only play tekken and small indie games. White guy in africa is probably already a game. I think resident evil. If you gave that game a shot and loved it why not this. But i know why. You dont have to say the silent part.
You also made fun of Zack Snyder because his daughter committed suicide. You don't know what "criticism" even means when you attack someone for losing his daughter. Sweet Baby Inc is a client of Ubisoft, you don't think they had anything to do with this bs? What about the blackwashing in Alan Wake 2 regarding Saga Anderson, originally casting a Finnish actress? You've clearly lost the plot.
1:11 It's not historically accurate that there were ever any black Samurai. The only foreigner who we do know was a Samurai was William Adams, an English Protestant, and that was because of the importance of his role in getting Catholicism. Yasuke was never a Samurai, he was, at most, a minor retainer and maybe a bodyguard, and never held any of the power a Samurai does. Remember, retainer =/= Samurai, considering one is a servant and the other is a highly responsible position of political power. They're not the same. That's the issue with this, because it's misconstruing history for basically a nobody who was only noteworthy for his skin colour. Him being in the game isn't the issue, I would be fine if they even slightly hammed up his appearance to give him a moment to shine, but this...this isn't it chief.
@@65firered tell me how he's going to travel or buy supplies without turning heads. Japan wasn't diverse people would literally think he's either a demon or maybe even some diety.
@@machineferret3359 because people are really stupid and believe shit they play in games and go around thinking it's true. I know Christians who think Dantes inferno is Christian facts and you couldn't tell them otherwise, you couldn't tell me people aren't that stupid. now we'll have people arguing there actually where black samurais and that just pisses off the Asians. why have any conteaversy is my question?
Since when Is an actually person in history woke ? Even if he wasn’t an actual samurai so what? Niccolo Machiavelli was an assassin in AC2 they’re allowed to twist anything slightly to fit their story
@@fissionmail3d my guess is a different take to separate it’s self from ghost or other game’s already set in that era..Or maybe just a different perspective
He is not samurai. He is just a rare pet ,slave of Oda. If they want to explore the dark history Why not use a Japanese male ninja as main? They racist Asian.There are tons of true samurai only have little mention in history. Ubisoft is just lazy to explore them and too woke to use a black slave as main character
@Starsteam1 no direct evidence he have anything. A Kitana is just a gift . A Samurai must have a surname to represent his family and his bloodline. He does not have any. He is just a slave not worthy to being kill from the mouth of other Japanese warlord Akechi Mitsuhide
That last point isn't even true lmao Revelations, Black Flag, Rogue and Valhalla (and Brotherhood since Rome and Tuscany were separate entities at the time) all have non-native protagonists, and then you still have Naoe
No. Just no. Throughout Japanese history there were literally millions of samurai who were Japanese. Ubisoft chose the one black samurai (if he was even a samurai) in that history instead. It's an absolutely disgusting, and frankly, racist design decision. Stop defending it.
Then why are the Japanese people themselves are angry about it? They know they're history well since it's their culture. I'd say Ubisoft is checking the box for DEI content to pander to so called woke audience.
They aren't. A bunch of racist white guys have claimed they are, but most real people in Japan don't care. Hell, the Japanese have featured Yaskue as a Samurai or warrior in numerous media.
Afro Samurai is one of my favorite animes of all time, and I'm still not happy about this decision. This is our first AC game in that setting and time period, I was hoping for another Ezio or Arno, someone with the same nationality as where the game took place. And if I'm racist for wanting to play as a Japanese in a game where you play as a *samurai* in *japan* then idk what to tell you
We've already played Ghost of Tsushima. And if they had gone with that route it would have just been compared to GoT. People criticizing them because they did what is obviously a move to gain a certain political favor. Get every company does this these days and have been doing it since before covid. This isn't new, it's not unique to ubisoft, it's a business.
@@edwarddonald2792 Ghost of Tsushima isn't AC, as I said this is our first time in this setting, I would've liked to see a Japanese samurai as a MC. They could've done what they did with Adewale, have him be a very important character in the story and then give him his own game like Basim, but a proper game. The sequel to Shadows to be completely focused on him.
So we ignore the female Japanese mc that you can also play as? Lol yall fake mad about this game. And there's other things yall should be mad at like the prices of the game
Naoe is literally right there! If you really want to play as a male Japanese samurai don’t play this game and play the already hundreds of preexisting games where you can play as one. If you hate the idea of playing as a black samurai and female ninja so much you don’t have to play this game!
I mean I understand but you know if they had a white or Asian man in an Assassins Creed taking place in Africa, but would cancel that game and Ubisoft in 5 seconds. So I mean you can’t say it doesn’t matter, it may matter to idk not us other people but Asians that value their culture. It’s easy for us “non Asians” to say “Hey who cares! It’s just a game.” How is it woke it’s history??? But come on 1 black guy in history vs all the Japanese samurai and you just couldn’t pick a Japanese character?
I really don't understand you You've made an entire 4h length video about AC1 and how is diegetic, how the Templars are not very bad people, but Assassins are contradictory even if they have good intentions. And now you justify the choice of one of the worst Ubisoft Departement, a choice that was something like that: -In all the Japanese History we have to choice the only period in which there was an african-american (not only an african, because is literally an african american actor) only for a political agenda -We have to focus the game about a real history character only for inclusivity, when I am very very and so very interested to know how they will bring this Idea coherently with the original lore, the memories of an ancestor, the DNA that is needed to replay this memory. This is the shit that ruined Ac Unity and Syndicate, you play as two character without any explanation, okay in Syndicate they were twins and so is the same DNA, BUT in this case they are different person, I want to know how this is Justified in an Animus context. Really, you talked about how Mirage missed the point (and it was a great game, in years I haven't seen an use of ISU in that natural way, the plot is very interesring, Basim is fascinating) and you don't play it and you're wrong just for that. Then you came and talk about "Assassins fight against Fascisms (and talk about Ancient Regime, and other things that I really don't know how could it be Fascist, no way..) and they are inclusive", the Assassins are contradictory and the game from the First game explain to us this problem, they want freedom or peace, but only their version of freedom and peace, they are totalitarian and a cult as much as the Templars, but they are more ipocrital and use better manners, in this case they wanted to be inclusive without reason, beacuse Asiatic people is underepresented in games, at this game you could see that all of the team is Westerner, there isn't an Asiatic a Japanese, but ehy, then we can bring in an african character only to approach better in the West of the World and pretend to be inclusive! It does not make sense, if we think that in 2013-2014 the team worked on a Japanese themed plot of Assassin's creed, it was completely different and this project was cancelled and they preferred this plot that is so random based that there isn't even a very plot in this trailer, because it will be something such as Odyssey, a proto-plot that doesn't mean anything and it was improvised. That's the problem with Ubisoft right now, they don't follow a path, they improvise based on their selling or opportunity, but a Japanese game need a Japanese Team and a Japanese Plot and Japanese Characters because Japan Culture was/is very closed to foreigner and this must be respected, because the Japanese people have their way of thinking that is totally different from our way to think, if we bring our personal culture in AC and do not respect the culture of the setting in which we create the game, AC is dead as a concept, because the only reason to buy the game nowadays is the culture, art, setting, History and an emotional plot, not Assassin's and Templar because they were explicit on that: they do not want to stay still on the concept of the two cults. If they manipulate also history and cultures and traditions, well, even the last part of OG Assassin's creed is lost, and this is a Shame, because AC Mirage represented in a perfect way Islam, Baghdad, a Muslim Character, without stereotypes or big changes in history, AC is the same that wanted to not kill rodrigo Borgia only because he wasn't dead in 1499 in real history.
@@Grandtemplar305 Very simplified generalisation of a more nuanced observation about a deeper issue. If you "don't get it." Does mean it invalidates the point.. I don't quantum mechanics but that doesn't mean there aren't those who understand it on a level i can't comprehend.
It's a game that has always took major liberties with historical accuracy...a game I will not buy or defend. Yet, the initial woke allegations are nuts. People need to stop hiding and just be honest. They don't like black representation😐
Ubisoft can't even distinguish between Asain cultures and religions nor authentically represent Yasuke from a historical or cultural perspective. Yet you think the problem isn't that Ubisoft screwed up and lied but that EVERYONE else is lying? So all the black people upset at Ubisoft for this including myself are lying as well according to you. I won't argue with that... logic... but I will however point out that it takes a lot more to believe that's the case than to acknowledge Ubisoft's screw ups, including that it's impossible for the people of Japan to be upset about what Ubisoft has done.
Wrong, most people don’t “hate” black representation, this is a strawman of the highest order. The main issue that is often sidelined and ignored is that representation for east-Asian masculinity has been curbed when there already is very very few representation for East Asian masculinity. People often associate East Asian men with either timid, soft spoken archetype or the nerdy, short archetype or the k-pop archetype. Masculine representation for East Asian men has always been lacking and when we had a chance for such a representation in a big AAA game, it was sidelined again in favour of black representation that is very very common in media. The problem here isn’t black representation, the problem here is discrimination of masculine east-Asian representation. Yes I know that you’re going to say that there are games with East Asian masculine representation BUT they are very few relative to others and most of those games are made by Asians themselves. This game is just another example of the western media sidelining East Asian masculinity like it often does
1. In all of the Japanese records, Yasuke was never officially made a samurai. He was given a ceremonial short sword not a long sword. He was also not given armor. 2. A female shinobi is a kunoichi which is quite different than your typical shinobi. 3. Yasuke does not represent Japanese people or their culture and should not be one of the protags. Those saying it is Woke are 100% correct.
1. The Assassin's Creed franchise has consistently warped the historical truth and accuracy surrounding the figures they have in their games to fit their storytelling. 2. Refer to point 1. 3. Yasuke was a real historical figure that existed in Japan, and is recognized in the country's history. Since the game is set in Japan, it's highly likely that the game will display and highlight several aspects of Japanese cultures through other characters, settings, visuals, dialogue, among other things; and the protagonist of the game is a Japanese woman. Those mad the game right now, are probably racist...
@@justinsarfo829 1. Ubisoft has only ever used real historical figures as side characters and used local culturally appropriate characters for their protagonists that also goes for games with dual protagonists. 2. Refer to point 1. 3. Yasuke and the fuck up of a ninja are both the main protagonists of the game. The reason I say fuck up is female shinobi were kunoichi and served a slightly different role in the shinobi trade relying more on seduction than pure stealth. Those mad at the game are far from racist (I mean there are obviously going to be some that are coming from a racist stand point). But the fact that they decided to use an African male to represent the male Japanese populace is disrespectful and insulting to their culture and many of them see it as such. It would be the same if they decided to make AC Uganda and made the protag a white man from England and had him "represent" the male demographic of Africa....
@@pandemonium.ent.studios-team 1. Those historical figures may have traditionally been side characters, but they still play notable and relevant roles in the storytelling of their games, and this doesn't highlight a flaw in my earlier response since having a historical figure with warped aspects of their history and being a side character aren't mutually exclusive. Also, Edward Kenway was the main protagonist of AC4 despite the fact that he was a White European from Wales, having his main story take place in The Carribean. 2. Ok... 3. Kunoichi may have used sex to forward their ends in their profession, but it's likely that it wasn't necessarily their only role or task as Ninjas, since it was profession that encompassed different tasks like carrying out assassinations and gathering intel. Besides, since its an Assassin's Creed game, that historically has placed a major emphasis on fighting and stealth mechanics, I don't think it's likely that Ubisoft will put massive emphasis on that aspect of Kunoichi, if there is any presence of it in the game. I think many if not most of the people that are angry at Ubisoft right now in relation to this game are probably white men who don't like seeing a black man play this much a role in a video game, and realize that they can't vicariously live their fantasy lives through these characters. Yasuke was a real historical figure, the main protagonist is a Japanese female, and the gamers will experience a Japanese setting which will likely show and highlight the mainly Japanese culture and demographic throughout the game.
You were getting somewhere with the Altair part, but I dont understand how you can't see the problem that it creates and not as something that resolves a problem. Yasuke was NOT a samurai. Fact. He was a servant to his master. And yes samurai were also a type of servants, but they were higher in the hierarchy. So, Ubisoft choosing to make him a samurai against historical facts is literally stupid. They could have made him a servant who was discriminated against, he became an assassin to fight against such discrimination. There you go, historically the game is fine and it's also based under the AC values set in the past. Making Yasuke a samurai against history doesn't oppress him??? Like it's ok if you want to say AC was always fighting for equality amongst the people, but how is Yasuke a representation of not equality? He is a foreigner who achieved a rank higher than most natives ever will, that's not oppression... Also, about the historical accuracy. Yes, in these games people can have secret affiliations with other people, and that doesn't have to be historically accurate. Because you don't know all of the connections and relations of any single person. Like I said, these were secret. Being a samurai is not a secret, everyone would know this, infact it was proudly displayed. So, Yasuke being an assassin isn't historical, but do you know wether assassins exist or not? No. Therefore that isn't a problem. But, we know he wasn't a samurai, and making him one is a problem. Imagine DaVinci being a King in AC2, that would make 0 sense, because we know that it's complete bullshit. You can alter history, but you can't hide someones rule as a king. On the other hand, DaVinci CAN be an assassin or a templar or whatever in his secret personal life. So can Yasuke, but he can't be a samurai. And I think it's only natural to assume they made him one because he is black and it's trendy to elevate black people and women, but fuck the white dudes. Not saying that's exactly what they did, but it probably is.
I can't say the exact history, there have been disputes over whether Yasuke was or wasn't truly a Samurai but I don't think that's actually the point, nor does it really matter. The Templars were a very real organisation in 1191, to say that Robert De Sable and Abu'l Nuqoud were both Templars is categorically not historically accurate, but that's the point. Yasuke may not be documented to be a Samurai, because it simply was not documented by the Japanese people (within AC lore obviously), it leaves room for a super interesting story there, if in AC Yasuke WAS a Samurai, it allows us to explore the core AC concept of history being twisted and untrue and the Animus being the only way to really experience what was real. It also allows to explore underrepresented people throughout history as is the point of all AC media. I'm not saying they will do that, they'll probably make a really bad game, because that's sort of just what they do, but conceptually it's a great idea. We should be criticising the lack of mechanical depth or issues with the substance of the game's writing, not Assassin's Creed doing what it's always done, which is to make shit up that makes their own alternate history way more interesting.
@@LazerzZ You're right about the mechanics, but most people that play modern AC like and defend that shallow experience, so that's unlikely to change. All I'm saying about Yasuke is that it feels like they put him there for woke points, plus as a playable character he doesn't even fit AC at all, if they went the lowly servant route it could have been so much better in every way, but it's Ubisoft at the end of the day.
@@LazerzZHow about criticizing Ubisoft Quebec for lying to advertise their games, plagiarism, Copyright infringement? Even if we have to ignore everything relating to Ubisoft's depiction of Japan, there's still plenty wrong here.
@@LazerzZAt this point, I question the why set it in a historical setting at all? If it doesn't matter how the setting is depicted, how the history is depicted, how the culture is depicted, then the setting doesn't matter or at least we just can't criticize them for it. After all, what's the point in alt history if the history part is irrelevant? Might as well just call it pure fiction, you achieve the same result and anger significantly less people. See, Mafia or Red Dead for examples.
"Its just historical fiction" "Its just a video game" Of course stories and games and works of art shouldn't need to be iron shackled to established facts, but we can see the pattern and the celebration of the pattern. That's the problem. I'm glad YOU think its great; now lets ask the people who's culture you are "appropriating" and see how THEY feel about it?
Dude I generally don't like using the term "wOkE". But sorry, as a progressive myself. I need to speak my mind. Using Yasuke as the main protagonist in a game set in Feudal Japan isn't a creative choice nor is it justifiably right. It's a corporate choice clearly made out of desperation. For the sake of pandering to some people on Twitter who won't even financially support the game. And video game websites like Kataku, and tbh all video game websites in general. Who talk more about social justice and less about gaming, the thing they're dedicated to! And Yes. You're right. Assassin's Creed has always been about atheistic progressive philosophy. That you don't need a higher power/supreme being to tell you what's moral and what's immoral. And freedom no matter how messy it is, is priceless. But you have to understand that all the people who're screaming "wOkE" at it aren't all against underrepresented groups in entertainment media. Not all of them are complaining about the game representing a character from a marginalized group. They're complaining about the represented demographic not being accurate to the time period it's being represented in. Even from a historical standpoint. Yasuke never truly was a samurai. He was just a retainer. But Ubisoft and all the activist mobs across the internet are maliciously trying to make it a historical fact that he was an actual samurai. They're perpetuating false history just because it fits into their world view. So from a historical standpoint it's wrong. Assassin's Creed has always represented demographics from what ever time period the games are set in. Like Altair in the Holy Land, Ezio in Renaissance Italy, Connor from Colonial America. So even from an Assassin's Creed standpoint it's wrong. No one's saying you can't have Black/African representation in Assassin's Creed of course you can. Just set it in a time period exclusively focused on Black/African people. And the people will gladly accept it. Heck, they've already done it twice. First with Freedom Cry and second with Origins. They didn't feel forced, because they were accurate to the time periods they were set in. So the criticism for AC Shadows isn't entirely wrong. It's valid.
Two big red flags with making Yasuke a main character. 1. We have never had a historical figure or "anyone from history" as a main character in any Assassins Creed games. They are always the side characters you interact with. The main characters are original characters to their stories. 2. The main characters have always been from their setting, region, and culture. They are from the area. And if there are two main characters they BOTH are, not just one. They broke both traditions in one game and quite frankly it is a middle finger to Japan. If you wanted a historical figure why not pick someone actually Japanese........like Oda? And why in the world have one of the main characters not be from the region when we finally hit Japan? The game we have wanted for years.
Yes there have been assassin's creed games where you play as a historial figure and yes there have been games where the character wasnt from the region such as Edward which was a welsh man from the Carribean and yes Shadows has somebody from the region as a protagonist.
@@james849 Ok, name the assassins creed game where the main protagonist is a real person from history. Edward wasn’t a native to the Caribbean, but he was certainly connected to the region given that it was during the colonial era. All game you’re traveling from different colonies and plantations. Yasuke’s connection to Japan is, he was there. There was no extensive African presence in feudal Japan. The existence of Naoe doesn’t make Yasuke disappear. You play as both. So the criticism for one of the main protagonist not being from or connected to the region, still very much stands.
@@rickkcir2151 Jack the ripper, Leonidas, and a few more im pretty sure. Yasuke was indeed connected to japan since Oda Nobunga had summoned a Jesuit named Alessandro Valignano out of desire to see a black man. Oda was impressed by Yasuke so he asked Alessandro to hand him over and he did. Side note the jesuits can be seen on the parlor in the cinematic trailer with the templar symbol on the sails. The existence of Naoe is a narrative decision since they wanted somebody native to the country but they also wanted someone not native so they can see through the eyes of a foreigner.
@@james849 Are you serious? You play as Jack the Ripper and Leonidas for like 10 minutes. They’re not the main protagonist for the game. They’re barely a side mission. That is in no way equivalent to Yasuke being one of the two characters you can play as for the whole game. You basically just said what I said, but longer. Yasuke’s only connection to Japan is that he was there. Him specifically. What makes him different from Edward, is that Edward was in a setting where the Caribbean was full of English colonies. So he wasn’t out of place being there. It’s not like Japan had a huge African presence at the time. Ok, they wanted someone to “see through the eyes of a foreigner” but why? Literally every assassins creed game prior, for nearly 20 years, has had the main protagonist be either from the region. Or have a significant connection to the region via either culture, or the presence of their actual country of origin. Why break what is essentially set in stone now? I mean, you and I know why. But it’s really a matter of if you’re willing to admit it.
@@rickkcir2151Assassin's Creed 2, Ezio Auditore. Chosen specifically because nobody knows what happened to him after his family's death and because there is not a lot of history on him, just like Yasuke. I can still understand why people would be upset about it. You have to want to choose Yasuke to choose Yasuke and given his only historical significance is the fact that he was a black retainer in Japan... it kinda makes it look like they only chose him because he was a black retainer in Japan.
I really want the game to do good, I love the setting and I like the familiar narrative direction they're going for. But as you have said, it's Quebec and their track record is horrid. I do believe that if they can create an "ASSASSINS CREED" experience within this RPG system, it'll be really good -- An upgraded versions of Origins with greater stealth and narrative. We'll see tho. I'm reserving any judgement until I see gameplay, like most people should probably ought to do; we've only seen a cinematic which merely serves as a proof of concept.
honestly the fighting between the old fans and the new fans must be tiring for ubisoft as well; they already confirmed this is the las RPG AC. They will be going back to more linear structure for "Hexe" but not necessarily to the Original trilogy structure.
@@Dumdum12ish there’s always the possibility that they could appease to both audiences. - all you’d need to do is have decent parkour, an assassins creed-like story and good stealth. I can’t see why these can’t be applied to an RPG formula. As always tho, gonna reserve most judgement til I see some gameplay
So, a person that has little to no significance in Japanese history is a better representation than Masamune Date or Miyamoto Musashi? That one black person who was kept as a servant for Nobunaga is a better representation of all Samurai in Japan? No, you are incorrect, i wonder if WokeBisoft will make another title set Wakanda, we expect a black Assassin but no, we get a white male assaasin instead. Out of all the black people in wakanda, a white male was chosen to represent them. This woke narrative of diversity is really stupid.
I thought ACIII did a good job at showing us the perspective of both Achilles as a free black man, living in a world dominated by colonists, imperialism, and slave trade, and the perspective of Connor, who isn't fully accepted by the society, but for different reasons. You even see this in their conversation when Achilles has Connor go to buy supplies for him, even though Achilles has money and Connor doesn't at that point. It's dynamics like these that made the series intriguing to me.
Funny enough about the part about unfiltered history, either through a sick hint of what abstergo will do or just what Ubisoft chose to keep the story going, this is what the animus is being used for now: altered events of supposed unfiltered history to move the people how they want them to move
Most people fighting against the criticism are missing the entire point. Asian MEN are heavily underrepresented in American media. If Ubisoft really wanted to be "inclusive", they would have casted a Japanese man as the protagonist.
You people never cared about Asian representation until now. We have plenty of Samurai bullshit with Japanese protagonists. We need more Asian representation in games like FPS and RPGs.
@@alexelric7020 I am Korean American. Growing up in the midwest, I struggled with low self esteem and internalized racism. Asian men have been emasculinated in the states for the longest time. I wanted was to fit in and be told that it was okay to be Asian. I'm sorry that it is insensitive that I feel like my people missed an opportunity to be represented correctly in one of my favorite gaming franchises.
@@alexelric7020 Actually, *we* don't need anything, but *you* need your western brainrot checked cause of all the culture war slop news you have been consuming. I'm so tired of you people.
Out of all people. you defending ubisoft? I remember watching video from you when you said you will boycott them and never play anything from them again. But it's too late, this company is dead to me, I might pirate some of their new games, but ac shadows is not something I would even pirate
I don't agree In the first game, they created a fictional character and throws him into history, In the second game, they created a fictional Italian and throws him into Italian history, Third game as well in America, Fourth game as well in the Caribbean. AC Shadow they use an already EXISTING person and made him run through the field chopping people. If he's so good at chopping people, he would be ordered around as a SAMURAI and go down in history as a SAMURAI. Since he didn't, go down in history as one, AC Shadow made us lose this "plausible alternate history" feel we all loved and sought after from the past series. They didn't create a fictional character absent from history book to tell a story set in Japan, but instead they chose this extremely rare African in one of Japan's most important part of history as the main character is the reason why people criticize this for being "woke". If their marketing department did not foresee that a Japanese main character in a game set in Ancient Japan would sell well, then it's their own fault that their stocks tanked and inviting critics. Furthermore, even though there's no way to satisfy everyone, they still chose this character to talk about Japanese alternate history. They should know this is ammunition for critics. They kept going with this train of thoughts, so it's their own fault for inviting critics.
I think you might have missed the point on why this is considered "woke". It's not just because he's black with them deciding to make some actual black guy from history a samurai - even when there's no verifiable proof that he actually was a samurai - it's that in every single Assassin's Creed game up until now they have used main characters who were native to the lands that players play in. This time, for some reason, they decided to go with a black foreign character to explore Japanese culture through their foreign perspective, something that was never needed in any previous Assassin's Creed game. The wokeness here I think really comes from Ubisoft wanting this kind of angle where it isn't really needed or appreciated by most fans of the series, especially by the Japanese themselves who would have much preferred to play a game set in their home country as a Japanese samurai, not some foreigner deliberately inserted into Japan for the sake of a modern liberal Western cultural/ethic diversity fetish.
I'm surprised nobody is talking about this: Yasuke is the first playable character who isn't fiction (except for those brief sections with Jack the Ripper or king Leonidas). Usually in AC he would have been a side character, a quest giver for the fictional Japanese protagonist. Making a fictional black character in Japan would have been too much of a stretch, so they've chosen the only documented one as the protagonist. That's why many people are calling Ubisoft "woke", it's clear they needed a black character just for DEI instead of telling an interesting story
What you called marketing is what I called clout chasers and like clout chasers they will ruin everything about society Tldr Assassin's creed= Logan paul
This is purely an ESG decision. Yasuke was a checkbox. You can't convince me otherwise because several entertainment industries are doing the same damn thing. Bring family, men, and Caucasians down a peg. Promote diversity. Promote other sexualities. This isn't a conspiracy or coincidence anymore. I like the "criticize the execution of those ideas" line, but we've been through this crap for years and we expect the executions of these ideas to be shit now. So don't blame people who are criticizing the ideas when it comes to diversity and inclusion.
It's a shame that there are so many ways to express disappointment or disagreement, yet there's so many people resulting to blatant racism, ignorance, and sexism because of their own personal shortcomings, and like they never understood the premise of the game series that started from the very first game. I appreciate this video, and this take, as it seems that the issue isn't necessarily Assassin's Creed falling away from it's roots, but the people interested becoming disillusioned with where the game sits. Ubisoft has been fucking up as a company via business decisions though, that won't change, but it's not because of the studios creative decisions. There’s nothing wrong with wanting representation, but nobody has seen the story yet, and *surprise* there’s going to be some good Japanese Male characters present. There is nowhere near this amount of vocalist when Indigenous, black, or brown people want representation as well. Where’s the enthusiasm there? Historical figures can have magic precursor apples that make people do their bidding but “my goodness he can’t be a samurai that’s historically inaccurate.
When business decisions are bad, creativity suffers as well. Poor business choices lead to a bad working environment, which results in bad creative decisions and, ultimately, bad games. This is exactly what we've been seeing from Ubisoft over the last couple of years. The Assassin's Creed narrative has been a mess for years now. What happened to the modern-day storyline? Where are Abstergo and the Isu/Precursor plotlines? They all disappeared and Instead, we're left with poor stories and boring characters, as seen in Valhalla and Mirage.
A former slave who was bought to entertain at parties and make retainer duties, and who was only 3 years in Japan, who was after the death of his owner found with a sword in his hand ,and got quickly disarmed, beaten up and denied an honorable death because hes is more animal tahn human (Akechi Mitsuhide wrote this, as one of the rare writings that exist about this dude) and brought back to the jesuits who sold him in the first place. He wasnt a samurai, he wasnt a fighter, he could barely speak japanese, Its not racist to popint out whats written down from history. It is wrong to now m,make a wikipedia war to rewrite history so he can fit into a narrative. And how comes this is , especially in a japan setting, the first time that a protagonist isnt even from that area... Immersionbreaking to be a Black man from Mosambique in feudal Japan... He stands out like a clown never could he be an successful assassin nor without training since youth an adequate fighter. Sorry dude, but the backlash , especially from japanese people who are pissed right now is justified.
@@WilhelminaRa If Japanese people feel upset, they have every right to, but that’s their right to speak out, rather than having other people put on the guise of being upset for them when it’s really just an issue with a black man. But holding the game to a high degree of historical accuracy, when they’ve made their entire franchise on bending the history to make a better narrative, is disingenuous at the very least. Even with that, there’s plenty of people under the umbrella of the Assassin’s that don’t sneak around and try to blend in with crowds, so that’s not really a viable point. Was there a response like this during works that have white men as the savior or hero of a story around Japanese people and Japan? I’ve never seen any. Fact of the matter is, people absolutely will like and dislike whatever but let’s not try and paint it any other way than what it is, when there’s a clear bias happening that can’t be opinion on the story because nobody has any pertinent information on it besides what they could physically see. If you don’t like it, fine, but be real about it so people can see who you really are.
For the pre order prices with no game play alone is enough. However, I feel your points would have held more true if it had been early AC and if there was a history of having people from different cultures being a lead character in the different cultural setting, that maybe we wouldn't of expected them to be in.. that would give more weight to the Desmond and the Doctors conversation. But we have had an Italian lead in Italy, a Greek in Greece, indigenous American in America, English in England, Egyptian in Egypt. If the reason for this culture change was truly for a great narrative, we would have seen it littered over many AC titles. And I think out of all the regions and how long we have waited for AC to be set in Japan, we get an obvious and unfortunate virtual signal. But I could be wrong.. we could have, when AC goes more into African countries, a Phillino main lead in Africa, an Aborigine in Columbia, or a Bangladeshi in Finland.
The core problem here isn’t that a black guy was made the protagonist. The problem here is that masculine East Asian representation was once again sidelined by the western media. Very few media shows East Asians in a masculine role and even few games have maculine East Asian protagonists. Most that do are those that were developed by Asians themselves. So no, the problem isn’t the black samurai, the problem is discrimination of masculine East Asian representation.
@@alatusedits Also he forgot the Yakuza series and the rise of anime adaption into live action which is released in the west on Netflix and Amazon. I get Asian male Representation but seeing a Japanese male Samurai in video game is literally 1 out of thousands. It doesn't make a difference, why not ask Ubisoft to make a watch dogs in Tokyo or Korea rather than another Japanese Samurai as if that's all Asians are associated with the Samurai.
@@triton5336 but, the only reason yasuke is the protagonist is because of representation. Not a creative choice. We already had multiple black assassins. Imagine playing a white dude in Africa's ac
@alatusedits Yes, we had one black Assassin in a main game called AC Origins with others in DLC and a PSP port which barely anyone played or knows about. Having one black person in a game hardly becomes representation, that's like saying Jesuits of Portuguese descent in the game are there for representation. I wouldn't mind playing a white character in Africa and neither would Africans because Hollywood loves putting white guys in Africa and many have terrible portrayals of Africa. Hell there was a movie about Egypt and it's gods with mostly white cast. Yasuke is a main character next to Naoe the Japanese Assassin. Yasuke is there for gameplay and narrative reasons. If they just wanted "representation" UBISOFT execs would take the easiest way. These are the same people who said women don't sell. You really think they care about REPRESENTATION... Evie in Syndicate had less screentime than Jacob and Aya was meant to be the main character but the execs thought it would harm sales. Why do you think Alexios and male Eivor are on the cover despite being not Canon. This is the first time since AC Liberation and AC China that a woman has graced the cover of an AC game. It's a creative decision and YOU CAN'T ASSUME NOT WHEN YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE to back this claim since you didn't play the game. From what Yasuke is depicted as he seems like an interesting character with a mysterious arc. He is more interesting than Naoe as she just has a revenge story but we don't know what Yasuke wants is it just Redemption or something else and what is his connection to the Templars. An AC Character hasn't been this interesting since Bayek and Edward Kenway. I could make the same argument as you and say Edward was playable in AC IV rather than Bayek because of representation even though black people were the majority there so why not just make a black pirate like Adewale the main character but I guess I can't because white people can't be considered as token characters only black characters right?
@alatusedits there is a Capcom game called Resident Evil 5 that is set in Africa with a white character you play as with a south African female. Africans didn't care and it was just gamers who cared about the game where a white guy mows down black zombies. Personally I didn't care, it's just a video game and if the portrayal is not good then I see it as a writing flaw rather than a alterior motive because I give people the benefit of the doubt. I wonder do you think Chris Redfield was added in this game set in Africa for REPRESENTATION. They needed that to appeal to a modern audience right?
"Not sure how actual history could be woke" maybe because he wasn't even born in Japan he spent at most 15 months there and was a servant not a samurai. Why pick a African servant over a Japanese samurai? Give me one reason that doesn't involve race. If you can't then its a racist game simple.
@@Theagentofchaos-r5q Random guy arrives in Japan = tyrant that was responsible for the death of millions changed the course of history for the worst. These are not even remotely comparable, what the fuck is wrong with you? No seriously are you okay?
This dude is cherry picking historical "facts" and thinks it's justified cos it supports its bias. Yasuke WASN'T A samurai, he was just a servant or squire at best. The ONLY battle he fought, HE RUN AWAY!
Japanese players have every right to be upset about this. Yasuke could be part of the game's story as an important character and there would be no problem. Just look at the profile of the person who wrote the story of AC Shadow and everything becomes very clear. She even follows sweet baby inc. What a fantastic coincidence
The developers of Assassin's Creed Shadows decided to make one of the game's protagonists a member of an extreme ethnic minority purely for woke, political reasons, and this is why so many people have a problem with this decision. You know this to be true James. I don't even know why you try to deny it. It has nothing to do with the character merely being Black and a member of an ethnic minority. It's about the precise reason why the developers decided to make one of the protagonists Black in a game which is set in feudal Japan. When people play a game set in feudal Japan, they expect to play as a native (i.e., an Asian person). They don't expect to play as a Black person. This is not only extremely disrespectful to Japanese people and culture, but also pretty racist if you ask me. In every other Assassin's Creed game, you play as either a native or a member of a group that was historically active in the relevant setting, and that's how it should be. It's funny how the woke end up doing the very thing that they claim to oppose. What's also crazy is how James is out here openly supporting and defending racism when he claims to be against racism. After all though, he's a massive hypocrite like all woke, Marxist, radical leftists are. He claims to oppose racism and other forms of bigotry, but the reality is that he openly supports bigotry and also engages in it himself - and all in the name of equity, which is not the same thing as equality by the way. I support equality of opportunity, which is the true, good form of equality. James, on the other hand, supports equality of outcome, or equity as it's most often called, which is the unattainable, fake, evil, Marxist form of equality.
You say this as if you know the reasons Ubisoft does things. And unless you are an developer by Ubisoft, you can't know. You interpret reasons in actions. Probably to justify your own outrage. See, now i thought of a reason for your actions, without knowing you or your motives. I could also say, that you throw words like "marxism" in your comment to look more elaborate and intelligent, but that would be truly too much Interpretation... Oh and by the way, just because people have other political or social opinions as you, doesn't mean they are evil. And to say something like "all lefts are... " makes you look like someone who just thinks in black and white, wich is not very intelligent.
Honestly, when i saw the trailer, my first thought was: "ugh, two characters again". I just fear that I'm gonna like playing one over the other or like one's character over the other and then be forced to play as the character i don't want to play as
A lot of people have pointed this out already, but the majority of AC games tend to have you play as a native to that games conflict, and usually a character that never existed, so that Ubisoft can take liberties with their story. Which is understandable, it gives more freedom to the writers. But now, as soon as the series concentrates on Japan, they stop that practice and choose Yasuke? When historically speaking there were already a large plethora of Japanese figures active at that time, especially if Ubisoft are now deciding to base their MC on an actual historical figure, the feudal states period was awash with prominent samurai. Date Masamune would have been perfect.
I wasted my time watching a dude tell me what I already know about the making of a good story.. I am black and I wholeheartedly believe that Japanese men have the right to want a character that represents them in a game set in their own country. Doesn't matter if the story is the best story they have that right.
So If the other playable character was a man, would that be fine then? Or would that still be bad because there now is no representation for japanese women?
They also can just not play the game it doesn't offend them. This wouldn't even exist if he wasn't a part of Japanese history, and if the Japanese didn't have him all over their Mangas, folklore, anime etc. You have ghost of tsushima for a Japanese man. And you have this game, taking what the Japanese have done and using yuske in a unique story, with representation through the female Shinobu which is also accurate. When they made up a white guy in nioh to cut tmdown Chinese figures Noone batted an eye. You should be quite bothered that you find an issue with this, when the black man existed.
@@lionzcrown1702 bro i hated nioh, first of all. Second, GOT and Nioh are entirely different games, you can't bring those up when we are talking about AC. Like i said japanese men have the right to want a historical AC game that represents them especially when they have been asking for it all this time. Plus with all due respect, Yusuke was a historical unicorn, yes he was real but was paraded and treated as an object and not with respect during those times. There were far too many actual samurai who they could have used in place of Yusuke. He could have been a great DLC and of course the racists would've cried woke but the japanese fans would have been happy, which matters because it is their history. Begone
@@tobiasbayer4866 No, i am saying yusuke should have been a side character or a dlc character at least, Naoe is perfect in the role she is as main protagonist, Yusuke is not. If it was no woman, yes it would make the feminists mad, but would actually be historically accurate as women were not imposed in combat during the feudal era. Begone
A few fair points in this video, but one major opposing point - Yasuke would be picked out of ANY crowd in feudal Japan. He'd have no chance of ever blending in anywhere. Literally the worst person to be an assassin in a homogeneous society. Japan, even today, is xenophobic and feudal Japan was xenophobic against other asians. Not to mention Japanese people finally had the chance to get an Assassin's Creed game about their people and one of the main characters is black! Talk about adding insult to injury. It'd be exactly the same if they made an Assassin's Creed set somewhere in Africa with a white guy as the main character. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you would have something to say if that were the case.
You clearly didn't watch or read anything about this game. Yasuke is for hand to hand combat while the other one is for stealth! And what about Naoe? She's also a protagonist here and japanese. Or you didn't like her enough because she's a woman? You're trying too hard to hate this game! What about you hate on The last samurai and Gods of Egypt too. It's the exact same situation. I'll wait.
@@Dandansuuuy Come back when you're talking sense. Yes, the female ninja is also historically inaccurate as there's no evidence of there being female ninjas in feudal Japan - native Japanese or not. What about The Last Samurai? It's completely fictional, only taking inspiration from real world events. They never claim Tom Cruise's character to be anything other than fictitious. The Gods of Egypt is quite clearly a fictitious story since it involves gods... You and other morons like you are trying to rewrite real history to suit your own agenda, that's what's bothering me. There's nothing more I need to see or read about this pile of dung to know it's nothing more than politically correct pandering to people that are a vocal minority. I mean, for fuck's sake, they managed to make the male lead character black in fucking feudal Japan!
@@omas1178 His point was that during that time in Japan history people were xenophobic so it would be hard for Yasuke to blend in with the crowd or to find creative ways to take out his targets. There were a lot of racist japanese people during that time so social stealth would be impossible. Hell even now in the age we’re living in, there are a lot of folks from Japan voicing their outrage due to Yasuke’s appearance in AC Shadows. So I guess the Xenophobia is still going strong in Japan. (Mean personally I don’t think it’s xenophobia, they are just concerned about their history being rewritten because of course a white guy tried it before and failed but whatever that’s irrelevant to this topic.) And before you say “there is an assassin character you can play as Yasuke is a samurai so it doesn’t make since for him to perform stealth” that is exactly the problem. So it really doesn’t matter that there is a assassin character you can choose to play as. That fact there is even a warrior in a “ASSASSIN” game to begin with is stupid. I’m so sick and tired of triple A devs watering down their IPs just to try and appeal to everyone. Which is why I’m now a indie and double A player. Let video game genres be for people who like that specific genre, turn based games would not add real time combat just because crybabies are making a fuss about turn based RPGs that they were never going to play to begin with.
Ok, watched the video and realized this dude has no idea what he is even talking about. So let me get this straight, actual Japanese people that complain about Yasuke being the protagonist is racist but black washing isn't? Yasuke never was a samurai and was merely a pet for Nobunaga's entertainment. Stop reading articles written by westerners who all have an agenda against Asian culture in general and read the actual book Shincho-ko ki to see understand how insignificant Yasuke was.
I think its more about cultural preview and relevancy than anything. Every other game being made in the AC franchise has been a native and a representative of the setting, but then they choose the one black dude in all of japanese history. They are using Japanese culture, and while this video is being viewed from a western standpoint, remember, japanese people and japanese culture is more reserved and conservative. Ofcourse the japanese people will be mad cus theyve been waiting for an AC game in Japan this whole time and they choose the one guy who wasnt even a notable historical figure in their culture, clearly only for the color of his skin and esg points.
It's woke, they picked up basically the only black person in Japan and made him the main character. They could added him like a meaningful NPC in the game's story
That isn't woke. That is u being racist cause u want a white guy. They didn't picked yauske just cause he was black. They fond his story to be interesting and history open for interpretation and wanted an outsider perspective to explore Japan, who worked for an japanese icon. That was it. And u are mad cause it isn't a white man story
@@kuggacouragegx6093 First of all let me give you some advice, you can edit your comments to fix spelling mistakes. I’m not judging you because I’m guilty of typing fast as well, so I can relate but if I notice I usually fix it. Second of all people don’t want a white guy they want a japanese guy, the reason nobody brings up the female character is because the majority of people who are capitalizing off this drama have never touched a Assassin’s Creed game in their life and probably don’t like stealth games. Now before I continue I will say that I believe firmly that Ubisoft is using Yasuke as an excuse to score brownies points so they don’t have to put in the effort to actually write his character in a faithful manner. And also to distract people from their shitty business practices but I digress. I have to say that writing people off as racist just because they criticize identity politics, (I know man it’s a cringe phrase but at this point I don’t know how else to describe it everything is so political now I guess) it’s a bad thing to do. This write off method is not healthy at all and just divides people, believe me I knew racist people back in high school, they were really bad. I just don’t think you know what an actual racist is. Now I know you don’t want to hear it but it needs to be said, the japanese have a right to feel that their history is being rewritten and should defend it. And maybe they are not entirely wrong considering nobody can decide if Yasuke was a samurai or retainer. However I will say one last thing before I move on and that’s this, the previous iterations of Yasuke in media were well received. No one cared before, they loved the manga, movies, and tv shows, so what does that really say about this current installment? Are the japanese really racist towards Yusake? Or is Ubisoft just looking to make some easy money? Again my theory is this, they are using him to capitalize off the current political climate and as a distraction from the hideous price bundles. People have always been tense when it comes to political beliefs and this is no different. So it’s a smart move to get controversy started and make cash off of it. I almost respect it but at the same time, I’m not going to defend a billion dollar corporation. That just not me, now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a look at the following games, Signalis, Tales of Berseria, Quake 1 & 2, and Serious Sam to see which one I feel like playing. I’ll probably still respond because I have nothing better to do at the moment but for now, that is all thank you.
Yeah but it's painfully obvious the game industry does everything they can to inject representation where it doesn't need to be. They could have done any other famous Japanese samurai, but they chose to pick the 1 story of a black guy who was sold to Oda. It's lazy and obvious DEI.
If people want to play a game where they play as a Japanese samurai/ninja having a revenge story or such then that already exists. The whole point that was made was that it is bringing up a real person that history have forgotten because he didn’t fit with our cultural view of history, and that is just the kind of stuff assassins creed used to do well.
@@eriksolfors he wasn't "forgotten because he didn't fit our biased view of that time period". He wasn't forgotten. In fact, he was recorded. He is a pretty insignificant figure in the Edo time period, and was only recorded in Nobunaga's records because of his novelty. Nobody forgot him. He was noted, and was mostly insignificant as a historical character. It is only modern media that interprets and embellishes this to mean more than it is.
I dont really care that hes black, even tho it doesnt make sense to me. I just think its dumb that hes in the game at all. Maybe he could be cool as a side character you meet in a series of missions, but not as a main character. Hes not an assassin, he doesnt fight like an assassin, he screams and shouts and prefers to stay outside the shadows while still talking as if hes in them... what does he bring to the game other than a reason to get mad or dislike the game? Even his animations in the trailers look like garbage where the camera shakes randomly and he steps through bodies when he attemps to stomp them. I guess it could be a positive having a black character in Japan because at least it stands out from Ghost of Tsushima a lot more, which is cool. I dont get the Eivor comparison. It was a disaster having Eivor be a woman. Most people picked the male one and most people prefer playing as a male. Playing as Yasuke, the true "one of one" he is, as a main character is more like the equivalent of playing as Leonardo Da Vinci in the Ezio games, except that LDV would actually feel in place. Personally it annoys me massively hearing an african accent in a japanese setting. Just my two cents.
The actually history he wasn't a samurai and yes it is a woke propaganda. When you have a great shinobi like Hattori Hanzo you make a game around him .
Dude the japanese audience is shitting on this decision, still doesn't explain why Ubisoft didnt make dual Japanese characters in FEUDAL JAPAN. Also friendly reminder that Sweet Baby was founded by ex-Ubisoft employees.
One of the dumbest comments I read from a Japanese person is "a black guy in feudal Japan? That's a disrespect to my culture I hate media rewriting history" clearly those audience aren't intelligent or in denial of Japan
I kind of feel like you missed the point with the Assassins' vantage point. Their mission is to fight in the shadows to serve the light. Their drive is the liberation of all people from ALL imposed structures, wherein their dogma values total free will over all else. The Templars, conversely, feel order and social structures are absolutely necessary to bring about world peace. Both parties are clashing factions seeking the same outcome, but through different means.
@@nikhilnewse3318 it’s a debate if the black guy was a samurai. I know for a fact if it was the white guy, it’d be the other side crying instead of you
Your logic is flawed. AC games pride themselves on being rooted in history - that's why we have historical figures and events depicted in games, true to their core historical nature, which is only played with to match the overlapping Isu narrative. To introduce us into those worlds, in each AC game we are playing as fictional characters of no historical record that actually could be living in that period - of course Alexios and male Eivor are much more historically accurate to their respective periods and what they represent. In AC Shadows we are, in contrary, presented with supposed first historical protagonist - Yasuke, an african 'samurai'. Which is factually wrong - many disputes have been made during last two days, but to sum up - there is no historical record, no source of him being a samurai. A retainer, kosho - a sort of page, sword bearer, a member of Nobunaga's procession of sort, taken in by the Daimyo's curiosity due to his height and skin color. A samurai was not one of these things. He took part in some battles (to what extend and how, we don't know), followed Nobunaga till daimyo's death but that's it. During all AC games, the historical figures of varied importance were side characters - we came into contact with them, participated in their stories. However altered they were due to overarching AC plot it was fine - it wasn't in contradiction with core historical facts (Da Vinci wasn''t a socialist activist as of sudden, Cleopatra was not an empress of roman empire etc.). The basis of the figures were depicted as it was in history. That's where the problem with Yasuke starts, as he's being a samurai and a pivotal persona of sengoku period is portrayed as a historical fact - and that is wrong. Were he a side character and were we experience his story, his being a retained and actually wanting to become samurai - that would be fine, as it would be in line with other AC games and their play on historical figures. Last thing which is flawed is the 'conversation' form AC game you invoke - that anyone can write books, anyone can write 'hictorical facts'. That premise undermines what science is and paves a way for any diletant to rewrite facts as they like, "coz nothing is prooven, anyone can write what they want". When dealing with historical part of science you cannot just write what you want - that would be fiction or scientifical maplractice and ultimately be shooned in science circles. Whenever you deal with history you have to do your research and find your sources - without those all you work does not have merit and in conclusion cannot be taken as factual, prooven. All we know about history comes from research, analising sources - and yes, science can change based on new findings, once new light gets shined on sources based on new research. That is not the case here. There are still no sources, no prooven research about Yasuke pointing to more than we already know. The only 'sources' that people try to invoke to procure otherwise are those "books and articles that anyone can write", like "Yasuke: The true story of the legendary African Samurai" by Thomas Lockley - a piece of mostly historical fiction lacking any quotation and background research - as such it does not hold any scientifi value. To sum up, we cannot just invent something and then depict it as historical fact, as it is completely wrong. It would allow creators to come up with anything without any prior research - that would be a downfall of science but I fear that is what those "creators" want. No responsibility for their actions.
Here’s the root of the criticism (that I agree is not warranted) that YOU’RE missing: People have spent years, well over a decade at this point, being told that white protagonists are bad, that there’s a fundamental issue with Tom cruise’s starring in the last samurai (even if there’s good historical grounding for the story), that Ariel, a Dutch girl, should be African (and you should applaud that or you’re racist), that Dune is a “white savior” story (which utterly misses the POINT of that book), and now we ACTIVELY have video game dev studios and their cohorts OUTRIGHT telling everyone that they intentionally don’t hire white men to work on projects- The culmination being that we all KNOW had this been a white person as a samurai in this setting, that ilk of people would have lost their shit. Dev studios would be obligated to comment on it, Twitter activists would rage against their cage bars, journalists including mainstream places like msnbc would cover it. But if the race is African, well that’s a win, right? I’ll say again, this criticism is NOT warranted, it makes no sense in context of the game. But it does make sense in context of the blowback of nearly a decade worth of increasing racism against white people- overt, gross, exclusionary-based-on-race, racism. In the philosophy of Ibram Kendi, which that group has taken to heart, the only solution to past discrimination is present discrimination. And it’s blowback to that we’re really observing. Nobody has a problem that he’s a historical figure. Nobody has a problem that he’s black. They have a problem with a clear double standard. And in a world where Washington can be portrayed as black, and the show Bridgerton exists (and counties more examples), that does make perfect sense, because there is a clear, malicious, intentional double standard. And frankly, our species shouldn’t tolerate racial hatred and prejudice, full stop. Yet we not only do, we applaud it as virtuous.
I agree with what you're saying but the broader point is being missed. The games narrative designers are Sweet baby inc. They're all about DEI and pushing that Into games. Even going as far as the ceo referring to white men as 'picky babies'. It's quite clear that with sweet baby behind the narrative direction the only reason they've chosen a black man and female protagonist is to do what they set out to do in the first place which is push DEI into games. This is the broader point as to why it's referred to as being woke.
I think the problem not only is Yasuke as a protagonist, but the fact that Ubisoft lost their timing, they should have made a Japanese samurai game years, ages ago, not now after Ghost Of Tsushima's huge success. And to worse the things up, it's developed by the same studio that made Odyssey, a good RPG, but sucks as an Assassin's Creed game. The same old boring RPG, huge map and boring stuff to do. Also Ubisofts's latest statements were awful, they took The Crew from everyone who bought it, and they said we dont own our games, they do. The best way to show disgust towards Shadows is NOT BUYING, do not pre order.
All AC main was fictional character who interact with historical figures. Suddenly in Japan they use Historical figure as main to changed history, because Yasuke perfect for their agenda.
Ubisoft never changed history, lmao. All of their games are alternate history, they never claimed what was happening to be real. The franchise has been historical fiction since the very start of the series with the Ezio trilogy.
@@Zwingli-Was-Right-AHwasToo Well yeah, in ACIII, a random Native American man won most of the famous battles, and led all the iconic actions, like the Boston Tea Party, and whatnot. In AC2, an aristocrat from Florence fights the literal pope in a Rome Cathedral using a high tech ord to make Shadow clones. Part of the AC lore is that it was the Assassins that killed Hitler. So many of you don't seem to have understood what Lazerzz was saying in the video. The idea of the franchise is that most of the history we all know from records and such didn't happen how we think happened. Especially with a man like Yasuke, who has so little known about him, and was part of a secret organisation (in this game). Obviously to the world he'd seem like nothing special.
@@maxm.m.7219 its not about him being black. Its being being black in a japanese setting. Im a white NatSoc and would be mad the same im now if they would have used a white guy and made it about the Shogun series... And im not even the one who should be offended, its just all so tiresome. Its always the same group of people trying to force diversity and alter history who have investments companies who give their friend ESG bucks for BS like this.
Yasuke representing the underrepresented groups? They literally say that he represents the "samurai lineage" in marketing materials, you know, the brutal militaristic "oppressors" of Japan. So what other underrepresented group is he supposed to be, the well known plight of 16th century African-Japanese? The only reason Nobunaga took him in as a retainer, was because he was a unique looking big black guy and having someone who looked like that following you around was a status symbol. Oh come on, there are a million better stories to tell in 16th century Japan. We know the actual reason of why he was chosen.
You have to assume that Yasuke will undergo an arc in which he discovers the faults of the samurai and through the Shinobi Assassin character will leave behind the Samurai to become an Assassin. If that doesn’t happen, yeah, it’s kinda dumb. But you have to assume the game will aim to critique the Samurai through the lens of someone like Yasuke within the context of an Assassin’s Creed game.
Lazarzz is just stupid honestly. He's wrong about nearly every single point he tries to make. It's actually pathetic he made this video. Anybody with critical thinking ability will see this, research it and realize he's an incredible idiot.
No matter the quality of the game it doesn’t take away Ubisoft’s shitty business practice and workplace
even if they had a clean record regarding business practice and workplace , AC titles are a sleep inducing slog fest , extremely long , big map filled with repetitive missions , they are so mediocre they are only worth getting on heavy discount if you really want to play them
Couldn’t agree more
@@eloyhbermudez Bro I literally LOVED every Ac game I played. Even Valhalla and Odyssey were so so much fun.
This is where all arguments about this start and end for me.
isn't the game director of this known to be predatory towards women in the workplace? From what I read most of the team at this particular place avoided working on this game because of him.
Imagine Assassins Creed producing a conversation like that one between Desmond and Vidic nowadays. The loss of AC still cuts so deep.
I feel you. They can still produce something like that though, like that one audio recording of Desmond's and Shaun conversation in Valhalla it just won't be the main theme again and just feel disconnected to the whole game.
@@shukudaidesu I never heard that before, I gave up during Odyssey and never finished it. Good to hear they have some connection to the Desmond story for the older players, who have stuck with the games.
AC lost it's uniqueness when the "weight" of what it means to be an Assassin is not conveyed properly for a long time. Now, it's just a bunch of edgy people wandering around in hoods stabbing others.
Haven’t played them in a while huh? Those 10x better conversations than that one. Calm down.😂
@@L0STV1K1NG96 Judging by your other comments on this channel you seem like your a massive ubisoft fanboy so I am not going to bother engaging with you 👍
Never in my life I would ever think you would ever make another AC video😭
Why? He made a video on Mirage he`s gonna keep talking about AC games. Just not as much as he did before
Does retrospective count? Cause he's doing it every year.
Well no sht. He is acting like he doesn't care. But he does. I think everyone knows that.
He made one recently. How long were you out of the loop?
@@65firered nah I meant like new ac. I watched the black flag video. I was just surprised he was talking about it
Next up Assassin’s Creed Shadows Woke Me
Edit: This is a joke about his video Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Broke Me, and i’m making fun of the term rather than making an actual statement :) Chill out
Is that good or bad
I don’t understand how it’s woke it’s something that really happened tho
@@lukethelegend9705 It’s a joke regarding his video ‘Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Broke Me’
@@evansinclair1999 i’m making a joke
That word hurts my damn soul
“Hey where’d that 6’5 black man go who killed that fuderal lord? Excuse me suspicious black stranger sitting on a bench. Have you seen the only black guy in Japan?”
Yasuke: “Sorry, I haven’t.”
History student here.
My issue isn't criticism for them being representative, it is rather HOW they are choosing to go about enacting such representation. Given the fact that I personally like that Yasuke is being included, my issue is how, he's being included. It IS cool that Yasuke is being included, but NOT how he's being included. Unlike other historical characters, Darwin, Dickens, Da Vinci etc, they were supporting characters. They still had plausible claim to who they generally were historically. However to me, the issue with Yasuke here, is that because of the fact that he's being made a playable character, they're stretching the truth or historical plausibility further than it was.
Yasuke was never a samurai, he merely became a retainer under Nobunaga. Secondly, as a retainer and as he was accepted into Nobunaga's circle, he would've been expected to have assimilated into Japanese culture.
This would mean he would've needed to at least look Japanese and conform to their culture to the best of his ability.
My issue here is that if you take Yasuke out of Sengoku Japan, he looks exactly in place in the modern world - which is a massive issue.
For a start, he wouldn't be wearing dreadlocks, secondly, if he is supposed to be a samurai in this game, which he is, then why is he allowed to retain so much of his African heritage, this wouldn't fly with Japanese people at the time. Even today as someone who is friends with Japanese people and those who live in Japan, Japan has a very strict expectation of people, including foreigners in regards to the standards of their behaviour, ethics and general way they carry themselves.
Ubisoft is taking the idea of Yasuke and stretching it to extremes. He wasn't a retainer, no he was a full-blown samurai. Secondly as a samurai it's clear looking at the footage being shown that his practice is ridiculous, doing such things as slamming the tsuba (crossguard) of the katana into the saya (sheath) multiple times in the trailer without care for the sword itself shows Ubisoft have VERY LITTLE actual faith in doing the game justice which is the problem. As someone who studies kendo and other forms of HMA it made me cringe tremendously hard. You just don't do that with Japanese swords as it can damage its structural integrity.
Another thing regarding historical accounts. He was considered tall, yet he's not just tall he's physically towering over every single person he comes across, essentially the Sengoku equivalent of William J Blaskovich. Ubisoft is taking everything to extremes with representing this character.
He looks out of place for a game set in this period as a character we're supposed to play as and I would rather they stick closer to the history or the plausible ideas of what he got upto, as they did with characters like Leonardo. Sure they stretched things such as having him make tanks/flying machines, but we know he did make those plans, they just never existed. It's not like he was made a royal or became someone he wasn't/
They're making a historical figure now a playable character and in doing this are stretching the plausibility of the history alongside the actual history much further than they did with others.
Take Connor for example, they removed scalping as a feature for the fact that not only was it disturbing, but they learned that the tribe he was associated with would not have performed scalping. With Yasuke, he's being made to look like any modern person today, rather than an individual who would've fit the period of the game, not to mention why do we even need dual characters? What's wrong with having a female lead? Why does there HAVE to be a male character to play as?
You mention "They work in the shadows as a part of history that won't be heavily documented. And sometimes won't be documented at all."
Yes, but Yasuke is confirmed to not even be an assassin, he doesn't even have a hidden blade. He's not part of the Creed and this has already been confirmed, he's merely working with assassin's, not as one.
"Simply deciding you want your protagonist to be a black samurai which is A-typical because you want to represent that in a story is a choice like any other."
It's not the same as an inanimate choice though really, is it? It's being done deliberately. Choosing a character purely based on the colour of their skin and no other metric is not how good characters are written. Filling a game with modern looking characters rather than doing the character justice, they're choosing to bastardise the reality of who Yasuke was, also forgetting to mention any of his prior life and brushing that over in favour of big tall black samurai. Having a character of a certain race in the game just because and then bastardising a real character's name just because isn't doing any good to the possibility of the writing, what is known historically of Yasuke is not much, but what is known is quite clear, Ubisoft are making a deliberate choice to ignore that. Choosing to have a black character just because isn't good writing or development.
They also, if you watched Ubisoft's other videos make convenient excuses to having two characters over one with things like - "We can't have samurai and a shinobi in one character." Which is a stupid argument in and of itself when you consider that Samurai was a social designation, not a job description, Shinobi was the inverse. ANYONE of any class could do work as a shinobi, so their arguments they make in the first place are paper thin.
-
Moving onto the game itself. The architecture and design of the game isn't even Japanese, it's Chinese. It has Chinese lanterns, buildings and architecture. Swords are worn in the wrong position, slammed into the saya and not given the proper treatment these weapons should be given to ensure proper functionality.
It is very clear to me that Ubisoft are far more comfortable with making shit up than actually trying to authentically represent Japan considering it doesn't even look like Japan to those that know what they're looking at. It's obvious they've taken elements of Asian culture, pop-culture, myths and whatnot then just spread it into a game.
I feel like most of the criticism thus far about this game focusing on Yasuke is because that is one of the few pieces of Japanese history that most westerners really have a grasp on that was also shown in this game. Most aren't going to know all the differences between Chinese and Japanese architecture, the minutae of the history and culture, and definitely the piece about the saya you pointed out. We focus on it because that is the small piece we understand to be verifiably wrong. Lazerz wrongly focuses on this part and ignores all the other criticism that other people with more experience with Japanese culture (like you) are bringing forth.
I ain't reading all that I'm happy for you tho or I'm sorry that happened.
Your entire essay is for a pre-rendered trailer and could've easily been summarized as: I would prefer Yasuke to be a supporting character like the other historical figures before him... Geez wait for the game to release dude.
@@coritooty There is more to my distaste than Yasuke not being a supporting character, if you bothered to read.
@@johnswick1351 Then don't bother commenting in the first place.
Lazerzz defending Ubisoft wasn't on my 2024 bingo card... Yet here we are. (Yes I know it's more complicated, I'm making a joke!)
absolutely nobody would've been bothered by this comment without the parentheses, people like to reduce and simplify things so they don't have to think so hard to make their worthless opinion
@jeppe0512 World needs more good energy right now, thanks
@@byksEBM Yes, good energy... funny how you could've said at any point of human existence and it still would "apply", thats how meaningful what you're saying is
Didnt ask
@@byksEBM btw you spelled his @ wrong
honsetly my biggest gribe with this is that ubisoft who once declined doing things like vikings and samurai because they were too mainstream and they wanted to highlight less explored parts of history have just jumped on the biggest hype train surrounding japanese history. It feels like everyone is making a media project surrounding yasuke now.
“Highlight the less explored parts of history” If they said this and this really was their intent they failed 15 years ago with AC2. Renaissance Italy is hardly a less explored part of history.
@@bassplayer2011ify in gaming, I don't think I know any games based around renaissance Italy, correct me if I'm wrong tho
@@bassplayer2011ifyI can't name any other videogame with the setting of AC2, and it was far from mainstream in the cinema industry
"Those topics aren't gonna colonize themselves" right x)
the typical American way of approaching something. Make it about them even if it means revising already written history and culture. Bonus points if it's from another country altogether.
They blew it with the vikings historically that's NOT how they looked .
Assassin's Creed Valhalla was straight taken from Viking TV show
With all due respect, I heavily disagree with you. it is, fundamentally, at it's core wrong. Every single Assassin's Creed game, the playable choices were always representative of the setting and time period of where the game took place for the broad stroke. This has held true for every single Assassin's Creed entry. All of a sudden, when it comes to setting it in Japan, Japanese people are only given one half of that choice and that's not fair to them. They can play as a Japanese female, but not as a Japanese male. This wasn't how Syndicate was handled, or Odyssey, or Valhalla. The historical tug of war over Yasuke's title of retainer being samurai or not, isn't the bigger point. It's a demographics issue, straight up, and done so in a way that was deliberately a snub and designed *to* insight the backlash, since it wasn't the shinobi/assassin style character it was done to, it was the samurai style character it was done to. Every AC game gave the regional demographic their due, except for this one, and that's not right. It's the equivalent of telling the Japanese people that they weren't worth the effort.
It's not real
it is now hear me out because you may be too dumb to understand a fucking video game. It isnt real the characters have no bearing on the real world and if the games good its good if its bad its bad.
In the game set in the caribbean you play as a welsh man, in the game set in turkey you play as an italian man, it is nothing new
The real problem with the game is needing a WIFI connection to install the base game, Ubisoft we know what you're fucking doing .
Luke Stephen’s made a video on that. You’re not wrong but it’s not a ubi exclusive problem.
Isn't every game company do online connection for download?
@@isabaig6665 I'm aware
@@mrunknown6070 it only makes sense for a digital copy to require an internet connection for installation, if you're buying the physical copy that data should already be on the disc, Xbox does this shitty practice as well and now Ubisoft is doing it, it's bad because if those games become unavailable digitally it means even the disc won't preserve the existence of the media
@@moritakaishida7963 agreed but I would hate the game industry more generally since this does feel less like a ubi only problem. Still it is good to point them out.
The problem is, when you already have an enigmatic character like Hattori Hanzo, who is in AC lore an Assassin as well as Shinobi AND Samurai, the job should have already been easy for Ubisoft and they wouldn’t have to make the stupid excuse of not being able to mix both fantasies into one person.
They don’t use known characters for MC. Though Yasuke is real, not much is known of him so he’s a perfect candidate. Looks badass anyways
Ghost of Tsushima blended both types of fantasies perfectly. This game will never hit that bar. That is the dumbest excuse when we live in a world GoT exists. Japanese people are offended. That's all that matters to me. Anyone who is not Japanese or knows the real history of Yatsuke (who is barely a footnote in history) can take their wokeness and see themselves out. Or just keep supporting this trash company, your choice!
Glad you know everything about making video games. Glad you are a professional in the industry who is a history buff and have a tract record of making revenue from video games. Oh wait youre not any of those things. Save that for the pros.
He'll be in the game. Possibly an important character.
That’s a very good point about Hanzo.
gotta disagree, every decision they make is purely corporate with no thought of creativity
Speculation.
@@Theagentofchaos-r5q Doesnt mean im wrong
@@Bckgroundguy101 yeah it’s still unprofessional as shit.
Main characters in every Assassin's Creed game have always been fictional characters based on their country of origin. Any historical figure has always been a side character or supporting character. Now, they have made an exception for this game to have a real person, an African man in a Japanese land setting, as their main character. They claim he was a historical legendary samurai who was only in Japan for 13 months, without any surname or wars and battles to his name. He was only a retainer or helper for Oda Nobunaga because of his unique skin at that time. If you say all AC games are fiction, then why make a real person the main character and change history ? Why can't we have both characters be Japanese ?
Maybe they want to do something new with a vague historical character?
What about the game set in turkey? There is no Turkish protagonist
To claim people criticizing this character for being African are racist, we would need a consistent and balanced equivalency from the same people in the past. I don’t recall any criticism or Islamophobia of Basim being middle eastern. Probably because he was in Baghdad. I do not recall any racism toward Bayek being Egyptian/african. Probably because he was in Africa. I don’t recall any negative anti Native American sentiments toward Connor. Probably because he was in America. No matter how you twist it, this choice was intentionally made for a reason. And that reason wasn’t solely “art”, nor was it concocted within the incredibly well thought out confines of “filling in historical gaps” lore of AC. (You and I both know Ubisoft Quebec isn’t that deep with AC lore.. they made Odyssey lol.
Great video and perspective overall, as always. Extremely well laid out within the lore and I respect your take. The extremists on both sides are annoying. But I’m sure there are plenty of Japanese men who would have loved to have been represented in their own history in an AC game. Tough luck to them I guess.
How much does assassins creed sell in Japan? I googled it and couldn't figure that out but apparently there are people here that think this game is received like Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, Persona or any huge game from any Japanese developer. They didnt care about assassins creed before, I doubt they're crying about it now.
In fairness, there were some 'we wuz kangz' comments when Origins was announced, but that was a minority. Bayek (though played by a black man) didn't look black in the trailer, and even if he was, they could've just made him Nubian (from northern Sudan), and it would've still worked.
This is coming from someone who fully supports calling out real wewuzzery (which Shadows, by contrast, is).
finally some sense with the ending, both of the sides to the extreme are annoying. No yasuke being black is not a problem, however I don't want to play as a tall brawler with no hidden blade who does not represent japanese culture well in my feudal japan ac game, a yasuke game about him being set in nigeria and eventually moving to japan would have been great, for example
Also Freedom Cry fit well with the setting but this is jarring
I kind of love how you're deliberately choosing to forget that amongst the HUNDREDS of ip set in feudal Japan, there's a shitload Japanese Mc and when it's not, it's a white guy(shogun, nioh, 47 ronin, the last samurai etc).
The setting's been done to death and it's absurd to act like the Japanese were STARVED for representation.
Another thing I loved is how you deliberately ignored AC revelations, black flag, and Valhalla where the MCs are not from the main setting and are foreigners.
while i know you aren't a ubishill you don't understand what makes media "woke" and why people are calling ACS that. the things you say in the video are right but they have no relation to the subject and don't counter it.
my issue is that no AC before this one had a historical figure as the main character. how cool was it when we met leonardo, or when we met macchieveli, even when we met cleopatra. itt would’ve been just as cool if we met yasuke as we played the game and he became an ally? as a black, african man, i can tell you they used him as a selling point because they knew it would cause unrest.
Yeah I think Ubisoft would have dogged the criticism if yasuke was just a character in the game and not a playable character
Yeah what’s the problem?
@@Theagentofchaos-r5qit’s extremely out of place and just a way to bring diversity in the wrong way. Yasuke is nothing more than a bad myth.
@@thatemocat
How is it out of place if he is part of that history? He is literally part of Japanese. How is it anymore out of place than literal fictional elements from being assassin creed
@@corydk4834 no, Yasuke is a myth.
LazerzZ is a little off. The complaints are centered around the entirely fictitious history that Ubisoft fabricated. Yusoke was an inconsequential laborer who accompanied a Jesuit missionary group to Japan. The Japanese nobility saw him as a novelty, thought he was amusing, and wanted to keep him at court to show off. To avoid legal taboos, he was made a 'retainer' to justify him being close to the nobility. He surrendered in what was very likely the first actual battle he'd ever been in. Japanese records report that he was disarmed and taken to prison, where he functionally disappears from the historical record entirely. He was no more legendary than local fast food burger flipper.
This is akin to Ubisoft fabricating a story about how the local janitor is a legendary warrior who singlehandedly defeated Nazi Germany. Had they wrote this using a fictional Japanese samurai or retainer, nobody would have blinked. Its the act of cultural vandalism thats angering gamers, with Japanese players especially annoyed.
As far the price goes, I actually honestly don't have an issue with the price. Games have not kept pace with inflation and the 70 USD price point is technically the 'cheapest' they've ever been. A 50 USD game in 1995 is comparable to a 120 USD game today, so that 110 USD Gold Edition is actually what most games should, by all rights, cost today.
One of the worst takes ever it’s because Ubisoft is saying Yasuke was a samurai and even tried to change history by changing wiki and dismissing actual evidence but no let’s defend Ubisoft. You seem as woke as Ubisoft is if you can actually defend this bull.
Hell their so called expert wrote a book on monks having relationships with boys. If you can defend that then there’s something wrong with you
I think the point he is trying to convey is that, Ubisoft maybe going the route of, yasuke was actually a samurai but due to his affliations to the assassin's brotherhood and other factors he was possibly removed from the historical records. This isn't the first time they have put a spin to historical events. Because at the end of the day, assassin's creed is a scfi game (with the animus and first civ stuff) but yet again it is Ubisoft lol, they may just have put Yasuke in the game, to fulfill a diversity, equality and inclusion quota. Who knows lol
@@Davidchubby that’s exactly what they did they gotta appease their masters SBI and Blackrock to get funding
Yasuke was a samurai. Keep crying whitey.
And yet we now have two east asian AC games with 0 east asian male leads. In all other AC games the characters fitted into the inhabitant list of people living widely in those specific regions by that time. And as soon as it comes to a second east asian AC game the male mc gets switched for a complete (even if historically correct) outsider. From what videos I saw about that trailer the japanese people seemed to be the most pissed... and rightfully tho I think. I think Yasuke would have fit perfectly as a side character, with whom you might even play some flashbacks.
Technically this will be the third game taking place in Asia, the other two were chronicles but one of the protagonists was a male Indian. I could be wrong, but I don't think Japanese people are that pissed off, more of puzzled because they can't play as a Japanese samurai instead, and I think it's really just westerners that are pissed the most
I think AC is at its best when the assassins are all fictional and the templars are all historic. Yasuke and Nobunaga being villains could have been really cool.
@@kingpanther424Also Altair and Basim are two Asian male protagonists as well, albeit not East Asian.
@@kingpanther424 Hi. Kingpanther thanks for answering. Well first of all India is not East Asia :) and the east asian median and the indian median really don't look much alike. They are puzzled yes, but when you go through videos and X with japanese comments a good lot of them are pretty pissed as well. They say that Yasuke is boasted everywhere except Japan and that they would have really prefered to play as a japanese ninja.
@@EvilParagon4 As Nobunaga was on a pretty ruthless conquest to unite Japan, making him a "Templar" would acutally make sense :) Maybe together with Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu but those two overpower the shinobi (Assassins)
The racism you are missing is from Ubisoft, they have a foreigner who was in Japan for less than a year as a retainer, become a master samurai in that tiny amount of time, so good he is better than the native Japanese who had spent their lifetime training and learning to be samurai.
This implies that a black man is superior to japanese and is able to master what took them a lifetime in just a year showing that Japanese people are inferior.
This also does not go into the implications of a foreigner colonist committing ethnic cleansing against a native population.
There is A female character right there.
Do you know there is an Asian you can play as?
Seems you missed the point he made entirely
Oh okay, so when there's an AC set in Africa you think they'd ever in a million years have a Japanese protagonist? Get real dude
Was there any historical accounts of a Japanese in Africa ?
Also there is a Japanese character in the game.
Also AC origins was in Africa.
In Black flack you're litteraly playing a welsh protagonist in Cuba
And in Valhalla you're playing à viking colonisater in england
😂
AC origins was in Africa dude. And Yasuke was a REAL person. Go back to high school dude you obviously slept through a few classes
Like Admiral Zheng He in 15th century Kenya looking for Qilin?
@@Xaa25there were pirates in the caribbean and the nords went to england. those are both correct. the issue is that we’ve never had a main character be a historical figure. it’s never been like that, and it never should.
You are fundamentally wrong when you say that casting Yasuke as the male mc is thematically as Assassin's Creed as it gets. No mc prior to this game was so sociobiologically detached from the people, places and events within the story's setting. It's very inconsistent to the choices of previous games and only serves to highlight how out of place and forced the character feels as the male mc.
AC revelations,black flag, and Valhalla
@@jayjay24155revelation is the converging point between ezio and altair. There were tons of white pirates in the Caribbean during that time period. Evior is also racially accurate for a game set during that time period. What do you mean?
@@jayjay24155Good counter
@@endlessnameless9381yes but Edward didn't come from that part of the world
@@endlessnameless9381he's English I think
I agree with your points James but I feel that Ubisoft chose these main characters just to pander and try and look ‘inclusive’, not because they think it’s what AC is supposed to be about. I doubt they care a bit about what AC was meant to be about as you described it in this vid.
I also think he makes good points, and then having Yasuke might work in that context, but I also agree with you in that I strongly doubt that any of the purple hairs behind this project gave that even a second of thought, this was purely about pandering.
OR, hear me out, it's because they wanted to stand out with more unique characters than just traditional protags of every other samurai/Japan game
Dude there is an Asian MC in there, the game have ALWAYS been inclusive it's a AC. What are you talking about. If you want to play a samurai game there is ghost sekiro.
@@lip124 I dont even care what race the character is. I just think ubisoft is doing this to cover their own backs and not doing it to try to be a good AC as is talked about in the vid
Well we will never know, and who cares, if their good characters that work and don’t feel like Ubisoft tokenizing because of their history of sexism, then I dint care, I just want to invest in a character, so we’ll see
That's what annoys me, they could write a black mc perfectly, an ex assassin and now slave in a foreign land, but no he will simply be a samurai, combat focused and no stealth characteristic of assassin's, and the girl seems like a shinobi with a hidden blade just because, since Ubisoft previously said shinobis and assassins were different things so seems like none of the main characters in this next ac game will be assassins, that's what people should be angry about.
Well that is what he is, an ex assassin slave
Finally someone gets it. Black or purple guy, don’t care. But him being just a samurai defeats the purpose of what lazerzzs was saying. This isn’t representation as he’s not even being taken by the creed. Or maybe he is but he decides not to be an assassin or act like them
@@diegovcf4 clearly you morons never played Syndicate
Think they did say naoe will be an assassin. Let’s hope so anyway
@@diegovcf4 Black Flag forgone the idea of stealth. You can't be stealth when you're sailing a ship around. Personally though I prefer the option of stealth or straight no bars held combat.
You answered your own question: "how can history be woke?" When the people recording and reciting it twist and warp it to fit their agenda.
Also, it's laughable how you quote "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted" and then act like your interpretation of Assassin's Creed is the true way of viewing it.
You would have a point if assassin’s Creed was not fictional sci-fi in a video game.
@@lilcrow64 And you might have an argument if you addressed anything I said, rather than offer a variation of "it's just a game, bro."
Funny that the "Anti woke" have become the "woke" but can't see it. Two sides of the same Outrage culture coin. Yes they're pushing their Agenda, and you are pushing your counter agenda. End of the day we all make our own decisions with our wallets.
@Neowulf2066 I've observed many of the counter-arguments to the backlash online is constantly mutating from "Yasuke was real, deal with it" to "lol, its just a fictional video game bro." Almost as if they are just searching for anything to justify the choice without really believing what they are saying. Motivated reasoning.
“It’s just a game bro” as they literally change his Wikipedia to leverage their agenda lmfao
>game set in the Holy Land, play as a Syrian man
>game set in Italy, play as an Italian man
>game set in the American Colonies, play as both a British and Native man
>game set in the Caribbean, play as a Welsh privateer
>game set in France, play as a French man
>game set in England, play as English twins
>game set in Egypt, play as an Egyptian man
>game set in Greece, play as a Greek man
>game set in Norway and Viking-invaded England, play as a Norwegian man
>game set in Iraq, play as an Arab man
...
>game set in Feudal Japan, play as an African man
You know there's a female Japanese protagonist to so this makes no sense as an argument get your facts straight
except you are forgetting that you will also play as a japanese woman.
Yes because this African man actually existed and was present in Japan, he's not some entirely new character.
Yes in Vallhalla and Odyssey you could play as a Norwegian and Greek man an women.
In the game set in Japan a Japanese women and a AFRICAN MAN.
@@miroo4097 A female spartan is historically inaccurate though, doesn't belong either
I don’t care if “HE ACTUALLY EXISTED” (not a samurai but sure) or the fact that it’s AC so it’s “NEVER HISTORICALLY ACCURATE”
The fact that it took them 2 decades of fans constantly asking for them make an AC Japan game, only for them to SPECIFICALLY choose the era when a black guy lived so that they could make him the main character, are we Asians not worth representing anymore? I am an Asian male and I know many Japanese male friends who are also heartbroken because of this, like literally yesterday my friend from Japan said his little brother has been crying all day because AC is literally his favourite game franchise and he just wanted to play as a cool Ninja dude, wow, I’m just so appalled! The way they just said we don’t matter
Yep "woke" is anti-asian now too. They're also apparently anti-Jewish as well. So much for being the group that's pro equality, huh? Welcome to the trenches brother, I think they finally bit off more than they can chew this time
Disappointment is part of growing up, I don't think that should be such a core memory for him to feel so upset.
Are you forgetting about the other main lead? Who is Japanese ?
The girl is Japanese, are you one of those people who really care that much about playing as a woman? if no then you get your asian representation, if yes then you still have ghost of Tsushima.
it's almost like you ignored the entire point of the video. If people are heartbroken over this, they should blame themselves. Their lack of perspective is their issue, it's not Ubisoft's choices. It's a video game, disposable pop culture entertainment, not a statement of your worth as an individual or the worth of those like you. If their "heart" is that deeply invested in an Asian-protagonist lead video game, they can create their own, and be the change they want to see in the world, rather than bellyaching over the artistic choices of others who are freely following their own vision.
I got bored with the series years ago and pretty much all Ubisoft games along with it.
Only so many times I can wonder around an soulless map filled with filler content and vast distances to cover that add nothing to the experience.
Completing everything in odyssey actually destroyed me, never touched another ac after that. Don't know if i ever will tbh, it was just that shit.
@@SBM-wl6mn I understand. I 100% that game out of sheer spite and have never truly recovered since. I couldn't even completely my playthrough of it, I just checked out with the DLC.
The last good Ubisoft game I played was Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.
I used to look forward to their new games, but man that was such a long time ago.
Looked over the games they've made in the past, and I was like meh
Played every game up to black flag,. Picked up Origin because I liked Ancient Egypt. Then rushed through Odyssey. Haven't played anything since.
Overtime they crammed AC with so much low effort content like collectibles and stupid crafting systems that make you go through a big open world that is not fun to explore.
I just want the old style back with a linear storyline with a cool protagonist. Let me parkour on continuous buildings without touching the ground again. Vast lands of nothing to trot through is not it.
My friend who’s originally from Japan told me Yasuke was indeed nothing more than a curiosity kept alive due to being so extraordinary in a country that never seen them. It would be a disgrace for any non Japanese with the right pedigree to ever be trained as a Samurai. I just don’t get why they finally make a Feudal Japan AC and they pull this. He said the comments on the Japanese sites hate this and are pissed which their culture doesn’t really express in public.
No disrespect but a lot of Japanese people weren't even taught the atrocities their military did in WWII, so I rather listen to credited historians and look for sources myself than to listen to your friend.
@kingpanther424 Well, the dude's friend is right, I would suggest looking it up, but currently some people are trying to edit the wiki page of Yasuke to make it look like he was a samurai when in reality he was just a oddity kept in a guilded cage
@@hshdjddhd7559 even if you're right, this is a fictional game and people shouldn't be frothing at the mouth because there's a black person in their game. AC has always been tweaking history. It's always been like this.
@@hshdjddhd7559you should go get a book then going to look something up on shit storm that is the internet
@@smellycat57 No, it hasn't? Not a single other main character I can think of from Altaïr to Edward to Bayek of Siwa were actually people, but even characters like say Conner Kennway made sense to the setting. Conner may not be what you typically think when discussing the American Revolution, but Native Americans are... well native to America, and they had a role on both sides of the war. Yasuke was an anomaly in a foreign land kept around as a sideshow for an actually important figure, Oda Nobunaga. The only reason why Yasuke is being used by Ubisoft is so that people like you would have an easier time defending a game that takes place in feudal Japan having a non-Japanese main character. I get that we should focus efforts into hating on stuff like the overpriced special editions or Ubisoft's track record of mid to dogshit video games but ignoring the issue of DEI and the... for lack of a better word "wokeness" of this project would be underselling how much we shouldn't support games like AC Shadows. Also, sorry for this long paragraph, I just needed to fully explain my point of view.
Forced DEI nonsense is killing games. This game looks like trash and it just feels forced, like all DEI. It’s shoved down people’s throats and the game companies are bullied into hiring these people so they don’t get called racist or bigots in the mainstream (if you think I’m exaggerating go look at what sweet baby is trying to do to game science with their upcoming debut Black Myth Wukong). Game companies that have a spine and tell these companies where to go and how to get there are the games with character, charm, and depth.
Two words in and you outed yourself as an idiot.
If they made Assassins creed India, and made the protagonist a Portugese trader just because he existed in the time period, I’d be pretty pissed too.
I hope the game bombs.
To be fair, he would probably also be disabled orphan transsexual.
If one playable character was Portuguese trader but another playable character was an Indian then that would be fantastic
@@randomhuman2595 no
@unmotivated_might In AC 4 you play as a white guy in the Carribean, no one cared
In Ac Revelations, you play as an Italian guy in the Ottoman Empire and no one cared
@@randomhuman2595don’t bother 😂 his fragile world is under attack he probably going to go watch last samurai to feel better
It's the same blackwashing that's going on everywhere. And Edward being the protagonist in Black Flag makes sense, and Origins is an AC game set in Africa and the protagonist is African and almost everyone likes that game. There is no racism.
Having an African protagonist in a game set in Feudal Japan in a franchise which has always chosen a protagonist of an ethnicity common in the setting, is wokeness, no matter how deep in the barrel you lot have to scrape to find that one African who lived in Feudal Japan for like 5 years or whatever. We know this is wokeness thinly described as being historically accurate quit trying to be intelligent.
That literally makes 0 sense. How can you "blackwash" a character that is actually black?
Stop yapping bro😂
@@YoureMy_Valentine A Samurai in feudal Japan being black isn't blackwashing huh? Come back when you found some IQ.
@@YoureMy_Valentinetheir comebacks are always things they take from blacks like Whitewashing IS a actual thing theres many things still be uncovered that was thought to be made by whites but turned out it was a hidden fact that the design comes from slaves or ancient africa and the phrase Woke simply comes from Afro centrist 😂
How in tf do you "Blackwash" a actual historical black person 💀 they don't even know the words they get from blacks actual meaning its sad
how can you blackwash history
My stance has nothing to do with lore or politics or any such nonsense. I believe that the playable character in the Assassin's Creed game set in Japan should be Japanese. Yasuke was a neat guy, I'm sure. He would probably be a great character to interact with in the game. But the player should represent the local population in some symbolic way, just like Altair, Ezio, Conner, etc.
I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation.
I definetly agree. Locals have more stakes in a story because they are part of the culture, and have a the same worldview at first, until the assassins arrive.
There is a Japanese protagonist.
@@Starsteam1 Yes you are correct. I have no problem playing as a woman (I played Kassandra in Odyssey), but Ubisoft has stated that the characters have different playstyles and missions. If I want to play the samurai missions from a Japanese POV, I will not have the option to do so.
@@Starsteam1 And I think that's great! I can't find the post, but the way I understood it was that the missions and storylines would still be locked behind the characters themselves. Just because i'm an assassin with a big weapon/clunky armor (which is odd either way imo), does not mean that I am a samurai
@@TheLudvigbb Assassins creed is supposed to be about stealth and limited combat capabilities. There's plenty of modern games where you play as a samurai.
its never about representation, racism against asian has been normalized.
Exactly, and this argument is ignored or suppressed under the idiotic DEI arguments.
The core problem is that masculine representation for East Asians have once again been discriminated.
Tired of the “he was never even a samurai” angle. It doesn’t matter if he was a samurai. The point is, we wanted to play as a Japanese male protagonist in a game set in Japan.
The reaction would have been the same if he was Mexican, Persian, Swedish, or Russian.
100% I think this is the majority of people's feelings over this.
I sincerely doubt the reaction would've been the same if they used William Adams (Another western born samurai) as the samurai character. That choice would've been defended by the same people complaining about Yasuke, using historical accuracy as justification.
Besides, why is it so important that the Japanese character is male? Video games have plenty of Japanese male protagonists. Yakuza, Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, and that is to name a few. Why not give the protagonist role to a woman for once?
this is how racist are trying to clock it now that they have been exposed
… you really were worried about the gender of the Japanese person years ago when we were all asking that?
I don't really care as long as the protagonist is well written whether it's a man or woman is irrelevant. What people should be skeptical of this game for is Ubisoft's "get used to not owning your games" mentality. And instead the discourse is centered around nonsense. Many reasons to distrust Ubisoft and their games lately, I just think the debate is focused on such a non issue that it's crazy
"Do not criticise ideas, criticise execution of those ideas. 10:28
Before you run off to print this incredible quote on a t-shirt, consider this. Not all ideas are born equal. You need to decide which ones are worth pouring time and effort into realizing. How do you do that without being critical?
@slybootsstan1809 That's where execution comes in. Making a story about a teen who was bit by a spider and has spider powers can sound dumb to those who couldn't see the potential, especially at the time of its inception. But how they executed the idea is what makes it so good. And to be honest, that can apply to any idea.
@@BlackSnoopi I agree, I can't count how many times I've criticized an Idea and when they executed it, I was like oh this actually bangs. I'm very opinionated about stuff but sometimes I genuinely feel we can give things a chance. Assassin's Creed has always bent history, and now it's crazy that we are losing our minds because a game is bending history. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.
@@maesterchi Because we know they're bending history to fit a political agenda.
@@maesterchiYou said it yourself, don't criticize the idea but the execution of the idea. Perhaps that's what people are doing and you disagree or don't understand. Consider why Assassin's Creed and Ubisoft specifically are receiving this criticism. Consider for a moment why Nioh 2 didn't receive this criticism despite having the same character. Maybe instead of dismissing the idea that the criticism might be valid outright, really think about it even if you disagree.
All you need to know about this is that the Japanese audience is pissed. Could have had the guy just appear as a side character but the choice to make him a main character had been a massive turn off for a lot of people.
That’s a lie. Those are white people writing this n Japanese online. A French guy was writing in Japanese saying he didn’t like this game.
As a black man….I’m seriously tired of these companies pandering to my race. It’s like they’re patting me on the head and saying “see we did this for you” smh I understand the “history” behind the character but #1 we don’t know for fact that he was even a samurai at all and #2 out of all the iconic figures in Japanese history they decide to choose THIS guy who was barely even “iconic.” It’s so obvious on what they’re trying to accomplish. Even Japanese people are confused on this decision. Don’t try to tell me I just hate women or I’m bringing down my own race because Assassin Creed Odyssey, Origins and Assassins Creed 3 were some of my favorite diverse games of the series.
100% you are not black
@@aaronharrell12 100% you do not know me so how are you going to tell me what I am or am not?
@@aaronharrell12 I feel like you’re the type of person that is celebrating this but riot when they make an assassin’s creed game in Africa and the protagonist is a white guy.
As a black man I will speak for us how you spoke for us and say you arent black. Lol. Honestly havent play assassin creed since the 2nd game. Generally dont like ubisoft games due to their repetition and pacing. This game looks cool, dont need companies trying to pander to the antiwoke crowd and stop trying new things.
@@TKBTKB1122 I dont play ubisoft games, really only play tekken and small indie games. White guy in africa is probably already a game. I think resident evil. If you gave that game a shot and loved it why not this.
But i know why. You dont have to say the silent part.
You also made fun of Zack Snyder because his daughter committed suicide. You don't know what "criticism" even means when you attack someone for losing his daughter. Sweet Baby Inc is a client of Ubisoft, you don't think they had anything to do with this bs? What about the blackwashing in Alan Wake 2 regarding Saga Anderson, originally casting a Finnish actress? You've clearly lost the plot.
1:11 It's not historically accurate that there were ever any black Samurai. The only foreigner who we do know was a Samurai was William Adams, an English Protestant, and that was because of the importance of his role in getting Catholicism. Yasuke was never a Samurai, he was, at most, a minor retainer and maybe a bodyguard, and never held any of the power a Samurai does. Remember, retainer =/= Samurai, considering one is a servant and the other is a highly responsible position of political power. They're not the same. That's the issue with this, because it's misconstruing history for basically a nobody who was only noteworthy for his skin colour. Him being in the game isn't the issue, I would be fine if they even slightly hammed up his appearance to give him a moment to shine, but this...this isn't it chief.
Well said. This isn't giving him a moment to shine, it's more like using his corpse for cover
He could still be an Assassin without changing history in such a way.
How is this ruining history omg it’s a fucken video game
@@65firered tell me how he's going to travel or buy supplies without turning heads. Japan wasn't diverse people would literally think he's either a demon or maybe even some diety.
@@machineferret3359 because people are really stupid and believe shit they play in games and go around thinking it's true. I know Christians who think Dantes inferno is Christian facts and you couldn't tell them otherwise, you couldn't tell me people aren't that stupid.
now we'll have people arguing there actually where black samurais and that just pisses off the Asians. why have any conteaversy is my question?
Woke means progressive identity politics and intersectionality, stop pretending like it's this vague, undefined term. We all know what it means.
He cannot. Most of his arguments would then fall apart.
Since when Is an actually person in history woke ? Even if he wasn’t an actual samurai so what?
Niccolo Machiavelli was an assassin in AC2 they’re allowed to twist anything slightly to fit their story
@@alienlvni8426 why do you think the Canadian white woman who wrote the game picked Yosuke out of millions of Japanese people?
@@fissionmail3d my guess is a different take to separate it’s self from ghost or other game’s already set in that era..Or maybe just a different perspective
@@fissionmail3d now my question to you is why not? If said person was there during that time
He is not samurai. He is just a rare pet ,slave of Oda. If they want to explore the dark history Why not use a Japanese male ninja as main? They racist Asian.There are tons of true samurai only have little mention in history. Ubisoft is just lazy to explore them and too woke to use a black slave as main character
He had a Kitana and was made a lord. That is a samurai
@Starsteam1 no direct evidence he have anything. A Kitana is just a gift . A Samurai must have a surname to represent his family and his bloodline. He does not have any. He is just a slave not worthy to being kill from the mouth of other Japanese warlord Akechi Mitsuhide
He was a retainer which was a samurai in the military sense
@@zzskyninjazz1821niga there is no nóooooooooo evidence about that dude . Pls read Wikipedia
@harshjha4960 not a good source right now
1 he was a lowly page
2 he ran after being injured in his first battle
3 why is my nation the only one where the mc is not native ?
Naoe is native
@@ashconsumer i was referring to yasuke
@@royzgaming441 That's the point they are making. Naoe is the MC. Your nation literally has a MC who IS a native.
@@darryljack6612 trust me yasuke is gonna be a MC similar to Frye twins
That last point isn't even true lmao
Revelations, Black Flag, Rogue and Valhalla (and Brotherhood since Rome and Tuscany were separate entities at the time) all have non-native protagonists, and then you still have Naoe
No. Just no. Throughout Japanese history there were literally millions of samurai who were Japanese. Ubisoft chose the one black samurai (if he was even a samurai) in that history instead. It's an absolutely disgusting, and frankly, racist design decision. Stop defending it.
This guy existed.
He was no samurai, he was an exotic pet no more no less
@@ImUrZaddy we know for a fact that he wasn’t a slave. But we don’t know for sure if he was 💯 a samurai.
@@Theagentofchaos-r5qThe man who made that cliam, Thomas Lockley has been exposed as fraud.
@@65firered yeah we still don’t know, if he was a Samurai.
Then why are the Japanese people themselves are angry about it? They know they're history well since it's their culture. I'd say Ubisoft is checking the box for DEI content to pander to so called woke audience.
They aren't. A bunch of racist white guys have claimed they are, but most real people in Japan don't care. Hell, the Japanese have featured Yaskue as a Samurai or warrior in numerous media.
@@MeTaLISaWeSoMe95嘘つくのやめてください、多くの日本人は弥助を知らないし、知ってる人も侍とは思わず手下だと思っています。
@@MeTaLISaWeSoMe95文化盗用をやめてくださいこの差別主義者
@@MeTaLISaWeSoMe95弥助なんてただの荷物持ちですよ笑笑
@@MeTaLISaWeSoMe95貴方の妄想以外で証拠を見せて
Ubisoft just wanted a black guy and a woman for diversity, it's not that deep
Man y’all are now understanding diversity when straight white guys aren’t represented.
True . They also paid this guy apparently
According to what? Says who?
@@nikhilnewse3318 Assassins creed isn't supposed to be accurate
@@nikhilnewse3318 Well they're wrong.
Afro Samurai is one of my favorite animes of all time, and I'm still not happy about this decision. This is our first AC game in that setting and time period, I was hoping for another Ezio or Arno, someone with the same nationality as where the game took place.
And if I'm racist for wanting to play as a Japanese in a game where you play as a *samurai* in *japan* then idk what to tell you
I think this is what Ubisoft got the idea from afro samurai.
We've already played Ghost of Tsushima. And if they had gone with that route it would have just been compared to GoT. People criticizing them because they did what is obviously a move to gain a certain political favor. Get every company does this these days and have been doing it since before covid. This isn't new, it's not unique to ubisoft, it's a business.
@@edwarddonald2792 Ghost of Tsushima isn't AC, as I said this is our first time in this setting, I would've liked to see a Japanese samurai as a MC.
They could've done what they did with Adewale, have him be a very important character in the story and then give him his own game like Basim, but a proper game. The sequel to Shadows to be completely focused on him.
So we ignore the female Japanese mc that you can also play as? Lol yall fake mad about this game. And there's other things yall should be mad at like the prices of the game
Naoe is literally right there! If you really want to play as a male Japanese samurai don’t play this game and play the already hundreds of preexisting games where you can play as one. If you hate the idea of playing as a black samurai and female ninja so much you don’t have to play this game!
Black samurai cutting a bunch of japanese warriors.
Stop asian hate guys
I gave up on it the moment I heard a Japan based game was being developed by Ubi Quebec.
I mean I understand but you know if they had a white or Asian man in an Assassins Creed taking place in Africa, but would cancel that game and Ubisoft in 5 seconds. So I mean you can’t say it doesn’t matter, it may matter to idk not us other people but Asians that value their culture. It’s easy for us “non Asians” to say “Hey who cares! It’s just a game.” How is it woke it’s history??? But come on 1 black guy in history vs all the Japanese samurai and you just couldn’t pick a Japanese character?
I really don't understand you
You've made an entire 4h length video about AC1 and how is diegetic, how the Templars are not very bad people, but Assassins are contradictory even if they have good intentions.
And now you justify the choice of one of the worst Ubisoft Departement, a choice that was something like that:
-In all the Japanese History we have to choice the only period in which there was an african-american (not only an african, because is literally an african american actor) only for a political agenda
-We have to focus the game about a real history character only for inclusivity, when I am very very and so very interested to know how they will bring this Idea coherently with the original lore, the memories of an ancestor, the DNA that is needed to replay this memory. This is the shit that ruined Ac Unity and Syndicate, you play as two character without any explanation, okay in Syndicate they were twins and so is the same DNA, BUT in this case they are different person, I want to know how this is Justified in an Animus context.
Really, you talked about how Mirage missed the point (and it was a great game, in years I haven't seen an use of ISU in that natural way, the plot is very interesring, Basim is fascinating) and you don't play it and you're wrong just for that.
Then you came and talk about "Assassins fight against Fascisms (and talk about Ancient Regime, and other things that I really don't know how could it be Fascist, no way..) and they are inclusive", the Assassins are contradictory and the game from the First game explain to us this problem, they want freedom or peace, but only their version of freedom and peace, they are totalitarian and a cult as much as the Templars, but they are more ipocrital and use better manners, in this case they wanted to be inclusive without reason, beacuse Asiatic people is underepresented in games, at this game you could see that all of the team is Westerner, there isn't an Asiatic a Japanese, but ehy, then we can bring in an african character only to approach better in the West of the World and pretend to be inclusive! It does not make sense, if we think that in 2013-2014 the team worked on a Japanese themed plot of Assassin's creed, it was completely different and this project was cancelled and they preferred this plot that is so random based that there isn't even a very plot in this trailer, because it will be something such as Odyssey, a proto-plot that doesn't mean anything and it was improvised. That's the problem with Ubisoft right now, they don't follow a path, they improvise based on their selling or opportunity, but a Japanese game need a Japanese Team and a Japanese Plot and Japanese Characters because Japan Culture was/is very closed to foreigner and this must be respected, because the Japanese people have their way of thinking that is totally different from our way to think, if we bring our personal culture in AC and do not respect the culture of the setting in which we create the game, AC is dead as a concept, because the only reason to buy the game nowadays is the culture, art, setting, History and an emotional plot, not Assassin's and Templar because they were explicit on that: they do not want to stay still on the concept of the two cults. If they manipulate also history and cultures and traditions, well, even the last part of OG Assassin's creed is lost, and this is a Shame, because AC Mirage represented in a perfect way Islam, Baghdad, a Muslim Character, without stereotypes or big changes in history, AC is the same that wanted to not kill rodrigo Borgia only because he wasn't dead in 1499 in real history.
Exactly, he contradicted himself here. For what reason or whether its on purpose i dont know but he's shot himself in the foot.
I didn't read your novel but I appreciate where you're going.
He explains it the best he can but in reality I don’t see all the work up bout a black men in a Japanese game set in Japan
Man...
Who cares?...
@@Grandtemplar305 Very simplified generalisation of a more nuanced observation about a deeper issue. If you "don't get it." Does mean it invalidates the point.. I don't quantum mechanics but that doesn't mean there aren't those who understand it on a level i can't comprehend.
It's a game that has always took major liberties with historical accuracy...a game I will not buy or defend. Yet, the initial woke allegations are nuts. People need to stop hiding and just be honest. They don't like black representation😐
Ubisoft can't even distinguish between Asain cultures and religions nor authentically represent Yasuke from a historical or cultural perspective. Yet you think the problem isn't that Ubisoft screwed up and lied but that EVERYONE else is lying? So all the black people upset at Ubisoft for this including myself are lying as well according to you. I won't argue with that... logic... but I will however point out that it takes a lot more to believe that's the case than to acknowledge Ubisoft's screw ups, including that it's impossible for the people of Japan to be upset about what Ubisoft has done.
Wrong, most people don’t “hate” black representation, this is a strawman of the highest order.
The main issue that is often sidelined and ignored is that representation for east-Asian masculinity has been curbed when there already is very very few representation for East Asian masculinity. People often associate East Asian men with either timid, soft spoken archetype or the nerdy, short archetype or the k-pop archetype. Masculine representation for East Asian men has always been lacking and when we had a chance for such a representation in a big AAA game, it was sidelined again in favour of black representation that is very very common in media.
The problem here isn’t black representation, the problem here is discrimination of masculine east-Asian representation.
Yes I know that you’re going to say that there are games with East Asian masculine representation BUT they are very few relative to others and most of those games are made by Asians themselves. This game is just another example of the western media sidelining East Asian masculinity like it often does
1. In all of the Japanese records, Yasuke was never officially made a samurai. He was given a ceremonial short sword not a long sword. He was also not given armor.
2. A female shinobi is a kunoichi which is quite different than your typical shinobi.
3. Yasuke does not represent Japanese people or their culture and should not be one of the protags.
Those saying it is Woke are 100% correct.
1. The Assassin's Creed franchise has consistently warped the historical truth and accuracy surrounding the figures they have in their games to fit their storytelling.
2. Refer to point 1.
3. Yasuke was a real historical figure that existed in Japan, and is recognized in the country's history. Since the game is set in Japan, it's highly likely that the game will display and highlight several aspects of Japanese cultures through other characters, settings, visuals, dialogue, among other things; and the protagonist of the game is a Japanese woman.
Those mad the game right now, are probably racist...
@@justinsarfo829 1. Ubisoft has only ever used real historical figures as side characters and used local culturally appropriate characters for their protagonists that also goes for games with dual protagonists.
2. Refer to point 1.
3. Yasuke and the fuck up of a ninja are both the main protagonists of the game. The reason I say fuck up is female shinobi were kunoichi and served a slightly different role in the shinobi trade relying more on seduction than pure stealth.
Those mad at the game are far from racist (I mean there are obviously going to be some that are coming from a racist stand point). But the fact that they decided to use an African male to represent the male Japanese populace is disrespectful and insulting to their culture and many of them see it as such. It would be the same if they decided to make AC Uganda and made the protag a white man from England and had him "represent" the male demographic of Africa....
@@justinsarfo829I think the ones calling Japanese people racists for wanting an actual Japanese Samurai in a game about Japan are the racists.
You didn't watch the video bruh. Doubt you even play assassin's creed
@@pandemonium.ent.studios-team
1. Those historical figures may have traditionally been side characters, but they still play notable and relevant roles in the storytelling of their games, and this doesn't highlight a flaw in my earlier response since having a historical figure with warped aspects of their history and being a side character aren't mutually exclusive. Also, Edward Kenway was the main protagonist of AC4 despite the fact that he was a White European from Wales, having his main story take place in The Carribean.
2. Ok...
3. Kunoichi may have used sex to forward their ends in their profession, but it's likely that it wasn't necessarily their only role or task as Ninjas, since it was profession that encompassed different tasks like carrying out assassinations and gathering intel. Besides, since its an Assassin's Creed game, that historically has placed a major emphasis on fighting and stealth mechanics, I don't think it's likely that Ubisoft will put massive emphasis on that aspect of Kunoichi, if there is any presence of it in the game.
I think many if not most of the people that are angry at Ubisoft right now in relation to this game are probably white men who don't like seeing a black man play this much a role in a video game, and realize that they can't vicariously live their fantasy lives through these characters. Yasuke was a real historical figure, the main protagonist is a Japanese female, and the gamers will experience a Japanese setting which will likely show and highlight the mainly Japanese culture and demographic throughout the game.
You were getting somewhere with the Altair part, but I dont understand how you can't see the problem that it creates and not as something that resolves a problem.
Yasuke was NOT a samurai. Fact. He was a servant to his master. And yes samurai were also a type of servants, but they were higher in the hierarchy. So, Ubisoft choosing to make him a samurai against historical facts is literally stupid. They could have made him a servant who was discriminated against, he became an assassin to fight against such discrimination. There you go, historically the game is fine and it's also based under the AC values set in the past.
Making Yasuke a samurai against history doesn't oppress him??? Like it's ok if you want to say AC was always fighting for equality amongst the people, but how is Yasuke a representation of not equality? He is a foreigner who achieved a rank higher than most natives ever will, that's not oppression...
Also, about the historical accuracy. Yes, in these games people can have secret affiliations with other people, and that doesn't have to be historically accurate. Because you don't know all of the connections and relations of any single person. Like I said, these were secret. Being a samurai is not a secret, everyone would know this, infact it was proudly displayed. So, Yasuke being an assassin isn't historical, but do you know wether assassins exist or not? No. Therefore that isn't a problem. But, we know he wasn't a samurai, and making him one is a problem. Imagine DaVinci being a King in AC2, that would make 0 sense, because we know that it's complete bullshit. You can alter history, but you can't hide someones rule as a king. On the other hand, DaVinci CAN be an assassin or a templar or whatever in his secret personal life. So can Yasuke, but he can't be a samurai. And I think it's only natural to assume they made him one because he is black and it's trendy to elevate black people and women, but fuck the white dudes. Not saying that's exactly what they did, but it probably is.
I can't say the exact history, there have been disputes over whether Yasuke was or wasn't truly a Samurai but I don't think that's actually the point, nor does it really matter. The Templars were a very real organisation in 1191, to say that Robert De Sable and Abu'l Nuqoud were both Templars is categorically not historically accurate, but that's the point. Yasuke may not be documented to be a Samurai, because it simply was not documented by the Japanese people (within AC lore obviously), it leaves room for a super interesting story there, if in AC Yasuke WAS a Samurai, it allows us to explore the core AC concept of history being twisted and untrue and the Animus being the only way to really experience what was real. It also allows to explore underrepresented people throughout history as is the point of all AC media.
I'm not saying they will do that, they'll probably make a really bad game, because that's sort of just what they do, but conceptually it's a great idea. We should be criticising the lack of mechanical depth or issues with the substance of the game's writing, not Assassin's Creed doing what it's always done, which is to make shit up that makes their own alternate history way more interesting.
@@LazerzZ You're right about the mechanics, but most people that play modern AC like and defend that shallow experience, so that's unlikely to change. All I'm saying about Yasuke is that it feels like they put him there for woke points, plus as a playable character he doesn't even fit AC at all, if they went the lowly servant route it could have been so much better in every way, but it's Ubisoft at the end of the day.
@@LazerzZHow about criticizing Ubisoft Quebec for lying to advertise their games, plagiarism, Copyright infringement? Even if we have to ignore everything relating to Ubisoft's depiction of Japan, there's still plenty wrong here.
@@LazerzZAt this point, I question the why set it in a historical setting at all? If it doesn't matter how the setting is depicted, how the history is depicted, how the culture is depicted, then the setting doesn't matter or at least we just can't criticize them for it. After all, what's the point in alt history if the history part is irrelevant? Might as well just call it pure fiction, you achieve the same result and anger significantly less people. See, Mafia or Red Dead for examples.
"Its just historical fiction"
"Its just a video game"
Of course stories and games and works of art shouldn't need to be iron shackled to established facts, but we can see the pattern and the celebration of the pattern. That's the problem.
I'm glad YOU think its great; now lets ask the people who's culture you are "appropriating" and see how THEY feel about it?
Shohei Kondo is Japanese channel that's been speaking about the game and it's problems from a Japanese perspective.
Dude I generally don't like using the term "wOkE". But sorry, as a progressive myself. I need to speak my mind. Using Yasuke as the main protagonist in a game set in Feudal Japan isn't a creative choice nor is it justifiably right. It's a corporate choice clearly made out of desperation. For the sake of pandering to some people on Twitter who won't even financially support the game. And video game websites like Kataku, and tbh all video game websites in general. Who talk more about social justice and less about gaming, the thing they're dedicated to! And Yes. You're right. Assassin's Creed has always been about atheistic progressive philosophy. That you don't need a higher power/supreme being to tell you what's moral and what's immoral. And freedom no matter how messy it is, is priceless. But you have to understand that all the people who're screaming "wOkE" at it aren't all against underrepresented groups in entertainment media. Not all of them are complaining about the game representing a character from a marginalized group. They're complaining about the represented demographic not being accurate to the time period it's being represented in. Even from a historical standpoint. Yasuke never truly was a samurai. He was just a retainer. But Ubisoft and all the activist mobs across the internet are maliciously trying to make it a historical fact that he was an actual samurai. They're perpetuating false history just because it fits into their world view. So from a historical standpoint it's wrong. Assassin's Creed has always represented demographics from what ever time period the games are set in. Like Altair in the Holy Land, Ezio in Renaissance Italy, Connor from Colonial America. So even from an Assassin's Creed standpoint it's wrong. No one's saying you can't have Black/African representation in Assassin's Creed of course you can. Just set it in a time period exclusively focused on Black/African people. And the people will gladly accept it. Heck, they've already done it twice. First with Freedom Cry and second with Origins. They didn't feel forced, because they were accurate to the time periods they were set in. So the criticism for AC Shadows isn't entirely wrong. It's valid.
Two big red flags with making Yasuke a main character.
1. We have never had a historical figure or "anyone from history" as a main character in any Assassins Creed games. They are always the side characters you interact with. The main characters are original characters to their stories.
2. The main characters have always been from their setting, region, and culture. They are from the area. And if there are two main characters they BOTH are, not just one.
They broke both traditions in one game and quite frankly it is a middle finger to Japan. If you wanted a historical figure why not pick someone actually Japanese........like Oda? And why in the world have one of the main characters not be from the region when we finally hit Japan? The game we have wanted for years.
Yes there have been assassin's creed games where you play as a historial figure and yes there have been games where the character wasnt from the region such as Edward which was a welsh man from the Carribean and yes Shadows has somebody from the region as a protagonist.
@@james849
Ok, name the assassins creed game where the main protagonist is a real person from history.
Edward wasn’t a native to the Caribbean, but he was certainly connected to the region given that it was during the colonial era. All game you’re traveling from different colonies and plantations.
Yasuke’s connection to Japan is, he was there. There was no extensive African presence in feudal Japan.
The existence of Naoe doesn’t make Yasuke disappear. You play as both. So the criticism for one of the main protagonist not being from or connected to the region, still very much stands.
@@rickkcir2151 Jack the ripper, Leonidas, and a few more im pretty sure.
Yasuke was indeed connected to japan since Oda Nobunga had summoned a Jesuit named Alessandro Valignano out of desire to see a black man. Oda was impressed by Yasuke so he asked Alessandro to hand him over and he did.
Side note the jesuits can be seen on the parlor in the cinematic trailer with the templar symbol on the sails.
The existence of Naoe is a narrative decision since they wanted somebody native to the country but they also wanted someone not native so they can see through the eyes of a foreigner.
@@james849
Are you serious? You play as Jack the Ripper and Leonidas for like 10 minutes. They’re not the main protagonist for the game. They’re barely a side mission. That is in no way equivalent to Yasuke being one of the two characters you can play as for the whole game.
You basically just said what I said, but longer. Yasuke’s only connection to Japan is that he was there. Him specifically. What makes him different from Edward, is that Edward was in a setting where the Caribbean was full of English colonies. So he wasn’t out of place being there. It’s not like Japan had a huge African presence at the time.
Ok, they wanted someone to “see through the eyes of a foreigner” but why? Literally every assassins creed game prior, for nearly 20 years, has had the main protagonist be either from the region. Or have a significant connection to the region via either culture, or the presence of their actual country of origin.
Why break what is essentially set in stone now? I mean, you and I know why. But it’s really a matter of if you’re willing to admit it.
@@rickkcir2151Assassin's Creed 2, Ezio Auditore. Chosen specifically because nobody knows what happened to him after his family's death and because there is not a lot of history on him, just like Yasuke. I can still understand why people would be upset about it. You have to want to choose Yasuke to choose Yasuke and given his only historical significance is the fact that he was a black retainer in Japan... it kinda makes it look like they only chose him because he was a black retainer in Japan.
I really want the game to do good, I love the setting and I like the familiar narrative direction they're going for. But as you have said, it's Quebec and their track record is horrid.
I do believe that if they can create an "ASSASSINS CREED" experience within this RPG system, it'll be really good -- An upgraded versions of Origins with greater stealth and narrative. We'll see tho. I'm reserving any judgement until I see gameplay, like most people should probably ought to do; we've only seen a cinematic which merely serves as a proof of concept.
honestly the fighting between the old fans and the new fans must be tiring for ubisoft as well; they already confirmed this is the las RPG AC. They will be going back to more linear structure for "Hexe" but not necessarily to the Original trilogy structure.
@@Dumdum12ish there’s always the possibility that they could appease to both audiences. - all you’d need to do is have decent parkour, an assassins creed-like story and good stealth. I can’t see why these can’t be applied to an RPG formula.
As always tho, gonna reserve most judgement til I see some gameplay
i can't wait for Assassin's Creed Africa where the main protagonist is Chinese.
😂😂😂😂
Lmfaooo
Again with this dumb argument.
@@silverking2181 don't cry.
@@kilobitz8639 Don't project your feelings on me. You're the one crying here with dumb arguments.
So, a person that has little to no significance in Japanese history is a better representation than Masamune Date or Miyamoto Musashi? That one black person who was kept as a servant for Nobunaga is a better representation of all Samurai in Japan? No, you are incorrect, i wonder if WokeBisoft will make another title set Wakanda, we expect a black Assassin but no, we get a white male assaasin instead. Out of all the black people in wakanda, a white male was chosen to represent them. This woke narrative of diversity is really stupid.
I thought ACIII did a good job at showing us the perspective of both Achilles as a free black man, living in a world dominated by colonists, imperialism, and slave trade, and the perspective of Connor, who isn't fully accepted by the society, but for different reasons. You even see this in their conversation when Achilles has Connor go to buy supplies for him, even though Achilles has money and Connor doesn't at that point. It's dynamics like these that made the series intriguing to me.
Funny enough about the part about unfiltered history, either through a sick hint of what abstergo will do or just what Ubisoft chose to keep the story going, this is what the animus is being used for now: altered events of supposed unfiltered history to move the people how they want them to move
Most people fighting against the criticism are missing the entire point. Asian MEN are heavily underrepresented in American media. If Ubisoft really wanted to be "inclusive", they would have casted a Japanese man as the protagonist.
Exactly. Yasuke wasn't even part of a marginal group in Japan, so this guy's whole point makes zero sense.
You people never cared about Asian representation until now. We have plenty of Samurai bullshit with Japanese protagonists. We need more Asian representation in games like FPS and RPGs.
@@alexelric7020 I am Korean American. Growing up in the midwest, I struggled with low self esteem and internalized racism. Asian men have been emasculinated in the states for the longest time. I wanted was to fit in and be told that it was okay to be Asian. I'm sorry that it is insensitive that I feel like my people missed an opportunity to be represented correctly in one of my favorite gaming franchises.
@@alexelric7020 Actually, *we* don't need anything, but *you* need your western brainrot checked cause of all the culture war slop news you have been consuming. I'm so tired of you people.
Out of all people. you defending ubisoft? I remember watching video from you when you said you will boycott them and never play anything from them again. But it's too late, this company is dead to me, I might pirate some of their new games, but ac shadows is not something I would even pirate
I don't agree
In the first game, they created a fictional character and throws him into history,
In the second game, they created a fictional Italian and throws him into Italian history,
Third game as well in America,
Fourth game as well in the Caribbean.
AC Shadow they use an already EXISTING person and made him run through the field chopping people. If he's so good at chopping people, he would be ordered around as a SAMURAI and go down in history as a SAMURAI. Since he didn't, go down in history as one, AC Shadow made us lose this "plausible alternate history" feel we all loved and sought after from the past series.
They didn't create a fictional character absent from history book to tell a story set in Japan, but instead they chose this extremely rare African in one of Japan's most important part of history as the main character is the reason why people criticize this for being "woke".
If their marketing department did not foresee that a Japanese main character in a game set in Ancient Japan would sell well, then it's their own fault that their stocks tanked and inviting critics.
Furthermore, even though there's no way to satisfy everyone, they still chose this character to talk about Japanese alternate history. They should know this is ammunition for critics. They kept going with this train of thoughts, so it's their own fault for inviting critics.
I think you might have missed the point on why this is considered "woke". It's not just because he's black with them deciding to make some actual black guy from history a samurai - even when there's no verifiable proof that he actually was a samurai - it's that in every single Assassin's Creed game up until now they have used main characters who were native to the lands that players play in. This time, for some reason, they decided to go with a black foreign character to explore Japanese culture through their foreign perspective, something that was never needed in any previous Assassin's Creed game. The wokeness here I think really comes from Ubisoft wanting this kind of angle where it isn't really needed or appreciated by most fans of the series, especially by the Japanese themselves who would have much preferred to play a game set in their home country as a Japanese samurai, not some foreigner deliberately inserted into Japan for the sake of a modern liberal Western cultural/ethic diversity fetish.
And it's highly disrespectful to the country of Japan.
I'm surprised nobody is talking about this: Yasuke is the first playable character who isn't fiction (except for those brief sections with Jack the Ripper or king Leonidas).
Usually in AC he would have been a side character, a quest giver for the fictional Japanese protagonist.
Making a fictional black character in Japan would have been too much of a stretch, so they've chosen the only documented one as the protagonist.
That's why many people are calling Ubisoft "woke", it's clear they needed a black character just for DEI instead of telling an interesting story
Exactly boet, that's why most people are upset with Ubisoft. I never heard complaints personally about Adwalle, Avaline, Ratonhnhaketon or Bayek.
Ubisoft marketing team needs a raise they already have added more attention to this title than mirage.
I mean ironically The drama is helping assassin’s creed shadows.
What you called marketing is what I called clout chasers and like clout chasers they will ruin everything about society
Tldr
Assassin's creed= Logan paul
This is purely an ESG decision. Yasuke was a checkbox. You can't convince me otherwise because several entertainment industries are doing the same damn thing. Bring family, men, and Caucasians down a peg. Promote diversity. Promote other sexualities. This isn't a conspiracy or coincidence anymore.
I like the "criticize the execution of those ideas" line, but we've been through this crap for years and we expect the executions of these ideas to be shit now. So don't blame people who are criticizing the ideas when it comes to diversity and inclusion.
“Bring caucasians down a peg”
Not japanese people?
It’s almost like there are other people who are single, women, non white, and not straight.
Who would want to convince you? You're a racist. Yall aren't capable of thinking
It's a shame that there are so many ways to express disappointment or disagreement, yet there's so many people resulting to blatant racism, ignorance, and sexism because of their own personal shortcomings, and like they never understood the premise of the game series that started from the very first game.
I appreciate this video, and this take, as it seems that the issue isn't necessarily Assassin's Creed falling away from it's roots, but the people interested becoming disillusioned with where the game sits.
Ubisoft has been fucking up as a company via business decisions though, that won't change, but it's not because of the studios creative decisions. There’s nothing wrong with wanting representation, but nobody has seen the story yet, and *surprise* there’s going to be some good Japanese Male characters present. There is nowhere near this amount of vocalist when Indigenous, black, or brown people want representation as well. Where’s the enthusiasm there? Historical figures can have magic precursor apples that make people do their bidding but “my goodness he can’t be a samurai that’s historically inaccurate.
When business decisions are bad, creativity suffers as well. Poor business choices lead to a bad working environment, which results in bad creative decisions and, ultimately, bad games. This is exactly what we've been seeing from Ubisoft over the last couple of years.
The Assassin's Creed narrative has been a mess for years now. What happened to the modern-day storyline? Where are Abstergo and the Isu/Precursor plotlines? They all disappeared and Instead, we're left with poor stories and boring characters, as seen in Valhalla and Mirage.
A former slave who was bought to entertain at parties and make retainer duties, and who was only 3 years in Japan, who was after the death of his owner found with a sword in his hand ,and got quickly disarmed, beaten up and denied an honorable death because hes is more animal tahn human (Akechi Mitsuhide wrote this, as one of the rare writings that exist about this dude) and brought back to the jesuits who sold him in the first place. He wasnt a samurai, he wasnt a fighter, he could barely speak japanese, Its not racist to popint out whats written down from history. It is wrong to now m,make a wikipedia war to rewrite history so he can fit into a narrative.
And how comes this is , especially in a japan setting, the first time that a protagonist isnt even from that area... Immersionbreaking to be a Black man from Mosambique in feudal Japan... He stands out like a clown never could he be an successful assassin nor without training since youth an adequate fighter. Sorry dude, but the backlash , especially from japanese people who are pissed right now is justified.
@@WilhelminaRa If Japanese people feel upset, they have every right to, but that’s their right to speak out, rather than having other people put on the guise of being upset for them when it’s really just an issue with a black man. But holding the game to a high degree of historical accuracy, when they’ve made their entire franchise on bending the history to make a better narrative, is disingenuous at the very least.
Even with that, there’s plenty of people under the umbrella of the Assassin’s that don’t sneak around and try to blend in with crowds, so that’s not really a viable point.
Was there a response like this during works that have white men as the savior or hero of a story around Japanese people and Japan? I’ve never seen any.
Fact of the matter is, people absolutely will like and dislike whatever but let’s not try and paint it any other way than what it is, when there’s a clear bias happening that can’t be opinion on the story because nobody has any pertinent information on it besides what they could physically see. If you don’t like it, fine, but be real about it so people can see who you really are.
For the pre order prices with no game play alone is enough.
However, I feel your points would have held more true if it had been early AC and if there was a history of having people from different cultures being a lead character in the different cultural setting, that maybe we wouldn't of expected them to be in.. that would give more weight to the Desmond and the Doctors conversation.
But we have had an Italian lead in Italy, a Greek in Greece, indigenous American in America, English in England, Egyptian in Egypt. If the reason for this culture change was truly for a great narrative, we would have seen it littered over many AC titles.
And I think out of all the regions and how long we have waited for AC to be set in Japan, we get an obvious and unfortunate virtual signal.
But I could be wrong.. we could have, when AC goes more into African countries, a Phillino main lead in Africa, an Aborigine in Columbia, or a Bangladeshi in Finland.
@Toaduh its literally you whytes being upset for japanese ppl lol
The core problem here isn’t that a black guy was made the protagonist. The problem here is that masculine East Asian representation was once again sidelined by the western media.
Very few media shows East Asians in a masculine role and even few games have maculine East Asian protagonists. Most that do are those that were developed by Asians themselves.
So no, the problem isn’t the black samurai, the problem is discrimination of masculine East Asian representation.
Huh? Ghost of tsushima
@@alatusedits Also he forgot the Yakuza series and the rise of anime adaption into live action which is released in the west on Netflix and Amazon. I get Asian male Representation but seeing a Japanese male Samurai in video game is literally 1 out of thousands. It doesn't make a difference, why not ask Ubisoft to make a watch dogs in Tokyo or Korea rather than another Japanese Samurai as if that's all Asians are associated with the Samurai.
@@triton5336 but, the only reason yasuke is the protagonist is because of representation. Not a creative choice. We already had multiple black assassins.
Imagine playing a white dude in Africa's ac
@alatusedits Yes, we had one black Assassin in a main game called AC Origins with others in DLC and a PSP port which barely anyone played or knows about. Having one black person in a game hardly becomes representation, that's like saying Jesuits of Portuguese descent in the game are there for representation. I wouldn't mind playing a white character in Africa and neither would Africans because Hollywood loves putting white guys in Africa and many have terrible portrayals of Africa. Hell there was a movie about Egypt and it's gods with mostly white cast. Yasuke is a main character next to Naoe the Japanese Assassin. Yasuke is there for gameplay and narrative reasons. If they just wanted "representation" UBISOFT execs would take the easiest way.
These are the same people who said women don't sell. You really think they care about REPRESENTATION... Evie in Syndicate had less screentime than Jacob and Aya was meant to be the main character but the execs thought it would harm sales. Why do you think Alexios and male Eivor are on the cover despite being not Canon.
This is the first time since AC Liberation and AC China that a woman has graced the cover of an AC game. It's a creative decision and YOU CAN'T ASSUME NOT WHEN YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE to back this claim since you didn't play the game. From what Yasuke is depicted as he seems like an interesting character with a mysterious arc. He is more interesting than Naoe as she just has a revenge story but we don't know what Yasuke wants is it just Redemption or something else and what is his connection to the Templars. An AC Character hasn't been this interesting since Bayek and Edward Kenway. I could make the same argument as you and say Edward was playable in AC IV rather than Bayek because of representation even though black people were the majority there so why not just make a black pirate like Adewale the main character but I guess I can't because white people can't be considered as token characters only black characters right?
@alatusedits there is a Capcom game called Resident Evil 5 that is set in Africa with a white character you play as with a south African female. Africans didn't care and it was just gamers who cared about the game where a white guy mows down black zombies. Personally I didn't care, it's just a video game and if the portrayal is not good then I see it as a writing flaw rather than a alterior motive because I give people the benefit of the doubt. I wonder do you think Chris Redfield was added in this game set in Africa for REPRESENTATION. They needed that to appeal to a modern audience right?
"Not sure how actual history could be woke" maybe because he wasn't even born in Japan he spent at most 15 months there and was a servant not a samurai. Why pick a African servant over a Japanese samurai? Give me one reason that doesn't involve race. If you can't then its a racist game simple.
Oh OK then let’s change Hitler to German. Because we’re disrespecting Germans.
@@Theagentofchaos-r5q Random guy arrives in Japan = tyrant that was responsible for the death of millions changed the course of history for the worst. These are not even remotely comparable, what the fuck is wrong with you? No seriously are you okay?
The reason is because they wanted to.
This dude is cherry picking historical "facts" and thinks it's justified cos it supports its bias. Yasuke WASN'T A samurai, he was just a servant or squire at best. The ONLY battle he fought, HE RUN AWAY!
And Jesus dint look like Obi One Kinobi
@@ochosigod5417 I'm pagan tho?
Japanese players have every right to be upset about this. Yasuke could be part of the game's story as an important character and there would be no problem. Just look at the profile of the person who wrote the story of AC Shadow and everything becomes very clear. She even follows sweet baby inc. What a fantastic coincidence
Who cares? I''m pretty sure you've enjoyed the work of someone who has a very different opinion from yourself.
THEY HAVE A ASIAN FEMALE PROTAG? HOW ARE THEY MAD?
WHO cares if someone is a liberal? Are liberals not allowed to make video games or movies now?
Except Japanese aren’t complaining it’s just white westerners like you crying on their behalf due to closeted racism.
Majority of Japanese players do not care bro
The developers of Assassin's Creed Shadows decided to make one of the game's protagonists a member of an extreme ethnic minority purely for woke, political reasons, and this is why so many people have a problem with this decision. You know this to be true James. I don't even know why you try to deny it. It has nothing to do with the character merely being Black and a member of an ethnic minority. It's about the precise reason why the developers decided to make one of the protagonists Black in a game which is set in feudal Japan. When people play a game set in feudal Japan, they expect to play as a native (i.e., an Asian person). They don't expect to play as a Black person. This is not only extremely disrespectful to Japanese people and culture, but also pretty racist if you ask me. In every other Assassin's Creed game, you play as either a native or a member of a group that was historically active in the relevant setting, and that's how it should be. It's funny how the woke end up doing the very thing that they claim to oppose. What's also crazy is how James is out here openly supporting and defending racism when he claims to be against racism. After all though, he's a massive hypocrite like all woke, Marxist, radical leftists are. He claims to oppose racism and other forms of bigotry, but the reality is that he openly supports bigotry and also engages in it himself - and all in the name of equity, which is not the same thing as equality by the way. I support equality of opportunity, which is the true, good form of equality. James, on the other hand, supports equality of outcome, or equity as it's most often called, which is the unattainable, fake, evil, Marxist form of equality.
You say this as if you know the reasons Ubisoft does things. And unless you are an developer by Ubisoft, you can't know. You interpret reasons in actions. Probably to justify your own outrage. See, now i thought of a reason for your actions, without knowing you or your motives. I could also say, that you throw words like "marxism" in your comment to look more elaborate and intelligent, but that would be truly too much Interpretation...
Oh and by the way, just because people have other political or social opinions as you, doesn't mean they are evil. And to say something like "all lefts are... " makes you look like someone who just thinks in black and white, wich is not very intelligent.
You still play as a Japanese person lol
lol and u fell for it now game gets publicity
Honestly, when i saw the trailer, my first thought was: "ugh, two characters again". I just fear that I'm gonna like playing one over the other or like one's character over the other and then be forced to play as the character i don't want to play as
I actually liked Syndicate.
A lot of people have pointed this out already, but the majority of AC games tend to have you play as a native to that games conflict, and usually a character that never existed, so that Ubisoft can take liberties with their story. Which is understandable, it gives more freedom to the writers. But now, as soon as the series concentrates on Japan, they stop that practice and choose Yasuke? When historically speaking there were already a large plethora of Japanese figures active at that time, especially if Ubisoft are now deciding to base their MC on an actual historical figure, the feudal states period was awash with prominent samurai. Date Masamune would have been perfect.
I wasted my time watching a dude tell me what I already know about the making of a good story.. I am black and I wholeheartedly believe that Japanese men have the right to want a character that represents them in a game set in their own country. Doesn't matter if the story is the best story they have that right.
So If the other playable character was a man, would that be fine then? Or would that still be bad because there now is no representation for japanese women?
They also can just not play the game it doesn't offend them. This wouldn't even exist if he wasn't a part of Japanese history, and if the Japanese didn't have him all over their Mangas, folklore, anime etc. You have ghost of tsushima for a Japanese man. And you have this game, taking what the Japanese have done and using yuske in a unique story, with representation through the female Shinobu which is also accurate. When they made up a white guy in nioh to cut tmdown Chinese figures Noone batted an eye. You should be quite bothered that you find an issue with this, when the black man existed.
@@lionzcrown1702 bro i hated nioh, first of all. Second, GOT and Nioh are entirely different games, you can't bring those up when we are talking about AC. Like i said japanese men have the right to want a historical AC game that represents them especially when they have been asking for it all this time. Plus with all due respect, Yusuke was a historical unicorn, yes he was real but was paraded and treated as an object and not with respect during those times. There were far too many actual samurai who they could have used in place of Yusuke. He could have been a great DLC and of course the racists would've cried woke but the japanese fans would have been happy, which matters because it is their history. Begone
@@tobiasbayer4866 No, i am saying yusuke should have been a side character or a dlc character at least, Naoe is perfect in the role she is as main protagonist, Yusuke is not. If it was no woman, yes it would make the feminists mad, but would actually be historically accurate as women were not imposed in combat during the feudal era. Begone
As an asian myself, i find this very annoying and disrecpectful to have a black hero representing my culture.
That AC1 clip of Vidic and Desmond talking is amazing in this context.
A few fair points in this video, but one major opposing point - Yasuke would be picked out of ANY crowd in feudal Japan. He'd have no chance of ever blending in anywhere. Literally the worst person to be an assassin in a homogeneous society. Japan, even today, is xenophobic and feudal Japan was xenophobic against other asians.
Not to mention Japanese people finally had the chance to get an Assassin's Creed game about their people and one of the main characters is black! Talk about adding insult to injury. It'd be exactly the same if they made an Assassin's Creed set somewhere in Africa with a white guy as the main character. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you would have something to say if that were the case.
Theres still a Japanese character to play as who is an actual assassin
You clearly didn't watch or read anything about this game. Yasuke is for hand to hand combat while the other one is for stealth! And what about Naoe? She's also a protagonist here and japanese. Or you didn't like her enough because she's a woman? You're trying too hard to hate this game! What about you hate on The last samurai and Gods of Egypt too. It's the exact same situation. I'll wait.
@@Dandansuuuy Come back when you're talking sense. Yes, the female ninja is also historically inaccurate as there's no evidence of there being female ninjas in feudal Japan - native Japanese or not.
What about The Last Samurai? It's completely fictional, only taking inspiration from real world events. They never claim Tom Cruise's character to be anything other than fictitious.
The Gods of Egypt is quite clearly a fictitious story since it involves gods...
You and other morons like you are trying to rewrite real history to suit your own agenda, that's what's bothering me.
There's nothing more I need to see or read about this pile of dung to know it's nothing more than politically correct pandering to people that are a vocal minority. I mean, for fuck's sake, they managed to make the male lead character black in fucking feudal Japan!
@@omas1178 His point was that during that time in Japan history people were xenophobic so it would be hard for Yasuke to blend in with the crowd or to find creative ways to take out his targets. There were a lot of racist japanese people during that time so social stealth would be impossible. Hell even now in the age we’re living in, there are a lot of folks from Japan voicing their outrage due to Yasuke’s appearance in AC Shadows. So I guess the Xenophobia is still going strong in Japan. (Mean personally I don’t think it’s xenophobia, they are just concerned about their history being rewritten because of course a white guy tried it before and failed but whatever that’s irrelevant to this topic.) And before you say “there is an assassin character you can play as Yasuke is a samurai so it doesn’t make since for him to perform stealth” that is exactly the problem. So it really doesn’t matter that there is a assassin character you can choose to play as. That fact there is even a warrior in a “ASSASSIN” game to begin with is stupid. I’m so sick and tired of triple A devs watering down their IPs just to try and appeal to everyone. Which is why I’m now a indie and double A player. Let video game genres be for people who like that specific genre, turn based games would not add real time combat just because crybabies are making a fuss about turn based RPGs that they were never going to play to begin with.
Ok, watched the video and realized this dude has no idea what he is even talking about. So let me get this straight, actual Japanese people that complain about Yasuke being the protagonist is racist but black washing isn't? Yasuke never was a samurai and was merely a pet for Nobunaga's entertainment. Stop reading articles written by westerners who all have an agenda against Asian culture in general and read the actual book Shincho-ko ki to see understand how insignificant Yasuke was.
I think its more about cultural preview and relevancy than anything. Every other game being made in the AC franchise has been a native and a representative of the setting, but then they choose the one black dude in all of japanese history. They are using Japanese culture, and while this video is being viewed from a western standpoint, remember, japanese people and japanese culture is more reserved and conservative. Ofcourse the japanese people will be mad cus theyve been waiting for an AC game in Japan this whole time and they choose the one guy who wasnt even a notable historical figure in their culture, clearly only for the color of his skin and esg points.
It's woke, they picked up basically the only black person in Japan and made him the main character. They could added him like a meaningful NPC in the game's story
Made him one of the main characters. Stop using disingenuous wording and ignoring Naoe.
@@toa695you and your petty deniability. Blatantly displaying your illness. Pathetic.
That isn't woke. That is u being racist cause u want a white guy.
They didn't picked yauske just cause he was black. They fond his story to be interesting and history open for interpretation and wanted an outsider perspective to explore Japan, who worked for an japanese icon. That was it. And u are mad cause it isn't a white man story
@@kuggacouragegx6093 First of all let me give you some advice, you can edit your comments to fix spelling mistakes. I’m not judging you because I’m guilty of typing fast as well, so I can relate but if I notice I usually fix it. Second of all people don’t want a white guy they want a japanese guy, the reason nobody brings up the female character is because the majority of people who are capitalizing off this drama have never touched a Assassin’s Creed game in their life and probably don’t like stealth games. Now before I continue I will say that I believe firmly that Ubisoft is using Yasuke as an excuse to score brownies points so they don’t have to put in the effort to actually write his character in a faithful manner. And also to distract people from their shitty business practices but I digress. I have to say that writing people off as racist just because they criticize identity politics, (I know man it’s a cringe phrase but at this point I don’t know how else to describe it everything is so political now I guess) it’s a bad thing to do. This write off method is not healthy at all and just divides people, believe me I knew racist people back in high school, they were really bad. I just don’t think you know what an actual racist is. Now I know you don’t want to hear it but it needs to be said, the japanese have a right to feel that their history is being rewritten and should defend it. And maybe they are not entirely wrong considering nobody can decide if Yasuke was a samurai or retainer. However I will say one last thing before I move on and that’s this, the previous iterations of Yasuke in media were well received. No one cared before, they loved the manga, movies, and tv shows, so what does that really say about this current installment? Are the japanese really racist towards Yusake? Or is Ubisoft just looking to make some easy money? Again my theory is this, they are using him to capitalize off the current political climate and as a distraction from the hideous price bundles. People have always been tense when it comes to political beliefs and this is no different. So it’s a smart move to get controversy started and make cash off of it. I almost respect it but at the same time, I’m not going to defend a billion dollar corporation. That just not me, now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a look at the following games, Signalis, Tales of Berseria, Quake 1 & 2, and Serious Sam to see which one I feel like playing. I’ll probably still respond because I have nothing better to do at the moment but for now, that is all thank you.
Almost as if that's the point!
Yeah but it's painfully obvious the game industry does everything they can to inject representation where it doesn't need to be. They could have done any other famous Japanese samurai, but they chose to pick the 1 story of a black guy who was sold to Oda. It's lazy and obvious DEI.
I hope your consoles and pc constantly overheat for the rest of your life
@@yusei151 I hope you can come up with an actual argument instead of mindlessly wishing misfortune on your fellow man
The people who complain about DEI do not even understand what they actually do.
If people want to play a game where they play as a Japanese samurai/ninja having a revenge story or such then that already exists. The whole point that was made was that it is bringing up a real person that history have forgotten because he didn’t fit with our cultural view of history, and that is just the kind of stuff assassins creed used to do well.
@@eriksolfors he wasn't "forgotten because he didn't fit our biased view of that time period". He wasn't forgotten. In fact, he was recorded. He is a pretty insignificant figure in the Edo time period, and was only recorded in Nobunaga's records because of his novelty. Nobody forgot him. He was noted, and was mostly insignificant as a historical character. It is only modern media that interprets and embellishes this to mean more than it is.
I dont really care that hes black, even tho it doesnt make sense to me. I just think its dumb that hes in the game at all. Maybe he could be cool as a side character you meet in a series of missions, but not as a main character. Hes not an assassin, he doesnt fight like an assassin, he screams and shouts and prefers to stay outside the shadows while still talking as if hes in them... what does he bring to the game other than a reason to get mad or dislike the game? Even his animations in the trailers look like garbage where the camera shakes randomly and he steps through bodies when he attemps to stomp them.
I guess it could be a positive having a black character in Japan because at least it stands out from Ghost of Tsushima a lot more, which is cool. I dont get the Eivor comparison. It was a disaster having Eivor be a woman. Most people picked the male one and most people prefer playing as a male. Playing as Yasuke, the true "one of one" he is, as a main character is more like the equivalent of playing as Leonardo Da Vinci in the Ezio games, except that LDV would actually feel in place.
Personally it annoys me massively hearing an african accent in a japanese setting. Just my two cents.
I watched the video but its really a waste of time. sorry. its really simple. the game is set in Japan and we would like protagonists to be japanese.
Hey look to yasukes left
Promises something "genuinely constructive", craps out the same old "you just don't get it" supercilious drivel.
Yawn.
The actually history he wasn't a samurai and yes it is a woke propaganda. When you have a great shinobi like Hattori Hanzo you make a game around him .
Its discrimination against asian males under-represented in media.
Dude the japanese audience is shitting on this decision, still doesn't explain why Ubisoft didnt make dual Japanese characters in FEUDAL JAPAN.
Also friendly reminder that Sweet Baby was founded by ex-Ubisoft employees.
we're supposed to "ignore people's skin color".....while right now.....at this very moment.....a black guy is gettin hired cuz he fits some "quota" 🤣
One of the dumbest comments I read from a Japanese person is "a black guy in feudal Japan? That's a disrespect to my culture I hate media rewriting history" clearly those audience aren't intelligent or in denial of Japan
@@Macheako huh? you dunno japanese history? ok!
@@nushia7192 huh? You think all white people are racist???
KO NEE CHI WAHHHHH 😂🇺🇸
I kind of feel like you missed the point with the Assassins' vantage point. Their mission is to fight in the shadows to serve the light. Their drive is the liberation of all people from ALL imposed structures, wherein their dogma values total free will over all else.
The Templars, conversely, feel order and social structures are absolutely necessary to bring about world peace. Both parties are clashing factions seeking the same outcome, but through different means.
Fuck all that, this is like a slap in the face to Japanese people and for what? Just to check a box, ridiculous. Same reason I despise Nioh.
At least you’re not biased. Tons of people wouldn’t of cared about a white samurai
@@nikhilnewse3318 it’s a debate if the black guy was a samurai. I know for a fact if it was the white guy, it’d be the other side crying instead of you
@@nikhilnewse3318 I don’t think many people would call Oda a criminal
@@nikhilnewse3318 fair enough, I can’t argue with that
Your logic is flawed. AC games pride themselves on being rooted in history - that's why we have historical figures and events depicted in games, true to their core historical nature, which is only played with to match the overlapping Isu narrative. To introduce us into those worlds, in each AC game we are playing as fictional characters of no historical record that actually could be living in that period - of course Alexios and male Eivor are much more historically accurate to their respective periods and what they represent.
In AC Shadows we are, in contrary, presented with supposed first historical protagonist - Yasuke, an african 'samurai'. Which is factually wrong - many disputes have been made during last two days, but to sum up - there is no historical record, no source of him being a samurai. A retainer, kosho - a sort of page, sword bearer, a member of Nobunaga's procession of sort, taken in by the Daimyo's curiosity due to his height and skin color. A samurai was not one of these things. He took part in some battles (to what extend and how, we don't know), followed Nobunaga till daimyo's death but that's it. During all AC games, the historical figures of varied importance were side characters - we came into contact with them, participated in their stories. However altered they were due to overarching AC plot it was fine - it wasn't in contradiction with core historical facts (Da Vinci wasn''t a socialist activist as of sudden, Cleopatra was not an empress of roman empire etc.). The basis of the figures were depicted as it was in history. That's where the problem with Yasuke starts, as he's being a samurai and a pivotal persona of sengoku period is portrayed as a historical fact - and that is wrong. Were he a side character and were we experience his story, his being a retained and actually wanting to become samurai - that would be fine, as it would be in line with other AC games and their play on historical figures.
Last thing which is flawed is the 'conversation' form AC game you invoke - that anyone can write books, anyone can write 'hictorical facts'. That premise undermines what science is and paves a way for any diletant to rewrite facts as they like, "coz nothing is prooven, anyone can write what they want". When dealing with historical part of science you cannot just write what you want - that would be fiction or scientifical maplractice and ultimately be shooned in science circles. Whenever you deal with history you have to do your research and find your sources - without those all you work does not have merit and in conclusion cannot be taken as factual, prooven. All we know about history comes from research, analising sources - and yes, science can change based on new findings, once new light gets shined on sources based on new research. That is not the case here. There are still no sources, no prooven research about Yasuke pointing to more than we already know. The only 'sources' that people try to invoke to procure otherwise are those "books and articles that anyone can write", like "Yasuke: The true story of the legendary African Samurai" by Thomas Lockley - a piece of mostly historical fiction lacking any quotation and background research - as such it does not hold any scientifi value.
To sum up, we cannot just invent something and then depict it as historical fact, as it is completely wrong. It would allow creators to come up with anything without any prior research - that would be a downfall of science but I fear that is what those "creators" want. No responsibility for their actions.
Nobody's actually mad at AC shadows. We're just making fun of how stuoid the idea is of a token character.
Here’s the root of the criticism (that I agree is not warranted) that YOU’RE missing:
People have spent years, well over a decade at this point, being told that white protagonists are bad, that there’s a fundamental issue with Tom cruise’s starring in the last samurai (even if there’s good historical grounding for the story), that Ariel, a Dutch girl, should be African (and you should applaud that or you’re racist), that Dune is a “white savior” story (which utterly misses the POINT of that book), and now we ACTIVELY have video game dev studios and their cohorts OUTRIGHT telling everyone that they intentionally don’t hire white men to work on projects-
The culmination being that we all KNOW had this been a white person as a samurai in this setting, that ilk of people would have lost their shit. Dev studios would be obligated to comment on it, Twitter activists would rage against their cage bars, journalists including mainstream places like msnbc would cover it. But if the race is African, well that’s a win, right? I’ll say again, this criticism is NOT warranted, it makes no sense in context of the game. But it does make sense in context of the blowback of nearly a decade worth of increasing racism against white people- overt, gross, exclusionary-based-on-race, racism. In the philosophy of Ibram Kendi, which that group has taken to heart, the only solution to past discrimination is present discrimination. And it’s blowback to that we’re really observing. Nobody has a problem that he’s a historical figure. Nobody has a problem that he’s black. They have a problem with a clear double standard. And in a world where Washington can be portrayed as black, and the show Bridgerton exists (and counties more examples), that does make perfect sense, because there is a clear, malicious, intentional double standard. And frankly, our species shouldn’t tolerate racial hatred and prejudice, full stop. Yet we not only do, we applaud it as virtuous.
Preach!
You eviscerated his entire video lmao
I agree with what you're saying but the broader point is being missed. The games narrative designers are Sweet baby inc. They're all about DEI and pushing that Into games. Even going as far as the ceo referring to white men as 'picky babies'. It's quite clear that with sweet baby behind the narrative direction the only reason they've chosen a black man and female protagonist is to do what they set out to do in the first place which is push DEI into games. This is the broader point as to why it's referred to as being woke.
I think the problem not only is Yasuke as a protagonist, but the fact that Ubisoft lost their timing, they should have made a Japanese samurai game years, ages ago, not now after Ghost Of Tsushima's huge success. And to worse the things up, it's developed by the same studio that made Odyssey, a good RPG, but sucks as an Assassin's Creed game. The same old boring RPG, huge map and boring stuff to do.
Also Ubisofts's latest statements were awful, they took The Crew from everyone who bought it, and they said we dont own our games, they do. The best way to show disgust towards Shadows is NOT BUYING, do not pre order.
All AC main was fictional character who interact with historical figures. Suddenly in Japan they use Historical figure as main to changed history, because Yasuke perfect for their agenda.
Ubisoft never changed history, lmao. All of their games are alternate history, they never claimed what was happening to be real. The franchise has been historical fiction since the very start of the series with the Ezio trilogy.
@@ruski77*ac1
@@ruski77yaske was literally a servant and had one fight, didnt got offed and enslaved again.. now he is the savior of japan lmao
@@Zwingli-Was-Right-AHwasToo Well yeah, in ACIII, a random Native American man won most of the famous battles, and led all the iconic actions, like the Boston Tea Party, and whatnot.
In AC2, an aristocrat from Florence fights the literal pope in a Rome Cathedral using a high tech ord to make Shadow clones.
Part of the AC lore is that it was the Assassins that killed Hitler.
So many of you don't seem to have understood what Lazerzz was saying in the video. The idea of the franchise is that most of the history we all know from records and such didn't happen how we think happened. Especially with a man like Yasuke, who has so little known about him, and was part of a secret organisation (in this game). Obviously to the world he'd seem like nothing special.
@@maxm.m.7219 its not about him being black. Its being being black in a japanese setting. Im a white NatSoc and would be mad the same im now if they would have used a white guy and made it about the Shogun series... And im not even the one who should be offended, its just all so tiresome. Its always the same group of people trying to force diversity and alter history who have investments companies who give their friend ESG bucks for BS like this.
Yasuke representing the underrepresented groups? They literally say that he represents the "samurai lineage" in marketing materials, you know, the brutal militaristic "oppressors" of Japan. So what other underrepresented group is he supposed to be, the well known plight of 16th century African-Japanese? The only reason Nobunaga took him in as a retainer, was because he was a unique looking big black guy and having someone who looked like that following you around was a status symbol. Oh come on, there are a million better stories to tell in 16th century Japan. We know the actual reason of why he was chosen.
You have to assume that Yasuke will undergo an arc in which he discovers the faults of the samurai and through the Shinobi Assassin character will leave behind the Samurai to become an Assassin. If that doesn’t happen, yeah, it’s kinda dumb. But you have to assume the game will aim to critique the Samurai through the lens of someone like Yasuke within the context of an Assassin’s Creed game.
@@LazerzZBut he still wasn't a samurai. So I'm not sure that would fit his character.
@@LazerzZ Oh yeah, have a 7 foot black guy around in japan, im sure that hes *hidden in the shadows*
Lazarzz is just stupid honestly. He's wrong about nearly every single point he tries to make. It's actually pathetic he made this video. Anybody with critical thinking ability will see this, research it and realize he's an incredible idiot.
You're so full of shit @@LazerzZ
I've talked about the same thing in my video. AC has always been about exploring the niche parts of the history and with a new take on it.