A lot has happened these past couple of months after the announcement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Now as you all know, we are not interested in politics, which is why we haven’t touched the subject of Yasuke. However, we can’t turn a blind eye to Ubisoft’s latest lies and excuses.
Earlier today, Ubisoft issued an official statement about AC: Shadows. Ubisoft claimed that the game is fiction and that it does not have factual representations or historical characters. And, right there, Ubisoft has been caught lying.
The Assassin’s Creed Shadows team has a message for our Japanese community. pic.twitter.com/AIyWNU9YhG
— Assassin’s Creed (@assassinscreed) July 23, 2024
Let’s see what Ubisoft claimed IN ITS OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE back in May 2024.
“Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes place in 16th-century Japan during the Azuchi-Momoyama era. Players will play as two distinct characters, a Japanese shinobi, Naoe, and a real-life historical samurai, Yasuke.”
Ubi went one step further, stating that AC: Shadows will be the first game that will have a real-life historical character in the entire AC series. These are Ubisoft’s own words, not ours. So, Ubisoft claimed that Yasuke was a real-life historical samurai. And that’s exactly what sparked the controversy around Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
This whole thing could have been avoided if Ubisoft had not bragged about using a real-life historical samurai. But no, the team wanted to push its agenda as much as possible. And now that a lot of historians question Yasuke’s role, Ubisoft is backtracking.
The issue here is that Ubisoft has not apologized for making things up. Instead of trying to cover its lies, the team should have simply said “Sorry guys, we messed it up. Yasuke wasn’t a samurai and we got things wrong. We just hope you’ll at least enjoy the game for what it is“. Now that would be an honest apology. But oh no. Ubisoft is so proud that it cannot take the “L”.
Again, the main issue here is that at first Ubisoft was pushing AC: Shadows as a game that had Yasuke as a real-life historical samurai. And now, the team claims that the game is fiction. Now that’s one of the best backflips we’ve seen.
If you want an “Assassin’s Creed game in Japan” game, you should get Ghost of Tsushima. GoT is everything that AC: Shadows would like to be.
Finally, it will be interesting to see how the game will sell when it launches. My guess is that a lot of Assassin’s Creed fans won’t even care about such a thing. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits one million sales in record time. Still, this is another lie in Ubisoft’s list!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email