this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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Until Ubisoft, normal people didn’t have to worry about their game libraries being ‘updated’ into obscurity.
Now? If there is an opportunity to attack Ubisoft I take it. Until they die or change course to being pro gamer I will not stop for they have assaulted what I love, gaming, in the name of greed and control.
How does this relate to the article, or the situation with the streamer? Sure, dunk on Ubisoft, but maybe not about a black historical figure being black.
Because I want Ubisoft done with I am tired of hearing their cries.
Yes, if you really wanna go there Ubisoft does deserve shit for putting a black man in a Japanese creed when every other AC game featured historically unknown natives to the lands (main characters, not the overall cast) they were in and having him fuck the empress is incredibly disrespectful to Japan. Not to mention it’s a bit weird and specific that Ubisoft keeps including the fantasy of cucking the king in their games.
This wouldn’t matter if Ubisoft wasn’t so disrespectful and shitty. Playing Yasuke in a samurai game is an interesting premise but making that an AC game feels wrong and so does letting him fuck the empress. Ubisoft choose to be edgy and disrespectful instead of good and with this game and their reputation is only getting worse.
This complaint feels manufactured. No one complained about the romance-able historical figures in previous Japanese games, and a quick look at social media and Japanese news shows no outrage. Also, every other game features historically unknown natives? What? We have multiple characters that are children of royalty, at least two that are military warlords, and a Viking raider for fuck's sake. The only game I can think of that has a native of the region not connected to the powers that be is 3, where you play a Native American. You're often just playing essentially a secret police for the state of the country you're in. Why not have a black samurai, a notable historical figure, be the main character. That's super interesting. It's not like Japanese culture is being erased. Your outrage feels misplaced and racially motivated, and I doubt we'd be seeing so much manufactured discontent if it was a white samurai (and there were several).
It is and I’d like to thank Ubisoft for that.
Not just AC 3. Eivor is Norwegian. Arno is French. Ezio is Italian. Bayek is Egyptian. Literally none of these MCs are well known historical figures until Yasuke. I can go on. All of them are either natives or local enough to fit in the setting.
I don’t disagree it’d be interesting to have a Yasuke game but the concept doesn’t fit AC like it would in a sequel to ghost of Tsushima or a Samurai Champloo game. It feels unnatural and forced to use him in AC because he’s a foreigner in Japan. It’s a dumb choice not the smart one more than anything else. Like if in the last AC we played Eivor as the apprentice to Bayek in Baghdad not just played Bayek. If the Samurai was white I’d complain about that too just to have an excuse to shit on Ubisoft for being anti consumer.
Also to be very fucking clear, this attack is not racially motivated. It’s motivated by the fact I am a gamer with a stupid amount of hours into this hobby and I have been treated as a cash cow to be put out to slaughter by this particular game company. That when I buy a game I should own it and it should work. That an update shouldn’t be able to delete full screen mode from the menu just to invalidate enhancement mods and push sales of a fucking remake.
I would agree that my outrage is misplaced if I didn’t see most people as cowards unwilling to take down bad companies for the greater good because they trade independence and privacy for convenience and money.
Eivor was a foreigner (and an invader) for everything outside the beginning of the game, so was Kassandra/Alexios (also invaders), they just had the same skin tone as the place they're foreign in. There's a big difference between "native characters with understated culture" and just "not foreign." Those are totally different arguments, and it seems like you're trying to make both. Again, why not have an interesting character from history be explored like this. Acting as if past characters are these nebulous "local" individuals when they're often the direct children or relatives of prominent, real, historical figures, if fictional ones, seems silly. This is totally in line with past stories they've told. I really don't see a valid reason a non-local character is "problematic" in an AC game. We've done it a bunch of times. We've played a Welsh guy in the Caribbean, a Viking in Britain, and a Spartan in Greece, just to name a few. I'm sure I'm forgetting other valid examples.
Then why Yasuke and not Musashi or someone who was more interesting and significant to Japanese history? They couldn’t have chosen a more DEI Samurai.
That said, putting it that way does feel more racist than I like even though it’s a funny way to put it.
It does sound more racist, because it is. Why not Yasuke? Just because he's black? Why any of the other AC protagonists? Why choose a Spartan, a highly unethical culture filled with slavery and abuse? Why choose a Welsh pirate instead of a Caribbean native? These are all pointless questions, because the answer is all the same. That's the story they wanted to tell. Maybe they wanted to highlight the historical outlier at an important time in history. We could speculate on any number of different reasons, but "DEI" doesn't make any damn sense, considering they knew how gamers would react beforehand and even went out of their way to make a statement about it.
They wanted to tell this story. If you want a different one, play a different game. There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing Yasuke as a protagonist. The series has consistently demonstrated that they don't really mind telling the stories of historical outliers, repeatedly. They shouldn't have to specifically avoid (because that is what your argument has shifted to) Yasuke for fears of "DEI." The "anti-woke" are ridiculous.
Fair but if they did a random Japanese samurai and not Yasuke this would’ve gone over a lot better for them. This aside, until Ubisoft expresses gamers should own games I won’t buy or play any Ubisoft titles on principle and I don’t think anyone else should either. That the people who’d play this anyway and defend Ubisoft are just supporting a company whose death would benefit all gamers.
I’m guessing by “normal people” you exclusively mean white cis dudes.
So not only are you racist but you’re homophobic.
Cool.
I’m neither and you’re slandering me now.
Cool.
Your other 2-paragraph comment bitching about the black guy in Japan being somehow disrespectful despite being a real person proved that you are, in fact, racist, bud
Then why is Yasuke the only AC character I have issue with and not the other popular non white assassins like Altair, Bayek, Aya, or Basim?
Fuck off creeper.