Assassin’s Creed lead Marc-Alexis Côté has spoken out on the debate surrounding Assassin’s Creed Shadows co-lead character Yasuke, an African samurai.
When Ubisoft unveiled Assassin’s Creed Shadows back in May, there was a strong backlash over the inclusion of the historical character, with many very vocal individuals on the internet objecting to the game’s perceived ‘wokeness’.
The discussion grew even more when Elon Musk, the controversial owner of social media platform X, also got involved, responding to a user’s suggestion that Ubisoft should delay the release of Shadows “in response to the widespread backlash over the injection of DEI into the game.” [diversity, equity and inclusion]”, Musk quipped, adding: “DEI kills art.”
Of course, this exchange did not go unnoticed by the Assassin’s Creed team. However, Cote decided not to respond to Musk’s post, and instead ignored it.
“That tweet brought up emotions, that…the first thing I wanted to do was go back to X — which I had deleted — and just tweet back,” Cote told Stephen Totilo. Game File“And I took a step back. I have a mindfulness app on my phone. And I did a little mindfulness to try to figure out the emotions that this tweet evoked.
“To me, Alan, it’s sad, he’s just promoting hate. A lot of three-word responses came to my mind.”
Cote said he knew responding to Musk at the time wouldn’t help Ubisoft’s case. “By attacking someone like Elon… I wouldn’t be able to reassure people about our approach as a team,” he said, adding: “Yasuke is very, very knowledgeable about the history of the franchise and how we make our choices.”
The Assassin’s Creed developer said that when the Shadows team did their initial research, “Yasuke kept coming up”, and things soon fell into place. “We’ve got a super-mysterious historical character that not a lot is known about. And for us, that was exactly what we wanted [Assassin’s Creed],” he explained.
“What Elon is saying is not the game we are making,” Cote added. “People have to play the game themselves. And if, within the first 11 minutes and 47 seconds, they are not satisfied with our work, we can discuss.”
The developer didn’t explain why this particular moment in the game would be so important, simply saying: “I was reviewing the game recently, and I thought, ‘The answer is right here!’ I just hope and wish that people think about this with an open mind and see the game for what it is.
“This is an Assassin’s Creed game, and I believe it’s the best game we’ve ever made.”
In addition to talking about Yasuke, Kote also revealed details about Assassin’s Creed Infinity. The series’ upcoming video game-adjacent experience The game – described by Ubisoft as an interactive hub – has got a new name.
Cote added that the next series entry Shadows will launch from the Animus, in the process also revealing the hub’s new name – which is quite appropriately ‘Animus Hub’. This hub is where the modern-day segment of the series will now take place from. The studio executive promised that we’ll find out more about this “later on”, so stay tuned.
assassins creed shadow Launches on November 15, 2024 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
