In which I talk about The Gamer's latest article about Assassin's Creed Shadows and why playing the racism card is so stupid when it comes to the Yasuke issue.
They are SO disingenuous. If this was an Assassins Creed game set in central Africa with a Western white protagonist they'd be all over it with the outrage. They'd certainly be claiming the importance of "historical accuracy" in that case.
Nobody cares except white fans. japanese dont care, africans dont care. everyone complaining is american because thats where this political issues stem from. In fact Yasuke is not even an american or african cultural icon, he is a Japanese cultural icon who just happens to be black. Japanese media created Yasuke so i dont know why white gamers are offended on behalf of japanese people.
If there was a white person in Africa that they wanted to base their game on then have at. And black people most certainly would NOT have a problem with it. Do y’all see how quickly we embrace white people who are black cultured. We invite them to the cook out so fast. First it was oh he wasn’t a samurai now it’s y’all projecting what yall are doing onto black people, when we know what would really happen if it was based on a African cultured white person Africa. That would be cool and interesting as hell just like an Asian cultured black man in Japan is interesting as hell, because you rarely see it. Y’all need to stop trying to justify your racism…and sexism 😂😂😂
And they’re completely ignoring the fact that it’s probably gonna be a clunky, half baked, overmonetized mess because they’re so politics brained that they can’t see anything beyond their own ideology.
There's also the implication that black gamers cannot identify with a fictional character unless they share the same skin colour, which is insulting, quite frankly.
Lmao, are you serious? Thousands of games with a white protagonist and I never cared. Though I remember some gamers saying they couldn't relate to characters like CJ from GTA:San Andreas, James Heller from Prototype 2 and Lincoln Clay from Mafia III. Or that Miles Morales didn't deserve his own game, that it should have been DLC.
As someone who is Half Korean half white. The severe lack of self awareness is concerning!! I can’t stand this “we need to be more inclusive let’s change the skin color so people can relate.” And “you’re only upset cause you hate black people.” Like what has the world some too? Growing up with shows, I never associated myself with characters because of how I look, and they look. Rather the personality, and things I’d admire and wanted to change about myself. Why is that no longer the case nowadays? In terms of race swapping. If they race swapped a character like static shock to an Asian person to make me feel more inclusive, I would be absolutely pissed!! That’s not the hero I liked or grew up knowing, and in my opinion that’s just racist to do so.
If an Assassin's Creed game set in sub Saharan Africa and featuring an Asian Protagonist came out, game journos would lose their shit. (Set during, say, the Cushite dynasty)
No one gave a fuck about playing William in Nioh. You know, the white man based on a historical figure who was basically a prisoner yet he became samurai slayer of Asians in that game.
I don't go to the Gamer or interact with the company or writers because this isn't the 1st time they've called everyone who criticizes something they like some sort of "ist". In fact I ignore any media or internet outlet that does this and hope others will do the same so they go out of business as quickly as possible. This includes both sides of the political spectrum btw (overuse of words like "communist" and "socialist" when they don't really apply). I can't stand these divisive sites that paint everyone with the same brush in order to get clicks
You mention a ‘hierarchy of concern’ related to racism; I’ve heard it called the intersectional hierarchy, and it’s why such distinctions as BIPOC exist.
Also that note that says that Ghost of Tsushima isn't accurate because katanas weren't invented at the time is just false. The game is set at 1274 or so, and a cursory google search shows that katanas were used as early as 700CE. They were used mostly by Japanese nobility from 1185-1600 before becoming widespread.
Let's get real here. If this character was a white Samurai, would the same people defending this decision, be defending that decision. That's an absolutely, guaranteed, big ass....NO! It's the double standard, that pisses people off, way more than the character himself
100%. No one gave a fuck about Nioh. Everyone’s coming out of the woodwork to say “he wasn’t samurai! He was a retainer!” Mother fucker, William in Nioh is based on a character who was a fucking prisoner. None of yall gave a fuck about that.
Asian guy here. Those same people who bring up Nioh having (white) Williams Adams as a main protagonist being cultural appropriation but being super hyped to play as Yasuke are really interesting. Both really existed. Personally, I think Yasuke actually looks kind of cool and if the combat is anything like the trailer (the developers claim so), I'm on board. I just find it interesting that the same people mad about a white person are happy about a black person in the same role; a main character in a Samurai game. So treating two people differently because of the color of their skin. Might have to check the dictionary but I think there's a word for that.
The sound of "why is the protagonist is a white" is a real thing. As an Asian gamer I know most of us joking about that. You never heard of it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The reason UBI piss us off is not that they make Yasuke the protagonist. The real problem is they said something like "We want our samurai so we make him". If they didn't say that shit it's just something we might think cringy but not that pissed.
@@Musashiwith46gunNo, several actual Asian RU-vidrs have said it's specifically because a black man is the MC in a "game about Japan". Those same Asians never spoke on Nioh.
@@mechamahou8467 Did you mean that "Asian RU-vidrs" are only Asians that talking about things? Wow, your statement made me stunned. You know the Asian social media more or I know it better? Try to learn 1 or 2 Asian languages first, get influent in them then tell the same thing to me again.
We have crossed into a realm of true absurdity where “antiracists” are calling people, including Japanese people, racist for wanting the protagonist of a game set in 1500’s Japan to be Japanese. Can’t wait for Ubisoft’s first Assassin’s creed game set in the Inca Empire, figure they’ll make the protagonist Cambodian.
Well done. It's nice to hear someone moderate talk about the AC: Shadows controversy. I'm an Asian guy and was salty about Yasuke until seeing the trailer. I think he looks cool and I'm interested to see how a tanky Samurai will be in actual gameplay. I got more hyped when one of the developers, in a trailer breakdown, said his moves in the trailer are taken directly from gameplay. I agree with you. It's completely valid to want to play as a Japanese male in a game set in feudal Japan. The majority of people who are disappointed being automatically lumped in as the actual racists who hate Yasuke just because he's black is troubling. There's nuance. Yes, I still am a bit disappointed (much less disappointed) because I've loved the AC franchise since 2007 and wanted that AC feel with a Japanese Samurai. To say to simply "play another game" is a disservice because not all games have that same feel. If there's one thing AC games consistently do right is creating an immersive open world. Tsushima was brilliant by the way. Anyway, a disappointed person being put in the same category as someone who actually hates black people solely for being black is like me putting my hand around a woman's shoulder in a picture and being labelled as a rapist. There's a spectrum to this. The concern is there are too many people that don't bother with nuance. Initially, I didn't want watch The Last Samurai because I thought Tom Cruise would just wreck everyone. But I was delightfully proven wrong. Cruise spends a lot of the movie getting whooped! Nuance! He wasn't the last samurai, he fought alongside him. I didn't play Nioh because of William Adams being British at first. I still never played because my line of work is frustrating enough. Don't need another Souls game to frustrate me more. Rambling here. Look, Ubisoft, please, pretty please, just make Yasuke's gameplay fun and make sure your game doesn't crash every hour like Valhalla!
I think they aim for plausibility, not accuracy exactly. I do in my design. Is this choice plausible? Why not go with Japanese characters? He would have fit better as an npc to encounter
That's a good way to put it. And yes, this choice could be. I just don't think it's the right choice (and the same would apply to a white protagonist. It could be plausible but it's still not ideal).
So where were you when Nioh launched? Why play as Chris Redfield in RE5? It’s set in Africa after all. Do you not realize you’re going down the same stupid road as people calling RE5 racist because a white man was killing Africans?
Is it a mortal sin to have male and female Japanese protagonists in the first AC game set in Japan? If Syndicate, Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla already have it, why not the upcoming game?
I hate that no one is given the benefit of the doubt that there could be “any” reason other than racism (or any of the other ism’s being thrown around these days). I know that personally a few years ago, I wouldn’t have given a shite what color/sex the characters were when watching/playing a game or movie. EVEN if the creator chose them for wanting to portray a “more diverse” group of characters. If the product was good then it was good and if it was bad then it was bad. I didn’t think anything more about it. BUT, now that they are choosing to promote DEI shite whilst telling me that that it’s because of the patriarchy or systemic racism…..and that I deserve the blame for the ills of society. No, that is to much and I refuse to accept it. I may not choose to “protest” by demonstrating or complaining loudly online. But I also won’t be buying their games/products and movies. 🧐
Personally, the biggest surprise for me, is that people continued buying this after Black Flag. Eduard Kenway (personally loved the moron), ended it for me. Far Cry ended at 5. The series have nothing else to offer for me.
Yasuke lived in Japan for just a couple years. Given the difficulty of learning kanji and the fact that literacy was a prerequisite to becoming a samurai, it is doubtful that Yasuke was anything more than a novel house servant.
I don't get the big deal so what they went a different approach he a real person people act like ice cube in it and to be honest a samurai at all black or white or Asian shouldn't really be in a assassin's creed game anyway my opinion two assassin's would have been cool
I would counter that article by looking at two similar games Rise of the Ronin and Like a Dragon Ishin. These two games are based an actual Japanese history during a time where the Japanese were being influenced by the western countries. You can even look at something like Demon Slayer yes the characters are not based on historical people but the setting itself I think is accurate which influences the story and all the people are Japanese.
The reason why this time they made a character who existed is so they would have a justification for putting in a black character. They couldn't make a fictional black character in feudal Japan because that would be unreasonable. How many black people were there? Probably just that one. And now when they're asked why did they do it, they can say:"Aha! Because he did exist you racist!"
We could debate all day wether or not Yasuke was a samurai. Even if he was though isn't it disrespectful to set your game in Japan and have your playable male samurai character be the only non-asian samurai in Japanese history that you can find?
The more I see the arguments, the more I realize it’s just racists. These same people had no issue with NIOH or Resident evil 5. Both games dismantle their arguments entirely.
@@lustrazor44 I read a book about him, and if the book is to be believed, he was kind of a bad ass even before he got to Japan I think he’s a pretty cool character to play as.
The problem is that it's set in feudal Japan for the first time. While some people in America would probably like to play as him, most people in the world would probably rather like to have a choice to play the game set in feudal Japan as a Japanese man. It's insensitive to Japanese people and revisionist to their history. People also dislike that the probable reason Ubisoft made the only male protagonist black is their agenda in current day American identity politics. And there is nothing authentic about that. It's not set in current day America to push for diversity, it's set in feudal Japan. They chose the only noted black person out of tens of thousands of Japanese historical figures.
@@galetinm Greek gods are not real life. It’s amazing how people like you are justifying facts. People are mad cause the dude is black that’s literally what they are saying. The damn game isn’t real or based off of real life lol. Leonardo davinchi did not created war stuff for assassins. Yall are full of shit and racist
I'm Asian and this is stupid to me. Yasuke is barely recorded in Japan, meaning he wasn't that important, just a token but somehow he is made as a main protagonist.
They did this with mafia 3 watch dogs 2 probably more i mean is it a problem because they might date? Its like when it comes to black male characters all we can be is gangsters like cj and frainkln from gta you know that yasuke was a slave and his slave master freed him around that time and became one of the best samurai
Yasuke was the only black and first non Japanese samurai in history. He served under Oda Nobunaga and judging by the firearms in the trailer (which Nobunaga is widely known for using) its safe to assume he will be in the game at some point so this is probably time appropriate for Yasuke to be there. So it is historically accurate to be fair. I totally get why people would want to have Japanese characters in the game, and totally disagree with people who just call racism for anything.
No, it isn't. Yasuke (not his real name - his real name is not known) was a retainer, not a samurai. These two things are worlds apart. It is not historically accurate.
@@BusesAreFatCars Yasuke (born c. 1550s) was a Black samurai who served the daimyo Oda Nobunaga in Japan during the Sengoku (“Warring States”) period. He was the first known foreigner to achieve samurai status. His birth name is unknown but it is likely that Yasuke was the name bestowed upon him, probably by Nobunaga. This came from Britannica. To be clear here, I'm not saying that it wasn't a waste of time to make this guy the main character instead of an actual Japanese person, I'm just saying that it's not a wild story that they are trying to go with as some woke nonsense. It has some historical reality to it. I still think that they could have made a better story for a completely fictional character as Japanese people say that since there isn't much information on Yasuke, it means that he wasn't important.
@@hey__jayjay Where have you copy/pasted that from? He was a retainer, not a samurai. There are endless sources stating this and until there were a blitz of edits recently trying to change that there were near none saying he was a samurai. How can one be a samurai without two swords? He was given a short sword. That's it. He was a retainer as Nobunaga found him and his skin colour interesting. That was it. There were a handful of foreign samurai. I know of 1 Brtish, one Dutch, 2 Korean... Yasuke was not a samurai. This is recorded as fact in Japanese history. There were less than 10 in all of Japanese recorded history. Why are you pushing something else and where did you get your information? If it's from Britannica, that was one of the sites specifically edited to say this in the past week. You can check and will find that to be true. Japanese history says he was a retainer. Never anything more. People shouldn't be trying to edit what are supposed to be accurate sources of information to push an agenda, which is what has happened here.
@@BusesAreFatCars I told you if you actually read my reply that it came from britannica. And I also told you that all I am saying is that it isn't some wildly made up thing that they did to push an agenda or something, it has hints of historical accuracy there. I will say it again here, not that you'd read it anyway, but I do think the character in the game is needless and they should have just gone with a fictional Japanese character to fit the setting more. People just shouldn't be mad over this because it's kinda a dumb hill to die on and be more mad about the pointless $130 versions of these games as that's something worth arguing over.
@@hey__jayjay I read everything you said and I responded to it. I'm not sure I can say the same of you. Brittanica is outright lying, and you're here claiming it as gospel. I'll believe the Japanese and their written history about this rather than a recently user edited website. You believe the user edit if you prefer. I can have a problem with more than one thing at a time. The price tag is ridiculous, though that's not the current topic of discussion. There are a litany of other issues with the Assassin's Creed franchise, though again, they're not the current topic of discussion.
I really don’t understand why people are even mad about there being a black character. No one cared when you played a white dude in NIOH. Yasuke was in that game as well. Regardless of it being made by a Japanese studio. But the historical accuracy? You mean (by you I don’t mean you Erik) the same series where the Borgian pope tries to use an alien artifact to take over the world? The same series where George Washington is a villain who tries to become a King? The series has NEVER been accurate.
I really don't think historical accuracy is at all the issue, though. And I think the real issue here is that it's the FIRST Assassin's Creed game set in Japan. There has NEVER been a Japanese assassin. It's just odd. But yeah, not something to get angry about.
@@lustrazor44 why not both of them? It's very strange. When the game was set in Greece both characters were Greek. Both Vikings were Norse. Both French people were French. It's just odd to go to Japan for the first time and have one half of the playable characters be non-Japanese.
@@ErikKainI don’t know. It feels like we’re setting really arbitrary unnecessary restrictions here. From what they’ve said the point is to have one character be Japanese and give that perspective while having the other be completely a fish out of water for a different perspective. I really don’t buy the “it’s always been like this so now it’s a problem” take. If we had that sort of mentality for everything, we’d never see anything new. Let’s take halo as an example. It’s always been from master chiefs perspective. Then we got ODST and REACH. Is it now a problem because it’s not told from the last surviving Spartan 2s perspective? Sure for a small amount of people but having different takes can be refreshing. Why not both be Japanese? I don’t know, is it necessary? Just because this is the first time it’s being done doesn’t make it bad. It also isn’t the first time this is done. AC3, you first play as a British Templar colonizing America as Haythem then play as his son, a Native American. 2 perspectives. Ones a native, one is an invader. I get you don’t care but the people who do are making a big deal out of absolutely nothing. They chose to take a slightly different direction with one of the characters. You still get the Japanese perspective. Why is it suddenly so bad that one of them isn’t Japanese? Shogun is an American production. The main character is a white man. Is that now problematic despite every other (aside from some supporting cast) character being Japanese? I’m trying to understand your point of view on this but I just don’t get it. What exactly is the problem when one character is giving the Japanese perspective and the other is a fish out of water. Is it a problem because this is the first time it’s being done in the series? What exactly is the issue? Please make it make sense to me. The accusations of racism are stupid but I have a seen a lot racist takes coming out of this. Which is to be expected as stupid people exist but they can be ignored. I’ve seen just as many Japanese people upset and those who champion the idea. Is the issue just because it’s the first time in this setting? Every AC outside the Ezio trilogy is a new location. Was RE5 suddenly problematic because it was the first time they went to Africa as one of the characters is white? What about being Leon murdering hordes of Spanish people in RE4? All RE games have been Americans in America. Now that it’s Americans in other countries is it a problem now? Again, make this make sense to me. Because it doesn’t the more I think about it.
A bunch of French Canadians finally making an Assassin's Creed in Japan for the first time and making the main protagonist an African is peak 2024. Makes perfect sense if you're not a bigot!!!!!!!!!
There's a clear double standard here. Yasuke is a historical figure who has been featured in plenty of Japanese games and anime. The woman is a fictional ninja who is related to the historic father of Shinobi. So what's the problem? The only dual protags we ever got were in Syndicate. Where was the hate when we HAD to play a welshman iN the CARIBBEAN as a pirate. Would you people be upset if you played a European instead of an Egyptian in Origins? The people who don't like it don't like seeing the image of a POWERFUL BLACK MAN, who literally came from nothing and won over the favor of the most powerful man in that country. He had a better life than all black slaves at that time, and that's what really pisses people off. The black slave regaining his humanity is a white devils worst nightmare.
There was no hate for Edward Kenway because pirates in that period were predominately European, particularly from the British Isles. The setting was pirates mixed in with the battle of assassins and templars. What Ubisoft has done here is cultural appropriation. It is the first game they've had in Japan, and yet they've decided to scrap the male Japanese protagonist (which they did have a story for) and shoehorned in the only black man in Feudal Japan history. Heck, Western gaming media are now considering Asians 'white-adjacent'. Like, seriously!🤣 How racist can one get.
They did the same thing with watch dogs 2. People were furious that it was a black guy. They just don’t want to see blacks in video games and THATS the issue
This is nonsense. If someone was angry about it, they absolutely weren't the majority. I saw people annoyed that the characters seemed like a bunch of uncool hipsters. Nothing about the main character having a different skin colour to the original protagonist. I don't care if the character is black, white or purple unless it's something that doesn't fit with the world and lore of the game. As it doesn't fit here.
Most people want people of every race in games, but they want it to make sense, particularly if actual history is the playground of the franchise. It makes zero sense to have the male protagonist in Feudal Japan (which they did have a written Japanese male for) to be the only black man in history in Japan of that time. It's disingenuous. The same would be said if they had an Asian male protagonist in sub-Saharan Africa, because it makes zero sense.
