A group of Japanese gamers have started a petition demanding Ubisoft to cancel Assassin's Creed Shadows over lack of "cultural respect" and "historical accuracy" and has acquired 30,000 signatories.
The petition is on Change.org and has the goal of getting Ubisoft's latest entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise banned. The controversy comes a few weeks after the studio unveiled the upcoming game with its dual protagonist with a story set in Feudal Japan.
Petition To Ban Assassin's Creed Shadows
(Photo : Ubisoft / Screenshot taken from official website)
The setting is what fans have wanted to be able to dive into for many years now throughout the Assassin's Creed franchise. However, many Japanese players immediately voiced their disappointment and concern regarding the title.
Some of the most extreme claims suggest that Ubisoft is floating racism and severe historical inaccuracy in Assassin's Creed Shadows. The issue comes as the game is set to release in full in November 2024.
The game lets players take control of two characters; the first of which is Naoe, a shinobi, and the second is Yasuke, a Black samurai. The latter is the Assassin's Creed franchise's first one to be based on a real historical figure, according to Insider Gaming.
But one of the main concerns that some Japanese players have voiced is that Yasuke is being portrayed in Ubisoft's game as a full-blown, respected samurai. This is where they argue that the historical inaccuracies start to spread out.
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The Change.org petition that was started in Japan that Ubisoft's upcoming Assassin's Creed game ignores the fact that samurai were a higher class of warrior class. It said that they should have been "gokenin" or servants of nobles.
The petition adds that the first European to receive the title of Samurai, William Adams, also known as Miura Anjin, served Tokugawa Ieyasu as a 250 koku hatamoto.
It notes that Ubisoft misunderstood the nature and role of the samurai, claiming that it is a serious insult to Japanese culture and history and can be related to Asian racism.
Cultural Respect and Historical Inaccuracy
It is said that the real-life African Yasuke had served for a short period of time as a vassal or retainer of warlord Oda Nobunaga. Now, the Japanese petition has upped its target of signatories to 35,000, said ReadWrite.
One of the commenters also argued that Ubisoft's game is a falsification of history, noting that they cannot simply stand by and let it happen. They also said that the content of Assassin's Creed Shadows and the response of the developer showed no respect for Japan.
The situation comes as Ubisoft head Yves Guillemot has spoken out about the "malicious and personal online attacks" that were directed at the company's developers. He said that he was concerned by the recent spate of "personal online attacks" and urged the video games industry to speak out against them.
Guillemot said that at Ubisoft, they condemn these "hateful acts" in the strongest possible terms and called on others to do the same.
The reaction to Assassin's Creed Shadows comes amid a wider backdrop of online backlash to a perceived push towards greater diversity in the video game industry, according to Eurogamer.
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