Oh, Ubisoft. The company that I love to dislike and the bringer of such huge hits like Watch Dogs: Legion and X Defiant. The company that somehow managed to turn Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry into copy-paste games with slightly different looks and locations. The company that brought us gems like Ezio Auditore but also towers in every single freaking game that they made as of late. There’s a lot to like about Ubisoft but also fairly decent quantities of stuff to dislike about them at the same time, even in the same game.
Considering the long history of Assassin’s Creed as a franchise and the multitude of games that are in it, it’s obvious that it will have highs and downs throughout its existence. It’s also obvious that not every game in the series will be an amazing piece of art and that’s okay. No game studio is perfect every time, especially when you realise that the first game in the series came out at the end of 2007. But that also means that they get a pass when they put out a fairly mediocre game (looking at you Assassin’s Creed Unity) and people will forget about it just because the next one is better. No, that’s not how this works and Ubisoft should’ve learned their lesson a long time ago.
But there’s no need to bash them about every single game that they released or praise them about every success that they had. Instead of that, let’s focus on their most recent entry in the franchise, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows.
Shadows is the 14th entry in the franchise, and it’s set in Feudal Japan, a setting that was demanded by the fans for a very long time. And it makes sense, right? Ninjas, samurais, assassins are pretty much a no-brainer considering the combat styles, the tools, and so on. Ubisoft had the easiest moneymaker in their hands with this idea, and it could’ve been a home run that was desperately needed considering their current situation. But Ubi had to Ubi, and they decided to make statements about the game. Completely ignoring their franchise’s history, they decided to go ahead and mention that the game will be “historically accurate” and that it will follow the story of two characters, the young shinobi Naoe and the African samurai Yasuke, through their adventure in 16th-century Feudal Japan. And of course, the internet lost its mind when they heard about the second character, Yasuke.
As a bit of backstory, Yasuke was a real person that was brought to Oda Nobunaga as a “gift” by the Portuguese. And yes, I mean that kind of gift when you consider that we’re talking about African and Portuguese people in the 1500s. Nobunaga took a liking to Yasuke and allowed him to fight in battles alongside him and his men. And that’s basically all we know of Yasuke because first, there wasn’t that much documentation about him, and secondly, a lot of stuff has been lost in the countless battles for Japan. It is what it is, no need to get mad about it.
So Ubisoft decided to go with him and Naoe, a fictional character in the universe. And it kind of makes sense; Yasuke is a very interesting entry in Japanese history and, I would say, fairly fascinating to talk about if we had more than a few rows of text to go by. So what do they do? They decide to freestyle it and make up the story of Yasuke and Naoe fighting together against the tyranny of that era. Obviously, the internet, with their endless obsession to correct everything that exists in this universe, decided to go deep and investigate every single word in a couple of tweets from Ubisoft about the game. Yes, it’s mostly on Twitter. Are you surprised about it at this point?
Anyway, long story short, Ubisoft had to delay the game, make changes, try to please the whole damn world, delay it some more, change some more, and then finally release the damn thing. Finally, an Assassin Creed in Japan. Everyone be happy. Or not. Keyboard warriors, it’s your time to shine and bash the living light out of the damn thing. Even if you haven’t played it, go get mad at it on Twitter or something. That’s the world we live in, and it’s depressing.
But how’s the game? Is it as bad as people make it? Is it this horrible, misleading, inclusive, pretentious game that a lot of people make it look like? Or is it a piece of misunderstood art that revolutionises the gaming industry and brings a new era of games to enjoy?
Well…neither of these, to be completely honest. The game is average from most points of view and sometimes even dares to be fairly decent. After all, even the worst Assassin’s Creed game is average in quality. The scenery is breathtaking when observed from above and most objectives across the map look beautiful. The colours are not exaggerated and the textures are good on almost every kind of environment that the game presents to the players. Where my problems begin is the facial animations on every single character, no matter the situation. Everyone seems like they have no emotions at all. They move and look like they are machines built just to say and do things to push the story forward to the point where it takes you out of the setting. The audio of the game is a weird one for me with this specific entry in the franchise. The music is decent if not actually really good (at times) and the Japanese voice acting is carrying this game quite a lot. The actors do an amazing job at portraying the feelings of the characters through their voices and you really feel the passion behind their work. But then there’s the English voices which, for some unknown reason, sound like the most Western-imagined sounding wannabe Japanese-accented English that you could imagine and then turned to 11. Ubisoft, smartly, used the same voice actors for Japanese and English voices but somehow they forgot how to direct them when they did the English version, which bothered a lot of people that played the game in English. The mechanics are the standard Assassin’s Creed stuff sprinkled with some cool shinobi stuff from Naoe and some hard-hitting combos from Yasuke. The addition of character-specific weapons is a welcomed one, since it allows you to mix your game style to your desire. A nice touch is also the fact that each weapon class has specific signature moves, like throwing a Tanto at your enemy and then dashing and stabbing the ever-living soul out of him or slashing your enemies with a long katana dash because…it’s cool. Seriously, it’s super fun to see a 2-metre black dude dressed in samurai armour dash with a long katana and slashing everything in his way.
The story, at least so far, is decent. It’s not the most wow thing I ever saw, but it’s also not the worst thing created in the history of mankind. I’m not sure how it was originally supposed to be, but Yasuke’s story so far is not as bad as a lot of people made it sound like, and he’s not Nobunaga’s bff. Far from it, actually. Sure, it’s still adapted and modified, but it’s okay, sincerely. I will have to finish the game to form a better idea of the story of the game overall, but so far, it’s intriguing enough to keep me in the game. And probably that’s the important bit. If Ubisoft didn’t say they would be “historically accurate,” then it would’ve probably been a good experience for a lot of people. At the same time, people should stop bandwagoning just because people start yelling on Twitter, especially when the person that yelled has no connection to the culture or history that the game tries to anchor it. Just watch and see the product for yourself before agreeing with Bob and Jim’s tweets just because they have cool profile pictures.
So in the end, at least from personal experience, I think Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is one of the better entries in the franchise, and I look forward to finishing the story and seeing what Ubisoft did with Yasuke and Naoe. But what do you think about the game and the franchise in general? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Does it even matter to you at all? I would love to read your opinion on it.
See you next time!!
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