Honestly I think it’d be better if we just ignored the ignorant rather than amplifying their voices. Ignore them unless you are defending someone from being harmed.
Neither have I. It might be the crowds I’m around or that its drowned out by all the people warning that its going to be a shit game at launch and not to preorder. Haha.
Look I don’t know much about the context, aside from some game adding a black samurai or something, but I can tell you I would be just as pissed with a white one.
… It’s a valid complaint to ask that a historical African man be represented as a Japanese man? How?
Do you mean they should have used literally any other historical figure or even a fictional character, as long as it was a Japanese person? There’s a second playable character who is Japanese.
I don’t think there’s any shortage of Japanese samurai protagonists in games. From a representation standpoint I don’t think there’s any issue… And Yasuke is an interesting character that’s worth exploring. There’s enough mystery to his story that he fits perfectly into an Assassin’s Creed game imo.
Wait, people are losing their shit over the historical accuracy of Assassin’s Creed ? Did they miss the part where the entire franchise revolves around some DNA magic, or the “apples of Eden” stuff ? Or whoever Borgia pope with literal magical powers we fought in AC2 ?
AC has always been about (somewhat loose) historical accuracy of the setting, ie, places, buildings, culture, etc. They take tons of liberties with characters and “realism”
Fun fact, these are both real people from ancient Japanese history (and pretty famous ones at that), but you can guess which one the “gamers” are upset about.
Some more details because these two are really cool and interesting:
The white guy is a British navigator from a Dutch voyage to find a new route to India to steal control of the spice trade from the Spanish and Portugese, whose ship ended up in Japan after almost being destroyed in a storm. His name was William Adams, but the Japanese couldn’t pronounce it and called him Anjin-san instead (literally Mr. Pilot). He was made a samurai and given land for his help in a war of succession, as well as his aid in founding the Dutch/British trading relationship in Japan. He lived out the rest of his life in Japan and his house can still be found today as a historical site.
The black guy, whose history is a lot less clear, was named Yasuke. He was most likely a slave originally from Africa, but there are no real records beyond that he was brought to Japan by the Jesuits, who were the sole foreigners allowed into Japan at the time. He was presented to a famous lord by the name of Oda Nobunaga (one of the most famous people in Japanese history), who was so taken with the man that he took him into his service as a retainer and samurai and gave him the name Yasuke. Yasuke served Nobunaga up to and during the betrayal that led to Nobunaga’s death, after which Yasuke disappeared from historical records.
Was it popular? I was hyped when it was announced, but when the trailer showed magic, giant robots, and a very Saturday morning color palette, my interested died. I was hoping for a much more grounded show for what was going Yasuke’s first big depiction. Something along the lines of the Sword of a Stranger aesthetic would have been perfect.
Ok I don’t have a horse in this race and didn’t know who either of these people were until I saw this meme, and spent some time googling.
As far as I can tell Anjin is based on William Adams, an English navigator, they literally just call him “Mr pilot” he doesn’t have a Japanese name. And Yosuke is supposedly just a Japanese guy. So like, while I don’t care, it does seem like there’s some room for misrepresentation.
The anti woke “historical accuracy” crowd is getting pissy that an african samurai is represented in a game set in feudal Japan, ignoring the existence of Yasuke who served Oda Nobunaga, who is a pretty big deal in Japanese history.
And Ubisoft is going to do Ubisoft things and tell a historically inspired but ultimately fictional story about secret organizations running secret proxy wars trying to gain control advanced magical technology from an ancient prehumanity civilization, and how magical genetic bloodlines let you access the memories of your ancestors.
Do what I do, go in assuming everything is absolutely shit, if it’s shit you’re right and it feels good, if its not then you got something cool to enjoy.
They were fun until they decided to get rid of stealth. The player character being someone who stands out so much by merely existing gives the impression that this game will probably end up being more of the same.
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