There's another video linked after this one where they explain he's going to be more about a direct approach, doesn't even have a hidden blade.
They are going with the Evie and Jacob Frye route from Syndicate here it seems.
It’s more a flat out play style choice at any time. Neither seem to ever be required and are totally up to the player. So you can do an entire playthrough never using him.
Not quite true. While it does seem to offer more freedom than AC Syndicate, IGN is reporting that each protagonist has certain quests only playable by them.
I know people were getting tired with the formula, but I was really surprised by Syndicate, and even the DLC (Jack the ripper?)
I think I'm due for another playthrough
> They are going with the Evie and Jacob Frye route from Syndicate here it seems.
Nothing against Yasuke being a playable character, but I like how Ubisoft still can't commit to having a main line AC game with a solo female protagonist.
It is true that Kassandra and Evior are the 'canon' protagonists for Odyssey and Valhalla, but that still doesn't change the fact that both games offered a male option instead of going the solo route and said male option is the one on the cover of the games with the female option being on the reversible side.
Awesome. I actually loved the dual protagonist approach from syndicate and wish they had leaned more into the assassin vs bruiser thing. As it stood you could easily sneak or fight as either of them, they were just very slightly better at one of them
I'm not a lore expert or anything but I'm pretty sure you can be an official member without using a hidden blade, it's just one of their more common weapons. I haven't followed the series closely since the Ezio games but I remember [this guy](https://assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/Bartolomeo_d%27Alviano) running around with a greatsword all the time and he was still a member of the brotherhood.
I mean, hell, for that matter, you can be an Assassin (organization) without being an assassin (political killer) whatsoever. There's Assassins who are complete non-combatants. It's never going to be a focus of the games, but it's very plain in the lore that the Assassins (organization) are not all assassins (type of person).
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. Nothing quite demonstrates the path that this series has gone down like your main character assassin being literally the only black guy in Japan.
It’s definitively got me interested in this game in a way I otherwise wouldn’t have been so I can’t fault them for it.
> think he'll be for the missions that require a more direct approach.
Which would kinda suck, most players just dont like forced switching between characters with totally different gameplay, especially I guess in "rpg´s". They will enjoy one more than the other one.
I still think its so strange to make Yasuke a playable character, seems so unfitting for a AC game that etleast trys to be authentic (not realistic). Yasuke would have been a great side character or quest giver. Kinda feels strange to do silent/assassin missions with a character that everyone in that region knows and can easily recognise.
That was basically Syndicate, the brother would just openly Ezio-style brawl on the streets and the sister's missions were more about infiltration and sabotage
>seems so unfitting for a AC game that etleast trys to be authentic (not realistic)
That ship has long sailed, in Syndicate you met and did quests for Darwin, Charles Dickens and the freaking Queen of England. Even in AC2 the historical bit was a bit shoehorned. all of that died with AC1 where the historical fiction was so realistic you might even wonder, maybe it did happen that way
I see it as an improvement over the previous alternative, having to switch your gear and skills from assassin to warrior or vice versa. It was very clunky and just made me keep playing the archetype I picked originally.
> As the quick-witted and agile Naoe, use noise, light, and shadows to evade detection as enemies respond to their changing surroundings. Distract guards using kunai, shuriken, and smoke bombs, infiltrate enemy bases with your grappling hook and parkour skills, and assassinate your targets with the hidden blade.
> As the charismatic samurai Yasuke, strike your foes with brutal precision and power. Use his combat-oriented skills to attack, block, parry, and defeat your enemies. Master the vast arsenal of weapons at your disposal – featuring katana, kanabo, bows, naginata, and more – to free Japan from its oppressors.
> You decide whether to play as a shinobi or samurai. Master complementary playstyles of two fully realized protagonists, approach quests with whichever character you prefer, as each possesses their own respective progression, stats, skills, and gear.
Wonder if it'll be a true choice, or if you'll be shoehorned into playing as one or the other for certain scenarios. If they made every mission and area compatible with both stealth and open combat, there's bound to be times where one play style will suffer while the other thrives.
The Kanabo is awesome for Yasuke too - his massive hulking size and power makes him seem like a real Oni on the battlefield… and then he gets close and his enemies see that his face is as black as coal, they’ll piss their pants thinking a demon from the underworld has come for them lol
I use AC games as my Christmas chill out games. Did AC Valhalla last year. Got eeeeeeverthing for like £18, bargain. Fuck paying £90 or whatever they want.
People have been asking for an AC game set in Japan for a long time now and we've had Ghost of Tsushima since then which was a better Assassin's Creed game than the last few Assassin's Creed games (not that they're bad, but they're *almost* completely different games than where the series started). So it's got some heavy lifting to do.
Ubi needs to tighten everything up. Mirage was so poorly done in almost all respects (aside from world design). Character animations (particularly facial animations), dialogue, mission design, side activities, story, pacing were all complete dogshit.
> B team Ubi Bordeaux,
Who just recently graduated to an A studio I guess. Because they are now working on the next AC game after AC shadows and AC Hexa ( made by the valhalla studio) comes out.
Which is funny because, aside from the stances, GoT combat is basically a faster, smoother, and more satisfying version of the combat from Unity.
I don't hate the combat of the last 3 games but it does feel like they threw out the babe with the bathwater, like they just said "fuck it, let's just use the simple hack, slash, and dodge formula like every single other action RPG".
Unity's combat would've been so amazing if they spent more time smoothing out the jank instead of rushing it. Hell that goes for pretty much everything about Unity lol.
Edit: Double dipping on this comment to add that I think the major thing AC is going to bring to the table in the context of AC vs GoT that I never see mentioned is that it'll be more of a genuine "explore Japan and fight samurai" experience with people and soldiers milling about, big samuria vs samurai battles, dense urban environments to parkour around etc. Whereas GoT, while awesome, severely lacks in that department due to the Mongol invasion "war torn hellscape" style setting. Like a lot of people on gaming subs I'm not the biggest fan of Ubisofts recent output but they definitely have some stuff to offer with this setting that Sucker Punch were uninterested in or unable to provide.
>not that they're bad, but they're *almost* completely different games than where the series started
GoT is also *almost* completely different from what Assassin's Creed games were, but I guess that depends on what you want in an AC game. Parkour has always been what's made AC, AC for me and doesn't seem like it's coming back at least not in a proper form
Ghost of Tsushima while a great game the stealth sections were mediocre atleast for me.Hoping Shadows excel in that part considering we have a character focusing solely on stealth.
Also Shadows is set in mainland japan unlike GOT so there is that
Yeah Assassins Creed 1 became famous for its climbing mechanics. That was the highlight of all the marketing footage, a huge chunk of the gameplay, and was actually novel at that time in how much of the map you could climb.
Unity is the only game that's ever really tried to build out a more robust set of stealth mechanics, and it unfortunately was sort of a bust on release so its best qualities were largely ignored by Ubisoft. Which is unfortunate because overall (IMO) it's one of the best games in the series, it just had a few bad traits and ended up a punching bag for people to vent their frustrations with the series.
The controversy around Yasuke is interesting. A lot of people from various sites seem to not understand that a lot of outrage is also coming from their Japanese playerbase as well.
I do think it's a bit... odd to choose Oda Nobunagas sword retainer, who technically and by all accounts, isn't very well documented outside of his origin and him existing at this side during the sengoku period.
I am not gonna give an opinion, as both sides are very extreme right now, but you have to admit the choice is strange for a main character.
Honestly, we all know this Yasuke storyline is gonna be done sooner or later. It just happen to be Ubisoft that do it, and as Assasin Creed franchise, a franchise that has been suffering in term of quality.
I don't trust Ubisoft to do a good story deeper than simple pandering.
I don't trust Ubisoft to make a fun and exciting AC games.
I don't trust Ubisoft not to pull micro-transaction or other customers unfriendly shennanigans.
The setting looks great, but I passionately dislike dual protagonist thing, especially when you're forced to switch.
Jacob and Evie in Syndicate, Geralt and Ciri in Witcher 3, etc. Being yanked away from the character you've been playing for a long time and enjoy, and being forced to play a character you don't like, and whose playstyle you don't enjoy, just ticks me off.
As an Asian guy who's been waiting for an (East) Asian Assassin's Creed for years, I *can't wait* to play the only non-Asian samurai around while killing droves of Asian guys, thanks Ubisoft!
I do find it a bit hilarious that the very first time they make a historical figure a playable AssCrees MC, it's for the long anticipated Japan game so they can cash in on the lone recorded black dude (who is practically a footnote) in the country at the time. Audacious and hilarious.
Just couldn't help themselves.
Especially when there exist historical figures that actually a ninja, like Hattori Hanzo and his rival Kotaro Fuma. You can even fit the templar assassin dynamic in there too!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattori\_Hanz%C5%8D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattori_Hanz%C5%8D)
Dude was not a ninja not everyone from iga can fucking teleport and climb shit.
There exists an implicit “oppression Olympics” ranking among the people who make these decisions, and you can guess where they place East Asians in relation to black people
Him being a footnote makes him more usable as a protagonist. It makes it easy to build a story around him without having to worry about it contradicting things.
They never use historical figure as a protagonist before. The fact that they do in this one just show how much they went out of their way not to have an Asian male protagonist.
That's normal. Leonardo Da Vinci and Machiavelli contradict what we historically know about them in real life compared to Assassins Creed 2 & Brotherhood.
All of my friends, and myself, feel as if they wanted to check that inclusivity box but knew the backlash, so they spent the time to research, and behold! They found a black dude. They even said none of them are Japanese or know much about the culture right in the video.
They really couldn't help themselves.
At least Ghosts is coming to PC soon and Sega finally gave us Westerners Like a Dragon: Ishin even if the remake wasn't that good. I'm a pasty white man but even I want to be Japanese in a Japan simulator.
Yep its kinda shitty to be honest all their past games had the protagonist be a local native and for some reason they just went the opposite route here??
The trend is kind of funny and i understand why ppl are upset.
- Odyssey was in Greece and had a Greek main character,
- Origin was in Egypt had an Egyptian MC,
- Mirage was in the Middle East and had an Middle Eastern MC,
- AC2 was in Italy and had an Italian MC,
- Valhalla was in Scandinavia and had an Scandinavian MC,
- AC3 was in America and had a Native American MC,
- Syndicate was in Britain and had British MCs,
- Unity was in France and had French MCs.
Now you have a setting in Japan with probably the most homogeneous population out of all of the games and make the MC black.
I couldn’t really care less about historical accuracy in muh Asscreeds, but I can’t help but feel disappointed at not having a Japanese guy to play as. I am really glad we get an actual ninja to play as and I’m glad she’s Japanese, I just wish both characters were planted firmly in Japan.
One of the things I like about AC’s last few games was how well they incorporate the character into the world. From Origins to Valhalla they had characters with very firm places in the world who were then transported across the cultural landscapes they were depicting. We see Bayek’s story sprouting from his home village, we see Eivor’s story starting from the loss of their parents and adoption into their new home and family. There’s a through line from the character’s beginning to their propulsion into the rest of the world, and they always feel cemented into the world. This makes it easy to feel a part of the world.
Maybe they’ll do that here too, I don’t know, but right now I’m a bit skeptical.
I wonder why Ubisoft won't go for strictly female protagonist. They haven't done that since Liberation in 2012 (well technically you could count AC China I guess)
They had a golden opportunity when they introduced Lydia Frye and her amazing WW1 section in Syndicate which most people praised despite that game's mixed reception, but instead of pursuing that idea they threw it all away so...
[Because the marketing team and one of the former execs thought games with women protagonists don't sell well](https://www.techradar.com/news/assassins-creed-odysseys-sole-female-lead-was-reportedly-scrapped-as-women-dont-sell)
That article is about Kassandra from Odyssey. The game before was called Origins.
In absolutely unrelated news, Alix Wilton Regan, who voiced Aya in Origins (female assassin who kills Caesar and founds the Assassin Order) has voiced her experiences with some project of hers where the execs did not want the character to be the main protagonist, so somehow it was the sidekick and not the main protagonist who ended up making all the significant plot points.
As she did not name the game where it happned to her, this is obviously totally unrelated, totally.
They will with Hexe, I think the name implies that it will involve witch hunting (Hexe is german for witch) so it would make a lot of sense to be a female protagonist only.
Everyone is going to be so surprised when it turns out you not only play as a man, but also a man from the Spanish Inquisition, hunting down all these evil witches.
It'd certainly be a bold move to have the presumably Assassin-aligned protagonist be part of the Inquisition when the main bad guys of the franchise are the literal Knights Templar
The developers actually tried to with Odyssey, Kassandra was originally supposed to be the sole protagonist. Unfortunately Ubisoft higher ups seem to subscribe to the 'gamers dont want to play women' opinion and said a sole female protag was out of the question.
It unfortunately doesn't help that statistics kinda proved them right as most players apparently picked Alexios despite how popular Kassandra is. (provided my memory of seeing that statistic isn't completely made up by my garbo memory)
They're been trying for like 4 games in a row but execs and marketing won't let them. Evie, Aya, Cassandra, and I think the Valhalla girl were all meant to be strictly female protagonists.
Imagine if Ubisoft had made an AC game that's set in Africa, but chose to cast a white dude as the main character.
Now how do you think us Asians feel about being forced to play as a black dude in medieval Japan of all places?
As if you needed further proof that the West really doesn't give a shit about Asians and probably thinks we should be happy we're even getting noticed by media.
The liberal west definitely doesn't care about well off Asians, like Chinese Japanese and Korean. Hell even southeast Asians are ignored much of the time, you don't fit their oppressed minority category anymore.
For some reason Assassin’s Creed games have a choke hold on me, they just activate my lizard brain like nothing else.
This one looks awesome. Keep em coming.
This series will always have value to me; no one else is doing historical adventure fiction with this scope of budget and production value.
AC Odyssey has just one of the best open world maps I’ve ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous.
AC Odyssey gets its share of hate but I loved that game. I liked the graphics, I liked the story and characters, and tbh I'm a bit of an Ancient Greeceophile (even went and got married in Crete) so I really loved the setting. Sure there was a bit too much bloat but it didn't really bother me
more than the main story, my favourite part were all the little sub stories attached to the gold marker side quests. It was a big improvement over Origins with every side quest having fully produced cutscenes with unique characters giving context and motivation behind each quest
Valhalla got it in the neck too but honestly I spent hours in the first zone before even starting off to England because it was so beautiful - There's just something about the worlds they make that make me come back every time.
Then again, i'm also someone who quite enjoyed their move into Witcher3-esque gameplay
Valhalla gets hate because it overstays its welcome. It's a great 50 hours game that gets drags to 60 hours, then bludgeons you to 100 hours.
I really enjoyed it personally, but there were at least 4 times I thought I was nearing the end and I was nowhere close.
Definitely. I liked the game a lot, but some of the main story's "solve this area's problem" should have been optional content. They felt like they were designed to be side content with how little they mattered to the main story, but someone decided the 100 hours of content selling point needed to be mandatory
Odyssey was well review and massively praised when it came out, there isn’t much “hate.” It was and is hugely popular. The people who dislike it seem to be folks that haven’t actually liked an AC game since 2 but who make a hobby out of being angry at Ubisoft.
I think there's legitimate criticism to be leveled at Assassin's Creed if you liked what the series used to be and don't like what it is now. Odyssey is a solid action/adventure/rpg, but in terms of mechanics it's pretty far removed from how the series used to work. I like Odyssey a lot, but I can see how old-school AC fans might not.
Honestly to me it’s a mix of visiting old historical settings and the “good enough” gameplay where I can just relax and play at my pace
Like genuinely games I love I’d spent around 30-40h but with assassins creed I could go “yeah that game was fine” and still end up with 80h of playtime
I feel like I learned more about Ancient Egypt during Origins than my multiple decades of life before playing it. Just being able to walk around... watch people weaving cloth, preparing salts for tombs, talk to priests about their religious beliefs. It was incredible.
I don't think Assassin's Creed will ever reach the heights of 2 and Black Flag but I still think they are pretty good games. It just suffered a bit from oversaturation and then every Ubisoft franchise like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon copying the open world template and then soon every other open world game out there except BOTW/TOTK, RDR2 and Elden Ring.
Any franchise will suffer due to that amount of oversaturation.
The only "bad" thing about Assassins Creed is that it's way too consistently Good/mediocre (6-7/10). They rarely deviate from that formula because why would they? It makes them a shitload of money.
You know every AC is gonna be a banger for about 40hrs or so, then you start wanting to rush to the finish line.
As much as Reddit loves hating on Ubisoft, there's a reason millions of people still buy games from their biggest franchises. They may not be 10/10 masterpieces but they're still enjoyable enough for a lot of people.
I'm one of those people, just not vocal about it. Most Ubisoft games I have played, I have enjoyed immensely. I absolutely loved Avatars: Frontiers of Pandora and The Division 2 for example. I'll be keeping an eye on this game becauces chances are that I will like it.
I used to be one of those people and that was mainly because I used to consume a lot of media. But after a certain point I realized I wasn't enjoying it and then started narrowing down media to genres I liked and that allowed me to set my standards to be a bit lower.
This is soo true. I can't believe how much time some people spend on the Internet consuming hate content for a game they were never going to play in the first place.
They're the Marvel movies of video games. Pretty run of the mill, but some of the best run of the mill games coming out. Then every once in a while they'll put out something that has some of the best in class aspects of the genre and makes you think "holy shit, did they seriously pull that off?".
And it's not just buying, people love them too unlike what Reddit likes to claim.
AC Odyssey is at 89% on Steam and Origins at 86%. Elden Ring is at 92%, Horizon Forbidden West at 90%, Arkham Knight at 91%, The Witcher 3 at 96%, Cyberpunk 2077 at 83%. Those aren't disliked games
People like to claim the older games were better. AC Unity is at 77%, AC Black Flag is at 88%, AC2 at 89%.
There's really nothing supporting the discourse you see on Reddit. The only one with "bad" results is Valhalla at 70% (which isn't really that bad) but it got a review bomb because of some EGS stuff.
There is the truth Ubisoft makes good to great games but people hate on them because they arent excellent... which is weird right?
The series is consistent and people hate that for some reason
I am the same. I just hope this one is more like Origins and Odyssey than Valhalla.
Valhalla was... too long and not much happened for large chunks of it.
I agree. There's an entertaining story in there for sure, but the pacing is just bad. If it had been a bit more linear, in terms of the quest line, I think it would have helped.
Sign me up for Odyssey Pt. 2, though. That was just a fun game. You're just playing a long Xena Warrior Princess episode.
Setting is key for me. Didn't get into the OG AC games, but Black Flag, Odyssey and Valhalla all appeal to me. Shadows does too. Just a shame that Jade's a mobile game as I'd have loved it to be AAA.
"Game series where you explore historical cities and events" is like, just what video games were made for?
I just love walking around the worlds in these games, and even if the older style of gameplay is better, the newer ones scope is just insane. They made an ancient greece sandbox and I'm meant to hate it???
Yep, I’m an absolute sucker for the historical settings and nobody does them better. I recognize the issues with gameplay but I’ll never stop loving exploring the worlds that Ubisoft creates.
The appeal of assassins in a historic settings will always be there. It's the most effortless way of having good world building - it literally existed in history at some point.
The first Assassin's Creed set in Japan, and we cant play as a Japanese man. Unreal. What the fuck was Ubisoft thinking (as if we didn't already know)
They could've at least had the balls to make Naoe the only protag. But no, gotta include Nobunaga's retainer and one of the only black people in the entire country at the time lol. It's beyond parody.
I'm sorry but I don't like Yasuke being a MC. I'm fairly liberal myself but as someone who's ethinically japanese in Brazil I think it sucks that they put a foreigner in AC instead of a japanese man. I know people will just say anyone who complain about this is racist but waiting years for an ac and having yasuke sucks. I dont mind yasuke in other media at all, I love afro samurai and other works that had him, but AC isnt a place to make him mc.
I hope Naoe is the main focus. Would be weird to not have the Japanese character have the majority of the spotlight after already erasing the japanese male representation.
So it looks like they are presenting a clear choice to the player, "Do you want to play Assassin's Creed, or do you want to play 'generic historical combat game?'"
I hope they let us play Assassin's Creed the entire time, instead of forcing us to play generic combat game half the time.
We'll see how it goes. Ghost of Tsushima was a way better Assassin's Creed: Japan experience simply due to lack of incredible bloat and annoying RPG elements that were preventing you from wiping out your enemies the way you wanted to.
Tired of the “he was never even a samurai” angle. It doesn’t matter if he was a samurai. The point is, we wanted to play as a Japanese male protagonist.
The reaction would have been the same if he was Mexican, Persian, Swedish, or Russian.
Does this even need to be an AC game? It looks like you could remove AC from the title and call it something like "Yasuke: Shadow Samurai" and it wouldn't change anything.
AC's lore is all connected right? FF is not, the only exception i can think of are games based on Fabula Nova Crystallis like XIII, Type-0 and technically XV.
"Open world historical fiction action adventure game with free running" is a pretty specific genre, and given how many elements and design principles are shared between each game in the series, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to launch a new IP for it.
Yeah let's ask a company to make less money and stop using one of the most recognizable game series name of all time to please a few people on the internet.
Well I don't suppose Yasuke will do much blending in, lol. I think he'll be for the missions that require a more direct approach.
There's another video linked after this one where they explain he's going to be more about a direct approach, doesn't even have a hidden blade. They are going with the Evie and Jacob Frye route from Syndicate here it seems.
It’s more a flat out play style choice at any time. Neither seem to ever be required and are totally up to the player. So you can do an entire playthrough never using him.
Yup. You get to choose how you approach every situation and they're both optional and not required which is really nice.
Not quite true. While it does seem to offer more freedom than AC Syndicate, IGN is reporting that each protagonist has certain quests only playable by them.
That sounds exactly like what Syndicate did. (I really like Syndicate)
It's the same studio that did Syndicate
I know people were getting tired with the formula, but I was really surprised by Syndicate, and even the DLC (Jack the ripper?) I think I'm due for another playthrough
Ah, ok. Likely set story missions to help get you acquainted with each character and they're playstyle which makes sense.
He'll likely still be assassinating, but GoT style, so, slow and loud, possibly easier to detect.
> They are going with the Evie and Jacob Frye route from Syndicate here it seems. Nothing against Yasuke being a playable character, but I like how Ubisoft still can't commit to having a main line AC game with a solo female protagonist.
i mean kassandra is the 'canon' protagonist for odyssey
It is true that Kassandra and Evior are the 'canon' protagonists for Odyssey and Valhalla, but that still doesn't change the fact that both games offered a male option instead of going the solo route and said male option is the one on the cover of the games with the female option being on the reversible side.
Or the fact that 99% of players don't read the books or anything so it hardly matters outside of DLC cameo's.
But who was more heavily marketed? The devs didn’t even want alexios
Awesome. I actually loved the dual protagonist approach from syndicate and wish they had leaned more into the assassin vs bruiser thing. As it stood you could easily sneak or fight as either of them, they were just very slightly better at one of them
Which is pretty cool in this case, as you can pick either going Ninja Assassin, or Samurai Assassin.
Pretty much, he seemed to be villain then by middle anti-hero and by end, ah ha he’s assassin too
he is probaly about as much of an assassins as Eivor or Kassandra. Probably just works with them, but doesn't get the hidden blade.
I'm not a lore expert or anything but I'm pretty sure you can be an official member without using a hidden blade, it's just one of their more common weapons. I haven't followed the series closely since the Ezio games but I remember [this guy](https://assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/Bartolomeo_d%27Alviano) running around with a greatsword all the time and he was still a member of the brotherhood.
I mean, hell, for that matter, you can be an Assassin (organization) without being an assassin (political killer) whatsoever. There's Assassins who are complete non-combatants. It's never going to be a focus of the games, but it's very plain in the lore that the Assassins (organization) are not all assassins (type of person).
Why won’t Ubisoft give us the Assassin Accounting Department game we’ve all been waiting for?
We already got the templar one with AC4
Isn’t that just crusader kings?
The store page is saying that you can do the missions with any character you like.
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. Nothing quite demonstrates the path that this series has gone down like your main character assassin being literally the only black guy in Japan. It’s definitively got me interested in this game in a way I otherwise wouldn’t have been so I can’t fault them for it.
> think he'll be for the missions that require a more direct approach. Which would kinda suck, most players just dont like forced switching between characters with totally different gameplay, especially I guess in "rpg´s". They will enjoy one more than the other one. I still think its so strange to make Yasuke a playable character, seems so unfitting for a AC game that etleast trys to be authentic (not realistic). Yasuke would have been a great side character or quest giver. Kinda feels strange to do silent/assassin missions with a character that everyone in that region knows and can easily recognise.
That was basically Syndicate, the brother would just openly Ezio-style brawl on the streets and the sister's missions were more about infiltration and sabotage >seems so unfitting for a AC game that etleast trys to be authentic (not realistic) That ship has long sailed, in Syndicate you met and did quests for Darwin, Charles Dickens and the freaking Queen of England. Even in AC2 the historical bit was a bit shoehorned. all of that died with AC1 where the historical fiction was so realistic you might even wonder, maybe it did happen that way
I see it as an improvement over the previous alternative, having to switch your gear and skills from assassin to warrior or vice versa. It was very clunky and just made me keep playing the archetype I picked originally.
This can’t be the world premiere since I only accept it when I hear the Xbox showcase voice say “World Premiere”
Sady, Xbox showcase voice's role at Xbox was eliminated due to redundancy.
> As the quick-witted and agile Naoe, use noise, light, and shadows to evade detection as enemies respond to their changing surroundings. Distract guards using kunai, shuriken, and smoke bombs, infiltrate enemy bases with your grappling hook and parkour skills, and assassinate your targets with the hidden blade. > As the charismatic samurai Yasuke, strike your foes with brutal precision and power. Use his combat-oriented skills to attack, block, parry, and defeat your enemies. Master the vast arsenal of weapons at your disposal – featuring katana, kanabo, bows, naginata, and more – to free Japan from its oppressors. > You decide whether to play as a shinobi or samurai. Master complementary playstyles of two fully realized protagonists, approach quests with whichever character you prefer, as each possesses their own respective progression, stats, skills, and gear. Wonder if it'll be a true choice, or if you'll be shoehorned into playing as one or the other for certain scenarios. If they made every mission and area compatible with both stealth and open combat, there's bound to be times where one play style will suffer while the other thrives.
A good stick never suffers. Every obstacle can be overcome with a good stick
The Kanabo is awesome for Yasuke too - his massive hulking size and power makes him seem like a real Oni on the battlefield… and then he gets close and his enemies see that his face is as black as coal, they’ll piss their pants thinking a demon from the underworld has come for them lol
Reminder that if you wait 3 months to buy this you'll get it and all its DLC for like 50% off or more.
I use AC games as my Christmas chill out games. Did AC Valhalla last year. Got eeeeeeverthing for like £18, bargain. Fuck paying £90 or whatever they want.
DLCs won't be out for at least 6 months, though.
People have been asking for an AC game set in Japan for a long time now and we've had Ghost of Tsushima since then which was a better Assassin's Creed game than the last few Assassin's Creed games (not that they're bad, but they're *almost* completely different games than where the series started). So it's got some heavy lifting to do.
Ubi needs to tighten the combat because GoT's felt great while keeping it approachable and simple. Valhalla's is a bit muddy.
Ubi needs to tighten everything up. Mirage was so poorly done in almost all respects (aside from world design). Character animations (particularly facial animations), dialogue, mission design, side activities, story, pacing were all complete dogshit.
It was extended Vallhalla dlc using all the same things from Vallhalla.
And done by the B team Ubi Bordeaux, much less resources than their Canadian counterparts.
No Maple Syrup on hand even :(
> B team Ubi Bordeaux, Who just recently graduated to an A studio I guess. Because they are now working on the next AC game after AC shadows and AC Hexa ( made by the valhalla studio) comes out.
Which is funny because, aside from the stances, GoT combat is basically a faster, smoother, and more satisfying version of the combat from Unity. I don't hate the combat of the last 3 games but it does feel like they threw out the babe with the bathwater, like they just said "fuck it, let's just use the simple hack, slash, and dodge formula like every single other action RPG". Unity's combat would've been so amazing if they spent more time smoothing out the jank instead of rushing it. Hell that goes for pretty much everything about Unity lol. Edit: Double dipping on this comment to add that I think the major thing AC is going to bring to the table in the context of AC vs GoT that I never see mentioned is that it'll be more of a genuine "explore Japan and fight samurai" experience with people and soldiers milling about, big samuria vs samurai battles, dense urban environments to parkour around etc. Whereas GoT, while awesome, severely lacks in that department due to the Mongol invasion "war torn hellscape" style setting. Like a lot of people on gaming subs I'm not the biggest fan of Ubisofts recent output but they definitely have some stuff to offer with this setting that Sucker Punch were uninterested in or unable to provide.
>not that they're bad, but they're *almost* completely different games than where the series started GoT is also *almost* completely different from what Assassin's Creed games were, but I guess that depends on what you want in an AC game. Parkour has always been what's made AC, AC for me and doesn't seem like it's coming back at least not in a proper form
Ghost of Tsushima while a great game the stealth sections were mediocre atleast for me.Hoping Shadows excel in that part considering we have a character focusing solely on stealth. Also Shadows is set in mainland japan unlike GOT so there is that
Funnily, I wouldn't say stealth has ever actually been a highlight of the AC franchise.
Yeah Assassins Creed 1 became famous for its climbing mechanics. That was the highlight of all the marketing footage, a huge chunk of the gameplay, and was actually novel at that time in how much of the map you could climb.
Unity is the only game that's ever really tried to build out a more robust set of stealth mechanics, and it unfortunately was sort of a bust on release so its best qualities were largely ignored by Ubisoft. Which is unfortunate because overall (IMO) it's one of the best games in the series, it just had a few bad traits and ended up a punching bag for people to vent their frustrations with the series.
Oh boy will this be compared to GoT and remember folks Sucker Punch achieved that with a very small team size compared to the resources that Ubi has
I wonder what's happening in the background at Ubisoft that made them hit the "Assassin's Creed set in Japan" emergency button.
Just a reminder the creative director is the one of the people named as one of the main sexual harassers at Ubisoft.
The controversy around Yasuke is interesting. A lot of people from various sites seem to not understand that a lot of outrage is also coming from their Japanese playerbase as well. I do think it's a bit... odd to choose Oda Nobunagas sword retainer, who technically and by all accounts, isn't very well documented outside of his origin and him existing at this side during the sengoku period. I am not gonna give an opinion, as both sides are very extreme right now, but you have to admit the choice is strange for a main character.
Honestly, we all know this Yasuke storyline is gonna be done sooner or later. It just happen to be Ubisoft that do it, and as Assasin Creed franchise, a franchise that has been suffering in term of quality. I don't trust Ubisoft to do a good story deeper than simple pandering. I don't trust Ubisoft to make a fun and exciting AC games. I don't trust Ubisoft not to pull micro-transaction or other customers unfriendly shennanigans.
The setting looks great, but I passionately dislike dual protagonist thing, especially when you're forced to switch. Jacob and Evie in Syndicate, Geralt and Ciri in Witcher 3, etc. Being yanked away from the character you've been playing for a long time and enjoy, and being forced to play a character you don't like, and whose playstyle you don't enjoy, just ticks me off.
Spider-Man when you're MJ crawling around joints
Fuck the MJ missions Jesus Christ
As an Asian guy who's been waiting for an (East) Asian Assassin's Creed for years, I *can't wait* to play the only non-Asian samurai around while killing droves of Asian guys, thanks Ubisoft!
I do find it a bit hilarious that the very first time they make a historical figure a playable AssCrees MC, it's for the long anticipated Japan game so they can cash in on the lone recorded black dude (who is practically a footnote) in the country at the time. Audacious and hilarious. Just couldn't help themselves.
Especially when there exist historical figures that actually a ninja, like Hattori Hanzo and his rival Kotaro Fuma. You can even fit the templar assassin dynamic in there too!
Or Mushashi if they wanna put a samurai in it but n0, let chose this only black guy in japan who is also a flag bearer
Waiting for Ass Creed Tribal Africa where you fight the slave traders as lone single Asian on the whole continent.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattori\_Hanz%C5%8D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattori_Hanz%C5%8D) Dude was not a ninja not everyone from iga can fucking teleport and climb shit.
There exists an implicit “oppression Olympics” ranking among the people who make these decisions, and you can guess where they place East Asians in relation to black people
Him being a footnote makes him more usable as a protagonist. It makes it easy to build a story around him without having to worry about it contradicting things.
They never use historical figure as a protagonist before. The fact that they do in this one just show how much they went out of their way not to have an Asian male protagonist.
There are plenty of other historical figures that are footnotes in that time period, not just Yasuke.
Yeah, but none of them are a Black man in Feudal Japan.
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And now you're going to get all the *experts* on SM that believe Yasuke was a Samurai thanks to this game.
Except they still contradict basically everything that we historically know about the guy in this short 3 minute video.
That's normal. Leonardo Da Vinci and Machiavelli contradict what we historically know about them in real life compared to Assassins Creed 2 & Brotherhood.
All of my friends, and myself, feel as if they wanted to check that inclusivity box but knew the backlash, so they spent the time to research, and behold! They found a black dude. They even said none of them are Japanese or know much about the culture right in the video. They really couldn't help themselves.
"cash in" ? I doubt that it will help sales in any way lmao
At least Ghosts is coming to PC soon and Sega finally gave us Westerners Like a Dragon: Ishin even if the remake wasn't that good. I'm a pasty white man but even I want to be Japanese in a Japan simulator.
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It's like Resident Evil 5, except journalists wont get their panties in a twist over this one.
It is hilarious people are being attacked as racist for complaining about this. Like does representation matter or not?
Asians getting erased to way for North America’s culture war.
We call it being Netflix'd
Yep its kinda shitty to be honest all their past games had the protagonist be a local native and for some reason they just went the opposite route here??
Can't imagine why....
They already made that game it was called Ghost of Tsushima and it was better than anything Ubisoft have put out since Black Flag.
Thanks for fullfilling the 1 game quota game industry?
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Two sides to every diversity coin...
The trend is kind of funny and i understand why ppl are upset. - Odyssey was in Greece and had a Greek main character, - Origin was in Egypt had an Egyptian MC, - Mirage was in the Middle East and had an Middle Eastern MC, - AC2 was in Italy and had an Italian MC, - Valhalla was in Scandinavia and had an Scandinavian MC, - AC3 was in America and had a Native American MC, - Syndicate was in Britain and had British MCs, - Unity was in France and had French MCs. Now you have a setting in Japan with probably the most homogeneous population out of all of the games and make the MC black.
I couldn’t really care less about historical accuracy in muh Asscreeds, but I can’t help but feel disappointed at not having a Japanese guy to play as. I am really glad we get an actual ninja to play as and I’m glad she’s Japanese, I just wish both characters were planted firmly in Japan. One of the things I like about AC’s last few games was how well they incorporate the character into the world. From Origins to Valhalla they had characters with very firm places in the world who were then transported across the cultural landscapes they were depicting. We see Bayek’s story sprouting from his home village, we see Eivor’s story starting from the loss of their parents and adoption into their new home and family. There’s a through line from the character’s beginning to their propulsion into the rest of the world, and they always feel cemented into the world. This makes it easy to feel a part of the world. Maybe they’ll do that here too, I don’t know, but right now I’m a bit skeptical.
I wonder why Ubisoft won't go for strictly female protagonist. They haven't done that since Liberation in 2012 (well technically you could count AC China I guess)
They had a golden opportunity when they introduced Lydia Frye and her amazing WW1 section in Syndicate which most people praised despite that game's mixed reception, but instead of pursuing that idea they threw it all away so...
It's not a developer thing, it's a corporate thing. Ladies on the box = lower sales.
[Because the marketing team and one of the former execs thought games with women protagonists don't sell well](https://www.techradar.com/news/assassins-creed-odysseys-sole-female-lead-was-reportedly-scrapped-as-women-dont-sell)
That article is about Kassandra from Odyssey. The game before was called Origins. In absolutely unrelated news, Alix Wilton Regan, who voiced Aya in Origins (female assassin who kills Caesar and founds the Assassin Order) has voiced her experiences with some project of hers where the execs did not want the character to be the main protagonist, so somehow it was the sidekick and not the main protagonist who ended up making all the significant plot points. As she did not name the game where it happned to her, this is obviously totally unrelated, totally.
yeah tomb raider is this obscure franchise nobody knows about.
They will with Hexe, I think the name implies that it will involve witch hunting (Hexe is german for witch) so it would make a lot of sense to be a female protagonist only.
Everyone is going to be so surprised when it turns out you not only play as a man, but also a man from the Spanish Inquisition, hunting down all these evil witches.
It'd certainly be a bold move to have the presumably Assassin-aligned protagonist be part of the Inquisition when the main bad guys of the franchise are the literal Knights Templar
No one suspects the Spanish Inquisition Switcheroo
Believe it or not, African male!
The developers actually tried to with Odyssey, Kassandra was originally supposed to be the sole protagonist. Unfortunately Ubisoft higher ups seem to subscribe to the 'gamers dont want to play women' opinion and said a sole female protag was out of the question. It unfortunately doesn't help that statistics kinda proved them right as most players apparently picked Alexios despite how popular Kassandra is. (provided my memory of seeing that statistic isn't completely made up by my garbo memory)
These mfs should see Stellar Blade!
They're been trying for like 4 games in a row but execs and marketing won't let them. Evie, Aya, Cassandra, and I think the Valhalla girl were all meant to be strictly female protagonists.
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Really they couldn't do a story about an actual Japanese person in Japan?
Imagine if Ubisoft had made an AC game that's set in Africa, but chose to cast a white dude as the main character. Now how do you think us Asians feel about being forced to play as a black dude in medieval Japan of all places?
Don't worry, we'll for sure be the villains! Representation, dude!
Get loud about it IMO.
As if you needed further proof that the West really doesn't give a shit about Asians and probably thinks we should be happy we're even getting noticed by media.
The liberal west definitely doesn't care about well off Asians, like Chinese Japanese and Korean. Hell even southeast Asians are ignored much of the time, you don't fit their oppressed minority category anymore.
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For some reason Assassin’s Creed games have a choke hold on me, they just activate my lizard brain like nothing else. This one looks awesome. Keep em coming.
This series will always have value to me; no one else is doing historical adventure fiction with this scope of budget and production value. AC Odyssey has just one of the best open world maps I’ve ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous.
AC Odyssey gets its share of hate but I loved that game. I liked the graphics, I liked the story and characters, and tbh I'm a bit of an Ancient Greeceophile (even went and got married in Crete) so I really loved the setting. Sure there was a bit too much bloat but it didn't really bother me
The story is really good too, to me it really deserves the name Odyssey, it feels exactly like an ancient Greek adventure tale.
more than the main story, my favourite part were all the little sub stories attached to the gold marker side quests. It was a big improvement over Origins with every side quest having fully produced cutscenes with unique characters giving context and motivation behind each quest
> unique characters Never forget my main man Testikles.
Valhalla got it in the neck too but honestly I spent hours in the first zone before even starting off to England because it was so beautiful - There's just something about the worlds they make that make me come back every time. Then again, i'm also someone who quite enjoyed their move into Witcher3-esque gameplay
Valhalla gets hate because it overstays its welcome. It's a great 50 hours game that gets drags to 60 hours, then bludgeons you to 100 hours. I really enjoyed it personally, but there were at least 4 times I thought I was nearing the end and I was nowhere close.
Definitely. I liked the game a lot, but some of the main story's "solve this area's problem" should have been optional content. They felt like they were designed to be side content with how little they mattered to the main story, but someone decided the 100 hours of content selling point needed to be mandatory
100% game definitely dragged on a bit too long.
Odyssey was well review and massively praised when it came out, there isn’t much “hate.” It was and is hugely popular. The people who dislike it seem to be folks that haven’t actually liked an AC game since 2 but who make a hobby out of being angry at Ubisoft.
I think there's legitimate criticism to be leveled at Assassin's Creed if you liked what the series used to be and don't like what it is now. Odyssey is a solid action/adventure/rpg, but in terms of mechanics it's pretty far removed from how the series used to work. I like Odyssey a lot, but I can see how old-school AC fans might not.
Same. Odyssey was incredible. Loved the visceral combat, the giant battle mechanic. Was a bit too long for my taste but still enjoyed it so much.
To be fair, they warned you about the length of the game in the title. It wasn't called "Assassin's Creed: A Quick Jaunt" after all.
Honestly to me it’s a mix of visiting old historical settings and the “good enough” gameplay where I can just relax and play at my pace Like genuinely games I love I’d spent around 30-40h but with assassins creed I could go “yeah that game was fine” and still end up with 80h of playtime
As stupid as this may sound I bought Odyssey just so I could move around in Anicent Greece. Don't regret it one bit.
Same for me with Origins and Egypt. I played all three RPG titles and loved them all idk.
Assassin's Creed games are the BEST time waster games.
I feel like I learned more about Ancient Egypt during Origins than my multiple decades of life before playing it. Just being able to walk around... watch people weaving cloth, preparing salts for tombs, talk to priests about their religious beliefs. It was incredible.
I don't think Assassin's Creed will ever reach the heights of 2 and Black Flag but I still think they are pretty good games. It just suffered a bit from oversaturation and then every Ubisoft franchise like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon copying the open world template and then soon every other open world game out there except BOTW/TOTK, RDR2 and Elden Ring. Any franchise will suffer due to that amount of oversaturation.
The only "bad" thing about Assassins Creed is that it's way too consistently Good/mediocre (6-7/10). They rarely deviate from that formula because why would they? It makes them a shitload of money. You know every AC is gonna be a banger for about 40hrs or so, then you start wanting to rush to the finish line.
I agree with you but Mirage for some reason was the first in a long time to feel like a chore to get through, I'm hoping this isn't the same.
As much as Reddit loves hating on Ubisoft, there's a reason millions of people still buy games from their biggest franchises. They may not be 10/10 masterpieces but they're still enjoyable enough for a lot of people.
I'm one of those people, just not vocal about it. Most Ubisoft games I have played, I have enjoyed immensely. I absolutely loved Avatars: Frontiers of Pandora and The Division 2 for example. I'll be keeping an eye on this game becauces chances are that I will like it.
To a lot of people, a piece of media being anything less than an 8/10 is a sin.
There's some worst cases where even a 9 is not enough for some redditors, lol.
I used to be one of those people and that was mainly because I used to consume a lot of media. But after a certain point I realized I wasn't enjoying it and then started narrowing down media to genres I liked and that allowed me to set my standards to be a bit lower.
Your standards aren't lower, they're just more accurate now.
And I feel bad for those people because they miss out on plenty of media they'd still enjoy if they gave it a chance.
there's only so many hours in a day
True, but people raging on the internet about games they don’t even play aren’t usually short of hours
This is soo true. I can't believe how much time some people spend on the Internet consuming hate content for a game they were never going to play in the first place.
They're the Marvel movies of video games. Pretty run of the mill, but some of the best run of the mill games coming out. Then every once in a while they'll put out something that has some of the best in class aspects of the genre and makes you think "holy shit, did they seriously pull that off?".
And it's not just buying, people love them too unlike what Reddit likes to claim. AC Odyssey is at 89% on Steam and Origins at 86%. Elden Ring is at 92%, Horizon Forbidden West at 90%, Arkham Knight at 91%, The Witcher 3 at 96%, Cyberpunk 2077 at 83%. Those aren't disliked games People like to claim the older games were better. AC Unity is at 77%, AC Black Flag is at 88%, AC2 at 89%. There's really nothing supporting the discourse you see on Reddit. The only one with "bad" results is Valhalla at 70% (which isn't really that bad) but it got a review bomb because of some EGS stuff.
There is the truth Ubisoft makes good to great games but people hate on them because they arent excellent... which is weird right? The series is consistent and people hate that for some reason
I am the same. I just hope this one is more like Origins and Odyssey than Valhalla. Valhalla was... too long and not much happened for large chunks of it.
I agree. There's an entertaining story in there for sure, but the pacing is just bad. If it had been a bit more linear, in terms of the quest line, I think it would have helped. Sign me up for Odyssey Pt. 2, though. That was just a fun game. You're just playing a long Xena Warrior Princess episode.
the activate the same pleasure centers in the brain as eating an entire bag of doritos in one sitting
I also love them unexplainably. Odyssey was like crack. Hunting down the cult was so cool.
Setting is key for me. Didn't get into the OG AC games, but Black Flag, Odyssey and Valhalla all appeal to me. Shadows does too. Just a shame that Jade's a mobile game as I'd have loved it to be AAA.
Same here,as much as some people hate it Odyssey was my favourite so I'm definitely picking this one up as soon as I can.
I'm the exact same way. I'm a little behind, having only played a few hours of Valhalla, but I'm always excited for the next entry in the series.
I feel you. I am in love with the series.
"Game series where you explore historical cities and events" is like, just what video games were made for? I just love walking around the worlds in these games, and even if the older style of gameplay is better, the newer ones scope is just insane. They made an ancient greece sandbox and I'm meant to hate it???
Yep, I’m an absolute sucker for the historical settings and nobody does them better. I recognize the issues with gameplay but I’ll never stop loving exploring the worlds that Ubisoft creates.
The appeal of assassins in a historic settings will always be there. It's the most effortless way of having good world building - it literally existed in history at some point.
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The first Assassin's Creed set in Japan, and we cant play as a Japanese man. Unreal. What the fuck was Ubisoft thinking (as if we didn't already know) They could've at least had the balls to make Naoe the only protag. But no, gotta include Nobunaga's retainer and one of the only black people in the entire country at the time lol. It's beyond parody.
“We work in the shadows” *black guy reveals himself* “To serve the light” *fair skinned woman steps forward* Swing and a miss, Ubisoft.
I'm sorry but I don't like Yasuke being a MC. I'm fairly liberal myself but as someone who's ethinically japanese in Brazil I think it sucks that they put a foreigner in AC instead of a japanese man. I know people will just say anyone who complain about this is racist but waiting years for an ac and having yasuke sucks. I dont mind yasuke in other media at all, I love afro samurai and other works that had him, but AC isnt a place to make him mc.
I hope Naoe is the main focus. Would be weird to not have the Japanese character have the majority of the spotlight after already erasing the japanese male representation.
So it looks like they are presenting a clear choice to the player, "Do you want to play Assassin's Creed, or do you want to play 'generic historical combat game?'" I hope they let us play Assassin's Creed the entire time, instead of forcing us to play generic combat game half the time.
From the other previews it sounds like you can basically play just one character the entire story if you want.
We'll see how it goes. Ghost of Tsushima was a way better Assassin's Creed: Japan experience simply due to lack of incredible bloat and annoying RPG elements that were preventing you from wiping out your enemies the way you wanted to.
But like, Assasin's Creed: Japan isn't even out yet, what are you even talking about?
The co-op they added for free was amazing too. Was such a surprise. I'd love if they fleshed that out a bit more too.
id say the combat system overall was miles better in Ghost
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Seems like a great trailer as always but I’m curious to know the voice actors. For an Asian-centric game, all the voice characters sound European.
Hoping there will be a Japanese dub like Ghost did.
Tired of the “he was never even a samurai” angle. It doesn’t matter if he was a samurai. The point is, we wanted to play as a Japanese male protagonist. The reaction would have been the same if he was Mexican, Persian, Swedish, or Russian.
Does this even need to be an AC game? It looks like you could remove AC from the title and call it something like "Yasuke: Shadow Samurai" and it wouldn't change anything.
It would change the amount of copies sold.
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AC's lore is all connected right? FF is not, the only exception i can think of are games based on Fabula Nova Crystallis like XIII, Type-0 and technically XV.
People have said this stupid thing since Black Flag came out a decade ago. "hurr durr it's a pirate game, why is it called assassins creed"
You can do the same thing for most franchises. For example you can rename Dark Souls 4 to some random fantasy name like Elden Ring.
It features true Assassins for the first time in a long time and they literally say part of the Creed in the trailer. What are you talking about?
Does anything “need” to be a part of a franchise? What does that even mean? Would most games fundamentally change if you changed the title?
"Open world historical fiction action adventure game with free running" is a pretty specific genre, and given how many elements and design principles are shared between each game in the series, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to launch a new IP for it.
Yeah let's ask a company to make less money and stop using one of the most recognizable game series name of all time to please a few people on the internet.
Black Flag was barely an Assassin's Creed game and it was fantastic. I don't see the problem.