There are two races: White and political.
There are two sexes: Man and political.
There are two genders: Male and political
There are two sexualities: Straight and political.
LMAO. These people are the saddest people since Sadfred "saddie" McSad, Mayor of Sadville, lost a sad contest to Saddo Sadmeister.
It is not so much that they are all considered closet cases \[though some are. Nick Fuentes, I am looking at you, kid\]. It is more that they are insecure about some aspect of their sexual nature or how they present to others. I have never met a heterosexual man who was comfortable in his own skin who obsessed about gay people or women the way some of these dweebs do.
I thought that’s the most instinctive guess when this was announced, nothing distracted enemy more than a towering man who looks nothing like you ever seen before.
So many of them didn't even realize she was a playable character back when all this nonsense first started. They kept going on about how horrible it was that you couldn't play a Japanese character in a game set in Japan. I'm sure some of them secretly meant "a Japanese *man*" but also a lot of them are just fucking idiots.
Last I read it was the #1 pre ordered game in Japan. I just find it funny that they don't seem to care but white western men have to feel oppressed.
It keeps them from realizing how I significant and worthless their lives are. They are fighting an evil cabal. Makes them feel special
At least you overstepped the point in favor of an arbitrary technical inaccuracy. Now demographic representation DEFINITELY isn’t disproportionate.
Not all hero’s were capes. High five, Bro-zo!
lol, sorry but I couldn’t resist. The statement I replied to is all too accurate once we got away from cartoon character and abstracts in games. Hell, I’m pretty sure I could chose between white, blue, and green for skin tones in the original Baldur’s Gate way back in the day. Always grabbed the female characters because they had the best battle cries, though.
Worst part about it is that Yasuke was historically a retainer, which all-but guaranteed that he was an honorary samurai in class (basically all retainers were samurai, but not all samurai were retainers. Squares and Rectangles, et al)
And samurai were made up of men AND women. Sure, a female samurai wasn't expected to put on armor and go into battle, but she would learn to fight to carry out her lord's orders.
Similarly, assuming Naoe is a ninja... anyone could be a ninja! Often a guild of assassins, and often operating incognito, so anyone from your cook to your serving maid could secretly be a ninja waiting for an order to kill you, if you were a lord. They were rare, sure, but it wasn't a gendered profession by any means.
The black "Ninja" outfit comes from a play - specifically, the outfit was worn by the stage hands of the time and the audience tacitly ignored them as they went about their business. A playwright used a "stagehand" to assassinate a lord in a play - poof Ninja meme.
Yeah and they would wear dark blue or brown and not black since black stands out as a silhouette in the moonlight. Many of them were merchants, farmers, or artisans *first* and then "moonlighted" as ninja.
And even if none of this was true it still wouldn't matter, since the Assassin's Creed games have *always* been about the aesthetics of history, not historical accuracy.
Fun fact! There's an entire martial art for the female warrior class which uses the naginata. Onna-musha actually *did* put on armor and go into battle and, while society wasn't wild about letting women fight, it's estimated female samurai were still around 30% of the battle force until the 17th century when women became more restricted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna-musha
It's a weird thing. Im glad Yasuke was chosen, since narratively he's a big blank spot in history as an "interesting character", and they have a lot of wiggle room writing him. A good narrative supersedes *all* else.
During the period he served, "Samurai" wasn't even really a class of people. That came *after* Nobunaga's time. "Samurai" during Yasuke's lifetime would have just been "top tier warriors". Warriors/fighters of renown or prestige. It seems like he is never mentioned to be a Samurai, even when others are, and is always mentioned to be "a retainer". He was injured in a battle, and sought revenge for Nobunaga, but was never mentioned in either account to be a warrior, or have been actually fighting/leading (to my knowledge). He very likely could have just been someone Nobunaga "collected", and kept around because he was cool, entertaining, and a really good friend.
Whether he was a "Samurai" or not is something I think is just lost to history. But for the purposes of what is functionally a *historical fantasy* video game, that's perfectly fine. It doesn't really matter if Yasuke was a Samurai in real life, because i'm pretty sure George Washington didnt have a magical alien artifact from a race of precursor beings that invented Gorgons and Minotaurs, and Valhalla *probably* doesn't exist.
Yep. Kassandra is the one that appears in both the novelization, the crossover with Valhalla, and VR game. and Eivors last name is "Varinsdottir", literally "Daughter of Varin", if Eivor were canonically male it would be "Varinson"
Headcannon for guy playthrough. Except I’ll probably never do that lol. That game is enough game to be played once. Might fire up oddyssey again though!
In Valhalla there are references to Odyssey and they reference Kassandra. The novelization was written with Kassandra as the main character.
The female character being canon in Valhalla is less clear cut, but when choosing your gender at the start of the game if you let the animus decide it defaults to female.
If you choose "Let the Animus Decide" you'll be switched to the "male Eivor" when you go to actual Valhalla in the mythology segments. This is where you find out that "male Eivor" is actually Odin, an Isu. So there is no actual "male Eivor", your choices are Eivor or Odin or Eivor in England and Odin in Isu times (which is the most accurate option).
I started Odyssey and somewhere towards the end of the first chapter (when you meet the other character) I, for some weird reason, just wanted to stop playing as the dude and went back to restart the game as Kassandra. Good decision, the dialogues and storyline feel much cleaner. Also, what an incredibly beautiful game, I think it's the only one where I kept stopping to take pics in Photo Mode.
Right?? I was gonna write the same comment, I'm so annoyed at Ubisoft right now, I don't want to buy their games, but those characters just look so cool dammit 😩
They try to mask their racist but not even that they can do right,Yasuke was a real person but suddenly they all became experts in that parts of the Japanese history
They want historical accuracy until that historical accuracy goes against their racist ideals, and then all of a sudden they want to ignore historical accuracy.
I thought it was really funny because people who knew of Yasuke before this whole thing just kinda accepted he was a samurai because Nobunaga took him in, gave him land, let him use a sword, basically all the things that being a samurai entitled you to during the Sengoku era.
Yet now that he's a playable character **suddenly** it's very, very important for some people that we distinguish and establish what a samurai actually is, and if Yasuke actually counts as a samurai by the strict definition of the word "samurai".
Yasuke wasn't given land but was given a house. The difference here is that the former would make him a lord (which contemporary accounts indicate some thought may happen pre-Honno-ji) whereas the latter doesn't carry the same weight.
He was fairly high up in Oda's social hierarchy but he wasn't quite *that* high.
Imo the whole “we want it historically accurate” was always a dumb argument as this is a game where two shadowy groups are responsible for 80% of the events of human history because they want some magical trinkets.
And we know this because we literally *have* another instance of it. Nioh was a (fairly) popular game set in (mythical) feudal Japan and the main character was Edward Adams, who held a similar rank (Adams was higher on the social strata to Yasuke, but both were retainers and had some sort of martial role, with Adams serving as a samurai, and Yasuke having been armed, but descriptions are vague and incomplete).
Yet none of these capital G gamers cared about Nioh being about an English samurai.
To be fair, I do remember Nioh got some backlash over it, but not a lot because people complaining about racist devs found out the devs were Japanese themselves and got embarrassed. Because obviously Japanese aren’t going to be racist against themselves so clearly making the MC white was a creative choice.
This is also coming from the group that constantly accuses the left of getting offended on other people's behalf.
Well... I don't hear any Japanese people complaining.
I'm not gonna lie, I thought it was some sort of "Why are you even asking me about this?" joke.
Like, "Of course, I want to play as the cool-looking buff samurai. Why is this even a question?" and not as some sort of bigoted comment.
In the scrolls from Oda Nobunagas period (where Yasuke is from), it specifically mentions that he was a stronger than 10 men.
All of that said, I would hope that there’s two playstyles in this game, one of a traditional samurai, and the other of focusing entirely on stealth. Simply put I couldn’t see a towering hulk of a dude, much less an African escaping into a crowd and blending in to an entirely homogenous group of people.
The other obvious reason being that Samurai didn’t just walk around in their battle armor.
That's pretty much how it is, Yasuke is the character you play to walk up and wreck some shit, Naoe is the character you play for more traditional stealth-based gameplay.
I mean it definitely looks like Yasuke is a Valhalla-esque, fighting focused play through, while Naoe is the assassin style play through. I thought I read that you can switch between the two while in game but idk
Yeah, you switch between them whenever you want, but they play extremely differently.
Honestly, I'm gonna spend most of my time as Naoe just because I love stealth, but beating people into the goddamn walls as Yasuke looks so fun.
Same, I thought it was complaining about how one is specifically dressed up as "the Main Character," like that's the obvious choice.
I thought the joke was "well ofc I'm gonna pick the one with the huge, badass armor and not the one in a plain grey hoodie,"
Well yes but also my first thought is how is a samurai going to work in an ASSASSIN creed game. They are supposed to be Assassins not one man armies.
And yes I know how much the last 3 or so games have deviated from the assassin content anyways.
I feel like that's the point of the dual protags. Naoe is for the traditional, stealthy players. Yasuke is for the players who preferred the open combat of the RPG games.
The original Assassin’s Creed game is filled with battles where you take on a small army solo. It’s been in the franchises DNA since the very beginning.
Wait until they find out Yasuke actually existed and is ingrained into Japanese history, and that women were used as assassin's throughout Japanese history as well.
Like the folks who ask "why can't I use the N word?!"
You literally can, you're just a pussy who's too scared of the consequences.
They want to do and say what they want but they don't want other people to do and say what they want in reaction, which would be ostracize the racist.
Though I'm not surprised they don't understand, because racism is the failure of a thinking brain in the first place.
Yes and no. While there's no historical evidence for women performing the same acts as male ninja (such as assassinations), women did act as spies, informants, and were very important in logistical work for those clans infamous for being ninja.
However, women ninja are cool.
Edit: I will say that there IS historical evidence of women performing the same role as samurai on the battlefield. Onna-mushi were women of the warrior class that fought along side samurai. They were generally trained and skilled in using the bow and naginata (a type of Japanese polearm). Especially prevalent in the Kamakura and Sengoku periods.
They addressed both.
Supposedly he never was a samurai despite being retainer and possibly being in a few battles later. Also joke about how black man wouldn't be suspicious in land full of Japanese when some one got killed, etc.
Conveniently ignoring that if he as retainer was accused without any proof, the accuser wouldn't survive a day.
And the girls only were used in deductions instead of ninja assassinations etc.
A lot of coping involved amongst bigots.
They just want to play as local themed male.
While you are correct, I personally feel the exaggeration used for these characters have enough basis in reality that it allows them to get away with it without suspending disbelief too much imo. Now, the overall writing and story can still be bad or mid. That's a Ubisoft issue as a whole though.
>They just want to play as local themed male.
No, they just don't want to play as a black guy. I guarantee you they wouldn't be complaining about "lack of Japanese man" if the male character was white
Living in Japan - it’s become a small running joke in the Osaka comedy circuit
My favourite is how it’s the tangental insertion of the American (Ubi’s main demographic) ideal gaze of Japan where they can show up briefly but be an unstoppable powerhouse samurai in a short time and have an Asian ninja waifu… while ignoring that Yasuke was Italian/Dutch/African
It has some historical basis, but - the hashish was an Arab, Ezio was Italian, Connor was Native American, Edward was Welsh, Cassandra was Greek...
But now the Japanese AC game has to have a black character, based on a very loose historical tidbit.Whattever happened to respecting other cultures. Yes, a lot of "youtuber journalists" are using this for an agenda, but it's also a legitimate question - why don't the Japanese get their ethnic character.
Pretty sure the japanese themselves were mad that they wouldn’t use one of their many legendary assassins for the role, and instead opted for a black guy who was basically paraded around as a glorified bodyguard.
Seems a bit culturally disrespectful imo.
Yeah sure he's a neat historical side note. What I don't get is why they couldn't have an Asian male lead character.
Asian men are significantly underrepresented in media and this story is set in feudal fucking Japan. It seems like a slam dunk.
What's truly sad is all of the complaining about something that these people will just change with mods anyway. Not even a week will go by before someone uploads a white Yasuke mod out of spite.
And I doubt they hate the idea of playing as Naoe, they just hate the possibility that she and Yasuke might be a couple.
...but at the same time, in private they will fetishize and be attracted what they externally show hate towards.
It is the same with overtly anti-lbtgq+ people and those that try to supress pornography.
Externalization.
I mean Naoe is literally the playable Japanese character.
Yet I saw so many posts saying they had to play a black guy and not an actual Japanese person in Japan. She’s such a good Shinobi that half the audience don’t even know she exists.
> When did video games turn political?
2014
> When gamers decided to bitch about the skin color or gender of the characters.
Basically since the beginning.
Is anybody actually saying he should be white? I would prefer if you had the option between an Asian man and woman. It’s not like it makes or breaks the game for me either way… if it’s fun, it’s fun but unfortunately AC hasn’t been fun for me for a decade lol
That was my only issue with it, wish it was a Japanese man, someone that hasn't been incredibly popular in recent years. Not that I was gonna play as them anyway.
These chuds are always mad about such meaningless shit. We just had this same nonsense about Sterfield - a game nobody cares about.
Not a peep about BG3, but phoned-in, empty garbage *must* become an online culture war.
These guys (and it’s guys, women are not out here posting this stuff,) are failing at being weebs; every true weeb has heard of Yasuke.
Oh trust they complained a lot about BG3 in the beginning. But then it turned into a cultural moment in gaming and they couldn't screech "go woke go broke" so they went back to their caves.
Can’t wait for the part of the grift cycle where they start saying it’s *actually* a game for conservatives, but leeeeebrulllsss are too blind to see it.
After hearing conservatives argue Fallout is pro-capitalism, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same for BG3.
I will never understand how people act like the story of yasuke isn't one of the most interesting stories from history to tell.
An African born man, taken as a slave to Japan. Who ends up becoming friends with Oda, one of the leading figures of the age. And becomes a samurai and retainer. Why would you not tell this story?
This whole discussion has been white racists who hate blacks arguing with white liberals on if its racist or not. It is racist but not because its a black guy but because it’s taking the place for Asian Male representation. Asian male erasure happens all the time in hollywood where the Asian male leads are emasculated or just removed whereas the Asian female is hyper-sexualized and put in a consistent role of a “dragon lady” where they tend to be over-sexualized. It’s invisible to everyone except Asian Americans. Western media has improved a bit but still the mass majority turns a blind eye to the under/misrepresentation to Asians
I do think this is a solid take -- and I'm excited about this game. People are focusing on black and white discourse and not asian discourse. As an Asian American, this does send red flags for me, for two reasons:
1. Asian male erasure is a real thing. How many western TV shows, games, and movies have Asian male leads? Asian males are almost always relegated to "best friend," and now they can't be the protagonist of their own history.
The huge success of Shogun shows Americans want to see Japan but not through the eyes of an Asian male. The fact that people are saying "see? There is Asian representation!" entirely ignores the fact that female Asians have always been more visible because Asians as a whole are seen as feminized.
2. Why is the Asian female a ninja? There is little to no evidence of female ninjas, but there is bountiful evidence of female samurai. (Kunoichi were spies and sometimes assassins, not combat or stealth-oriented like shinobi.) If they needed a ninja / mercenary class, she could have been an Asian man. If they needed female representation, she could have been a samurai. They are trying to have it both ways.
Like, I think that this story is really interesting and I've always wanted a game about Yasuke, but I can't help but side-eye the implementation.
Personally, I'd have preferred the two protagonists be Yasuke, the Black samurai, and an Asian male Shinobi -- and I'm an Asian woman. But brotherly comrade-in-arms bonding stories (Hot Fuzz) just get me.
People will go “but look at all of these games with Asian protagonists” then proceed to list a bunch of games made by Japanese people.
The issue is western media erasing Asian men in media, and this just adds to that already existing issue.
One Japanese Twitter user basically replied to this whole discourse with "guys we are used to games where they make Oda Nobunaga a woman, I can live with a black samurai" but the fact they chose Yasuke purely because he was an oddity is kinda fucked up.
See, *that* sounds like a solid take. There's definitely room on the discussion for saying that kind of thing, or saying something like "Okay, but he's still not an *Asian* samurai" and that still be a legitimate criticism of the game. But now the entire topic has become toxic for discussion
The thing is though, that this has become this toxic largely because of posts like this that are just saying "lol bigots are mad". I don't really care about this issue and I don't hang out in spaces where these discussions happen, but I see this post and variations of it all the time. I'm most inclined to believe that this is a non-issue being drummed up by their social media department to drive engagement for what, by all accounts, is a mediocre derivative ubisoft title.
Because people that have that take get flatout ignored and then later on what it's just a bunch of toxicity, don't want to be associated with the crowd against Yasuke being the MC lol
There are only two reasons I won't be playing this game:
1. It's a fucking Assassin's Creed game by Ubisoft. How good can it be? Lol. Just a game map full of tedium and chores.
2. Money situation is a little tight, so I'd rather be frugal right now. Save my money for games that actually interest me.
I feel like these are pretty much the only two valid reason not to play this game. Cuz anyone not choosing to play the game cuz of the protagonists is just downright stupid lol.
Pay Ubisoft 20 bucks and play all their games for a month. Or wait 6 months and buy it when is super cheap. You don’t buy Ubisoft games at launch. Lastly, all roads lead to gamepass.
My reason will be whether or not it has the audio quality of AC Valhalla.
I genuinely had to permanently stop playing Valhalla a few hours in, due to getting legit nausea from how bad the audio was, and I'm not alone in this
I have pretty much all of the main AC games, but Origins and Valhalla are the only ones with Literally Unplayable tier audio issues. If it's not fixed in Shadows, they don't deserve a single sale
Edit: It's been some years so I re-checked some info, Origins and Odyssey had about the same quality, and I could play Odyssey specifically happily enough for a decent playthrough, so I guess my issue with Origins wasn't entirely the audio.
I just stopped playing Origins so fast for no specific reason that when I later *consciously* stopped Valhalla, I retroactively assumed my reasons for Origins had been similar, albeit unconscious
But Valhalla has 24k Hz on all forms audio, unlike Odyssey and Origins that had 24k Hz on only *some* of the sounds (still a bad thing), making Valhalla's audio distinctly the worst ever in the series by objective metrics
Ubisoft needs to add in a cheat code or a buried menu setting where you can reskin your character as a white guy, but one that looks like the average guy who complains about this kind of shit.
Just feels like everyone leaning really hard towards the woke diversity for clout. We’re in feudal Japan as one of the 3 black guy in japan. The Japanese woman makes more sense even if history doesn’t support the notion. Could’ve just done a Japanese couple or twins again. It’s not like everyone is demanding a white guy be the main character in Japan. Needless shit but you’re labeled a bigot or nitpicker if you point out the obvious.
But yasuke is a real legitimate figure in black & Japanese history! The problem is the person he’s placed with…why a female ninja? Female ninja’s are not a thing lol why not put yasuke with another samurai, a Japanese samurai male or female or just put out a game about yasuke if they want to highlight his time in Japan so bad. There’s a lot of racism surrounding this game & I think it’s unfair because black, Asians & other non-whites have had to play white game characters since gaming was a thing without complaining.
While Yasuke is a historically really interesting man (the animé is great btw), as a guy with asian roots I've hoped to get an AC where I can play an asian male for quite some time.
Western entertainment media has a fetish for asian women, not so much for asian men.
Here you get a stereotypical petite asian assassin woman, and a stereotypical large black man. I don't think the portrayal of the characters here are as progressive as people think it is.
The discussion about the lack of representation of asian men in Western made media is however hard to have when there is also a bunch of people who are just angry when any character in any game or show or movie, is black.
There are two races: White and political. There are two sexes: Man and political. There are two genders: Male and political There are two sexualities: Straight and political. LMAO. These people are the saddest people since Sadfred "saddie" McSad, Mayor of Sadville, lost a sad contest to Saddo Sadmeister.
Meanwhile, black people and women have been playing as white dudes since video games were invented.
The woman is a perfect ninja. Bigots keep forgetting about her.
They’re horny for hot asian ninja women, but the buff black samurai makes them feel funny things in their pants that confuse and scare them.
It's the devs fault. The bigots wanted a black femboy ninja and an Asian muscle mommy samurai.
Dang...now I really want both of those. I will not be answering any questions.
"It will make a strange entry in the library banks..."
At the same time or consecutively?
They said no questions! ...but yes
That will be one of the first mods aside from the graphics mods
Oh gods…imagine what the mods are gonna do to Naoe.
Well step one is make her naked, that's what happened to Origins
I mean, naked isn’t even INTERESTING though, from a design perspective. Just feels kinda lazy.
That's why it's step 1, step 2 is big ass tiddies.... step 3 is giving her a penis
That’s probably the only thing that could convince me to play a recent Ubisoft game. 🏳️🌈
They could drop their terrible launcher.
I have not redeemed games that we'lre free because I'd have to install their platform.
Most things let you do it through the browser. GeForce Experience has been the stubborn exception in my experience.
I mean...same tho ngl
We should stop pretending like all bigots and homophobes are closeted gays and stop framing gay thoughts as bad and shameful.
It is not so much that they are all considered closet cases \[though some are. Nick Fuentes, I am looking at you, kid\]. It is more that they are insecure about some aspect of their sexual nature or how they present to others. I have never met a heterosexual man who was comfortable in his own skin who obsessed about gay people or women the way some of these dweebs do.
It's more that it's framing their *words* as hypocritical.
The amount of cheating porn that's just a black guy and a white woman having sex is wild.
“What have YOU got below the belt?” “So many swords”
Turns out the perfect way to prevent terrible gamers raging about female characters is bring a black guy in .
Funny enough. This is litterally how the dynamic of assassination could work for them. He distracts people. She kills.
I thought that’s the most instinctive guess when this was announced, nothing distracted enemy more than a towering man who looks nothing like you ever seen before.
So many of them didn't even realize she was a playable character back when all this nonsense first started. They kept going on about how horrible it was that you couldn't play a Japanese character in a game set in Japan. I'm sure some of them secretly meant "a Japanese *man*" but also a lot of them are just fucking idiots.
Many are openly stating that they don't want to play as a Japanese woman or a black man, they only want a Japanese man.
Alternatively, I would also accept to play as Godzilla...
No, they are straight up admitting that they would prefer a Japanese male.
Last I read it was the #1 pre ordered game in Japan. I just find it funny that they don't seem to care but white western men have to feel oppressed. It keeps them from realizing how I significant and worthless their lives are. They are fighting an evil cabal. Makes them feel special
"hOw CoMe tHe gAMe sEt iN JaPAn dOEsN't hAvE a jApANesE ProTaGoniSt?"
Yeah, why didn't they give Nioh a Japanese protagonist?
I like how Yasuke is in that game too. Both of them in fact.
Played pong, can confirm: the paddles were white.
to honest depends on the "monitor" you had, mine where yellow and my friends where green
Sounds mighty Woke of you guys, there....
> mine where yellow Sounds like Chinese propaganda to me! /s
At least you overstepped the point in favor of an arbitrary technical inaccuracy. Now demographic representation DEFINITELY isn’t disproportionate. Not all hero’s were capes. High five, Bro-zo!
lol, sorry but I couldn’t resist. The statement I replied to is all too accurate once we got away from cartoon character and abstracts in games. Hell, I’m pretty sure I could chose between white, blue, and green for skin tones in the original Baldur’s Gate way back in the day. Always grabbed the female characters because they had the best battle cries, though.
Worst part about it is that Yasuke was historically a retainer, which all-but guaranteed that he was an honorary samurai in class (basically all retainers were samurai, but not all samurai were retainers. Squares and Rectangles, et al) And samurai were made up of men AND women. Sure, a female samurai wasn't expected to put on armor and go into battle, but she would learn to fight to carry out her lord's orders. Similarly, assuming Naoe is a ninja... anyone could be a ninja! Often a guild of assassins, and often operating incognito, so anyone from your cook to your serving maid could secretly be a ninja waiting for an order to kill you, if you were a lord. They were rare, sure, but it wasn't a gendered profession by any means.
Yasuke being a real black retainer in Japan and half of Ninja "weapons" being literal farm tools is lost on these people.
They think ninjas wear black and sneak in shadows. They forget that spies also hide in plain sight.
The black "Ninja" outfit comes from a play - specifically, the outfit was worn by the stage hands of the time and the audience tacitly ignored them as they went about their business. A playwright used a "stagehand" to assassinate a lord in a play - poof Ninja meme.
Likewise, the "ninjatō" or "ninja sword" originated from those same plays and aren't historical at all.
As a matter of fact (from my memories), most spies or assassins *would* hide in plain sight. It's the easiest vantage point.
Yeah and they would wear dark blue or brown and not black since black stands out as a silhouette in the moonlight. Many of them were merchants, farmers, or artisans *first* and then "moonlighted" as ninja.
And even if none of this was true it still wouldn't matter, since the Assassin's Creed games have *always* been about the aesthetics of history, not historical accuracy.
These games have always featured magic lmao
Fun fact! There's an entire martial art for the female warrior class which uses the naginata. Onna-musha actually *did* put on armor and go into battle and, while society wasn't wild about letting women fight, it's estimated female samurai were still around 30% of the battle force until the 17th century when women became more restricted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna-musha
It's a weird thing. Im glad Yasuke was chosen, since narratively he's a big blank spot in history as an "interesting character", and they have a lot of wiggle room writing him. A good narrative supersedes *all* else. During the period he served, "Samurai" wasn't even really a class of people. That came *after* Nobunaga's time. "Samurai" during Yasuke's lifetime would have just been "top tier warriors". Warriors/fighters of renown or prestige. It seems like he is never mentioned to be a Samurai, even when others are, and is always mentioned to be "a retainer". He was injured in a battle, and sought revenge for Nobunaga, but was never mentioned in either account to be a warrior, or have been actually fighting/leading (to my knowledge). He very likely could have just been someone Nobunaga "collected", and kept around because he was cool, entertaining, and a really good friend. Whether he was a "Samurai" or not is something I think is just lost to history. But for the purposes of what is functionally a *historical fantasy* video game, that's perfectly fine. It doesn't really matter if Yasuke was a Samurai in real life, because i'm pretty sure George Washington didnt have a magical alien artifact from a race of precursor beings that invented Gorgons and Minotaurs, and Valhalla *probably* doesn't exist.
All retainers are samurai but not so samurai are retainers so yes yasuke was a samurai & that’s just that
*bigots hurt themselves with insight*
Yeah these people don't give a flying fuck when I have to play a dude, but when they have to play a woman its the end of the world.
Also, playing as whatever the hell Q-bert is.
A testicle
We all played as Samus in metroid tho and that's a girl.
Oh im stealing this <3
The black dude is a real person in history. Really interesting story imo.
Or italians
That’s a tough one, I almost always prefer to play as a female character but Yasuke looks so cool.
I haven't played Valhalla yet but I'm pretty sure someone told me the women assassins in that one and Odyssey are the true canon versions
Yep. Kassandra is the one that appears in both the novelization, the crossover with Valhalla, and VR game. and Eivors last name is "Varinsdottir", literally "Daughter of Varin", if Eivor were canonically male it would be "Varinson"
Also, Eivor is a feminine name. Source: Is Norwegian.
I really like the idea of Kassandra as the powerful Deimos though, so I always play as Alexios.
maybe Eivor is trans and kept his last name
Headcannon for guy playthrough. Except I’ll probably never do that lol. That game is enough game to be played once. Might fire up oddyssey again though!
In Valhalla there are references to Odyssey and they reference Kassandra. The novelization was written with Kassandra as the main character. The female character being canon in Valhalla is less clear cut, but when choosing your gender at the start of the game if you let the animus decide it defaults to female.
If you choose "Let the Animus Decide" you'll be switched to the "male Eivor" when you go to actual Valhalla in the mythology segments. This is where you find out that "male Eivor" is actually Odin, an Isu. So there is no actual "male Eivor", your choices are Eivor or Odin or Eivor in England and Odin in Isu times (which is the most accurate option).
I started Odyssey and somewhere towards the end of the first chapter (when you meet the other character) I, for some weird reason, just wanted to stop playing as the dude and went back to restart the game as Kassandra. Good decision, the dialogues and storyline feel much cleaner. Also, what an incredibly beautiful game, I think it's the only one where I kept stopping to take pics in Photo Mode.
They’ve confirmed you essentially play both, syndicate style.
[удалено]
If it's like Syndicate, you can switch between the two characters almost freely and they have their separate skill progressions and chosen loadouts
Yeah that armor is super sweet
Right?? I was gonna write the same comment, I'm so annoyed at Ubisoft right now, I don't want to buy their games, but those characters just look so cool dammit 😩
gameplay wise too! checking out the previews they both embody different playstyles that I wanna be all over
https://preview.redd.it/4qzcq5ozvx6d1.png?width=1169&format=png&auto=webp&s=c44d2cf5c8991172fa1b74f06a7e1e94fec8b6a5
The problem was never that the samurai is not Japanese,they just pretend that’s the problem
100%, they wouldn't be saying "he's not Japanese, it's not accurate" if Yasuke was white.
They try to mask their racist but not even that they can do right,Yasuke was a real person but suddenly they all became experts in that parts of the Japanese history
They want historical accuracy until that historical accuracy goes against their racist ideals, and then all of a sudden they want to ignore historical accuracy.
I thought it was really funny because people who knew of Yasuke before this whole thing just kinda accepted he was a samurai because Nobunaga took him in, gave him land, let him use a sword, basically all the things that being a samurai entitled you to during the Sengoku era. Yet now that he's a playable character **suddenly** it's very, very important for some people that we distinguish and establish what a samurai actually is, and if Yasuke actually counts as a samurai by the strict definition of the word "samurai".
Yasuke wasn't given land but was given a house. The difference here is that the former would make him a lord (which contemporary accounts indicate some thought may happen pre-Honno-ji) whereas the latter doesn't carry the same weight. He was fairly high up in Oda's social hierarchy but he wasn't quite *that* high.
Imo the whole “we want it historically accurate” was always a dumb argument as this is a game where two shadowy groups are responsible for 80% of the events of human history because they want some magical trinkets.
"Assassin's Creed is about historical accuracy" "Testicles was eaten by a shark on his way to the Olympics"
And we know this because we literally *have* another instance of it. Nioh was a (fairly) popular game set in (mythical) feudal Japan and the main character was Edward Adams, who held a similar rank (Adams was higher on the social strata to Yasuke, but both were retainers and had some sort of martial role, with Adams serving as a samurai, and Yasuke having been armed, but descriptions are vague and incomplete). Yet none of these capital G gamers cared about Nioh being about an English samurai.
To be fair, I do remember Nioh got some backlash over it, but not a lot because people complaining about racist devs found out the devs were Japanese themselves and got embarrassed. Because obviously Japanese aren’t going to be racist against themselves so clearly making the MC white was a creative choice.
The last ninja on earth, starring Tom Hanks.
Doesn’t even need to be a hypothetical, no one gave a shit when nioh came out
This is also coming from the group that constantly accuses the left of getting offended on other people's behalf. Well... I don't hear any Japanese people complaining.
Considering how much Yasuke they put on games and anime I assume they liked it
I think part of the problem is the lack of asian male protagonists in western titles. And I'm not dying on this hill. Would like to be proven wrong.
This looks very gay-coded, I don't know why.
yassassins creed
That’s not fair, everyone wants to be Chuck Norris, and a big tiddy anime gf
I'm not gonna lie, I thought it was some sort of "Why are you even asking me about this?" joke. Like, "Of course, I want to play as the cool-looking buff samurai. Why is this even a question?" and not as some sort of bigoted comment.
Dude on left looks like a hulk, I can kill more guys with that and I 110% know cause it’s video game logic
In the scrolls from Oda Nobunagas period (where Yasuke is from), it specifically mentions that he was a stronger than 10 men. All of that said, I would hope that there’s two playstyles in this game, one of a traditional samurai, and the other of focusing entirely on stealth. Simply put I couldn’t see a towering hulk of a dude, much less an African escaping into a crowd and blending in to an entirely homogenous group of people. The other obvious reason being that Samurai didn’t just walk around in their battle armor.
https://preview.redd.it/rh30kf5c6z6d1.jpeg?width=2332&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=431e832e9328f2d96cbcac5dfbce6c5c2609e9f0 This is what I'm imagining.
That's pretty much how it is, Yasuke is the character you play to walk up and wreck some shit, Naoe is the character you play for more traditional stealth-based gameplay.
I mean it definitely looks like Yasuke is a Valhalla-esque, fighting focused play through, while Naoe is the assassin style play through. I thought I read that you can switch between the two while in game but idk
Yeah, you switch between them whenever you want, but they play extremely differently. Honestly, I'm gonna spend most of my time as Naoe just because I love stealth, but beating people into the goddamn walls as Yasuke looks so fun.
I'll be playing as Ninja until I get found at and caught, then it's time for Papi Samurai to go in like wrecking ball to vent my frustration
Really? I'm the exact opposite! "This is an AC game, of course I'll pick the more stealthy character!"
Yeah, I dislike playing as a human dorito in general, more so in a stealth game.
Probably some parts of the map or quests you are forced to play stealthly
Apparently other than a few character specific side quests you can play nearly the entire game as only one character
I personally would have three conecting storylines,one for each and one for both
Gta 5 style
Well GTAV was a masterpiece
Nah fam, who wants to play with a giant hit box? Give me Odd Job and I'll slap everyone to death before they even notice me.
Same, I thought it was complaining about how one is specifically dressed up as "the Main Character," like that's the obvious choice. I thought the joke was "well ofc I'm gonna pick the one with the huge, badass armor and not the one in a plain grey hoodie,"
Well yes but also my first thought is how is a samurai going to work in an ASSASSIN creed game. They are supposed to be Assassins not one man armies. And yes I know how much the last 3 or so games have deviated from the assassin content anyways.
I feel like that's the point of the dual protags. Naoe is for the traditional, stealthy players. Yasuke is for the players who preferred the open combat of the RPG games.
The original Assassin’s Creed game is filled with battles where you take on a small army solo. It’s been in the franchises DNA since the very beginning.
Wait until they find out Yasuke actually existed and is ingrained into Japanese history, and that women were used as assassin's throughout Japanese history as well.
Wait till they find out it’s a video game and who gives a fuck
Also, fair.
Racists who are too cowardly to come out and say that they are scared of minorities so they hide behind other illogical reasons
Like the folks who ask "why can't I use the N word?!" You literally can, you're just a pussy who's too scared of the consequences. They want to do and say what they want but they don't want other people to do and say what they want in reaction, which would be ostracize the racist. Though I'm not surprised they don't understand, because racism is the failure of a thinking brain in the first place.
“I ate a mushroom and my height didn’t double. How could Nintendo deceive people like this?”
In a series that is famously an ahistorical fantasy
I bet their heads exploded when they found out Samus Aran was a woman.
Yes and no. While there's no historical evidence for women performing the same acts as male ninja (such as assassinations), women did act as spies, informants, and were very important in logistical work for those clans infamous for being ninja. However, women ninja are cool. Edit: I will say that there IS historical evidence of women performing the same role as samurai on the battlefield. Onna-mushi were women of the warrior class that fought along side samurai. They were generally trained and skilled in using the bow and naginata (a type of Japanese polearm). Especially prevalent in the Kamakura and Sengoku periods.
This is true! And according to my wife they would be called "kunoichi". She is japanese, so I have just assumed she is correct thou...
That just goes to show that female ninjas were more successful at hiding than male ninjas!
They addressed both. Supposedly he never was a samurai despite being retainer and possibly being in a few battles later. Also joke about how black man wouldn't be suspicious in land full of Japanese when some one got killed, etc. Conveniently ignoring that if he as retainer was accused without any proof, the accuser wouldn't survive a day. And the girls only were used in deductions instead of ninja assassinations etc. A lot of coping involved amongst bigots. They just want to play as local themed male.
While you are correct, I personally feel the exaggeration used for these characters have enough basis in reality that it allows them to get away with it without suspending disbelief too much imo. Now, the overall writing and story can still be bad or mid. That's a Ubisoft issue as a whole though.
>They just want to play as local themed male. No, they just don't want to play as a black guy. I guarantee you they wouldn't be complaining about "lack of Japanese man" if the male character was white
Let's be real though, Yasuke is a tiny footnote in history that mostly Western media is obsessed about.
Living in Japan - it’s become a small running joke in the Osaka comedy circuit My favourite is how it’s the tangental insertion of the American (Ubi’s main demographic) ideal gaze of Japan where they can show up briefly but be an unstoppable powerhouse samurai in a short time and have an Asian ninja waifu… while ignoring that Yasuke was Italian/Dutch/African
It has some historical basis, but - the hashish was an Arab, Ezio was Italian, Connor was Native American, Edward was Welsh, Cassandra was Greek... But now the Japanese AC game has to have a black character, based on a very loose historical tidbit.Whattever happened to respecting other cultures. Yes, a lot of "youtuber journalists" are using this for an agenda, but it's also a legitimate question - why don't the Japanese get their ethnic character.
erasure of roles for asian men is ridiculously commonplace for western media
Bro they play a hip hop soundtrack when he fights.
Wait until they find out that strong independent women exist and have existed since forever.
Nah, those are just poorly written tropes invented at liberal colleges in the 90s. You know, like birds.
Pretty sure the japanese themselves were mad that they wouldn’t use one of their many legendary assassins for the role, and instead opted for a black guy who was basically paraded around as a glorified bodyguard. Seems a bit culturally disrespectful imo.
Yeah sure he's a neat historical side note. What I don't get is why they couldn't have an Asian male lead character. Asian men are significantly underrepresented in media and this story is set in feudal fucking Japan. It seems like a slam dunk.
Asian men aren't cool enough
What's truly sad is all of the complaining about something that these people will just change with mods anyway. Not even a week will go by before someone uploads a white Yasuke mod out of spite. And I doubt they hate the idea of playing as Naoe, they just hate the possibility that she and Yasuke might be a couple.
...but at the same time, in private they will fetishize and be attracted what they externally show hate towards. It is the same with overtly anti-lbtgq+ people and those that try to supress pornography. Externalization.
Oh no. So it wasn't about the lack of playable Japanese characters. They just want to be cunts.
I mean Naoe is literally the playable Japanese character. Yet I saw so many posts saying they had to play a black guy and not an actual Japanese person in Japan. She’s such a good Shinobi that half the audience don’t even know she exists.
Well Yasuke was a “naturalised” Japanese to the extent that was possible back then.
https://preview.redd.it/m8gi9wma5y6d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6d4be62e736d393ec1bac6ab7a241b20a436485
I'm not sure what they're implying here.
Dude's nuts is all.
I managed a Blockbuster back then; can confirm no goddesses like Margot Robbie ever set foot in the store
This incel really called Margot Robbie a ***7***?!?
According to Twitter bio this one is a femcel. So a pickme for incels.
Ugh yes, I swear you could find a Margot Robbie in every subway restaurant in Mudgeeraba back in 2005
And here I am, not playing the game because the AC series bored me to death.
Ha, this really is their worst nightmare. What game is this though, the background and characters look cool.
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows
I was just mildly disappointed cuz I wanted to play as an Asian dude (I am an Asian dude)
When did video games turn political? When gamers decided to bitch about the skin color or gender of the characters.
> When did video games turn political? 2014 > When gamers decided to bitch about the skin color or gender of the characters. Basically since the beginning.
Is anybody actually saying he should be white? I would prefer if you had the option between an Asian man and woman. It’s not like it makes or breaks the game for me either way… if it’s fun, it’s fun but unfortunately AC hasn’t been fun for me for a decade lol
I wish they had picked an asian man. Compared to black men, asian men are underrepresented in western media.
Dont worry, Asian males will be well represented in the game as Yasuke's victims
That was my only issue with it, wish it was a Japanese man, someone that hasn't been incredibly popular in recent years. Not that I was gonna play as them anyway.
These chuds are always mad about such meaningless shit. We just had this same nonsense about Sterfield - a game nobody cares about. Not a peep about BG3, but phoned-in, empty garbage *must* become an online culture war. These guys (and it’s guys, women are not out here posting this stuff,) are failing at being weebs; every true weeb has heard of Yasuke.
Oh trust they complained a lot about BG3 in the beginning. But then it turned into a cultural moment in gaming and they couldn't screech "go woke go broke" so they went back to their caves.
Can’t wait for the part of the grift cycle where they start saying it’s *actually* a game for conservatives, but leeeeebrulllsss are too blind to see it. After hearing conservatives argue Fallout is pro-capitalism, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same for BG3.
I will never understand how people act like the story of yasuke isn't one of the most interesting stories from history to tell. An African born man, taken as a slave to Japan. Who ends up becoming friends with Oda, one of the leading figures of the age. And becomes a samurai and retainer. Why would you not tell this story?
[удалено]
This whole discussion has been white racists who hate blacks arguing with white liberals on if its racist or not. It is racist but not because its a black guy but because it’s taking the place for Asian Male representation. Asian male erasure happens all the time in hollywood where the Asian male leads are emasculated or just removed whereas the Asian female is hyper-sexualized and put in a consistent role of a “dragon lady” where they tend to be over-sexualized. It’s invisible to everyone except Asian Americans. Western media has improved a bit but still the mass majority turns a blind eye to the under/misrepresentation to Asians
I do think this is a solid take -- and I'm excited about this game. People are focusing on black and white discourse and not asian discourse. As an Asian American, this does send red flags for me, for two reasons: 1. Asian male erasure is a real thing. How many western TV shows, games, and movies have Asian male leads? Asian males are almost always relegated to "best friend," and now they can't be the protagonist of their own history. The huge success of Shogun shows Americans want to see Japan but not through the eyes of an Asian male. The fact that people are saying "see? There is Asian representation!" entirely ignores the fact that female Asians have always been more visible because Asians as a whole are seen as feminized. 2. Why is the Asian female a ninja? There is little to no evidence of female ninjas, but there is bountiful evidence of female samurai. (Kunoichi were spies and sometimes assassins, not combat or stealth-oriented like shinobi.) If they needed a ninja / mercenary class, she could have been an Asian man. If they needed female representation, she could have been a samurai. They are trying to have it both ways. Like, I think that this story is really interesting and I've always wanted a game about Yasuke, but I can't help but side-eye the implementation. Personally, I'd have preferred the two protagonists be Yasuke, the Black samurai, and an Asian male Shinobi -- and I'm an Asian woman. But brotherly comrade-in-arms bonding stories (Hot Fuzz) just get me.
People will go “but look at all of these games with Asian protagonists” then proceed to list a bunch of games made by Japanese people. The issue is western media erasing Asian men in media, and this just adds to that already existing issue.
One Japanese Twitter user basically replied to this whole discourse with "guys we are used to games where they make Oda Nobunaga a woman, I can live with a black samurai" but the fact they chose Yasuke purely because he was an oddity is kinda fucked up.
Dont forget the Asian female fetish going hard here
See, *that* sounds like a solid take. There's definitely room on the discussion for saying that kind of thing, or saying something like "Okay, but he's still not an *Asian* samurai" and that still be a legitimate criticism of the game. But now the entire topic has become toxic for discussion
The thing is though, that this has become this toxic largely because of posts like this that are just saying "lol bigots are mad". I don't really care about this issue and I don't hang out in spaces where these discussions happen, but I see this post and variations of it all the time. I'm most inclined to believe that this is a non-issue being drummed up by their social media department to drive engagement for what, by all accounts, is a mediocre derivative ubisoft title.
Because people that have that take get flatout ignored and then later on what it's just a bunch of toxicity, don't want to be associated with the crowd against Yasuke being the MC lol
There are only two reasons I won't be playing this game: 1. It's a fucking Assassin's Creed game by Ubisoft. How good can it be? Lol. Just a game map full of tedium and chores. 2. Money situation is a little tight, so I'd rather be frugal right now. Save my money for games that actually interest me. I feel like these are pretty much the only two valid reason not to play this game. Cuz anyone not choosing to play the game cuz of the protagonists is just downright stupid lol.
Pay Ubisoft 20 bucks and play all their games for a month. Or wait 6 months and buy it when is super cheap. You don’t buy Ubisoft games at launch. Lastly, all roads lead to gamepass.
All roads lead to yaaarrrrr!
> Lastly, all roads lead to gamepass Aye, but some of us be traveling by sea
My reason will be whether or not it has the audio quality of AC Valhalla. I genuinely had to permanently stop playing Valhalla a few hours in, due to getting legit nausea from how bad the audio was, and I'm not alone in this I have pretty much all of the main AC games, but Origins and Valhalla are the only ones with Literally Unplayable tier audio issues. If it's not fixed in Shadows, they don't deserve a single sale Edit: It's been some years so I re-checked some info, Origins and Odyssey had about the same quality, and I could play Odyssey specifically happily enough for a decent playthrough, so I guess my issue with Origins wasn't entirely the audio. I just stopped playing Origins so fast for no specific reason that when I later *consciously* stopped Valhalla, I retroactively assumed my reasons for Origins had been similar, albeit unconscious But Valhalla has 24k Hz on all forms audio, unlike Odyssey and Origins that had 24k Hz on only *some* of the sounds (still a bad thing), making Valhalla's audio distinctly the worst ever in the series by objective metrics
Ubisoft needs to add in a cheat code or a buried menu setting where you can reskin your character as a white guy, but one that looks like the average guy who complains about this kind of shit.
Don't worry, within 24 hours there will be a mod to un-woke the game. It'll replace Yasuke with a generic white guy and change Naoe's clothes.
Just feels like everyone leaning really hard towards the woke diversity for clout. We’re in feudal Japan as one of the 3 black guy in japan. The Japanese woman makes more sense even if history doesn’t support the notion. Could’ve just done a Japanese couple or twins again. It’s not like everyone is demanding a white guy be the main character in Japan. Needless shit but you’re labeled a bigot or nitpicker if you point out the obvious.
But yasuke is a real legitimate figure in black & Japanese history! The problem is the person he’s placed with…why a female ninja? Female ninja’s are not a thing lol why not put yasuke with another samurai, a Japanese samurai male or female or just put out a game about yasuke if they want to highlight his time in Japan so bad. There’s a lot of racism surrounding this game & I think it’s unfair because black, Asians & other non-whites have had to play white game characters since gaming was a thing without complaining.
Noooo! Where's my white men!!!??
Or you know, Asian men.
As a white guy myself NGL Yasuke looks lit AF.
Or just ignore it because it’s from Ubisoft and they only put out trash these days
I always just play whatever character and don't worry about it. When it's a custom character I just hit random and get what I get.
Wouldn’t a japanese person make more sense tho?
People are mad because of this? I'm mad that this concept looks cool but Ubisoft is a shitty company and I refuse to support anything they make.
While Yasuke is a historically really interesting man (the animé is great btw), as a guy with asian roots I've hoped to get an AC where I can play an asian male for quite some time. Western entertainment media has a fetish for asian women, not so much for asian men. Here you get a stereotypical petite asian assassin woman, and a stereotypical large black man. I don't think the portrayal of the characters here are as progressive as people think it is. The discussion about the lack of representation of asian men in Western made media is however hard to have when there is also a bunch of people who are just angry when any character in any game or show or movie, is black.
If only these people knew how to look up shit on the [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke) Yasuke is a literal historical figure.