Wednesday, March 12th 2025
Ubisoft Releases Assassin's Creed Shadows' Cinematic CGI Launch Trailer
Assassin's Creed Shadows is just around the corner, launching on March 20 for Steam. To celebrate, the team released a new CGI trailer teasing Naoe and Yasuke's motivations on their journey through feudal Japan. Check it out below. Wishlist Assassin's Creed Shadows or pre-purchase it today! Everyone who pre-purchases the game will receive free bonus content, including the Thrown to the Dogs quest at launch, and the Claws of Awaji expansion when it releases later this year. You can also check all our recent Steam news, including more details about the Steam achievements and badges + trading cards available day one!
ENTER FEUDAL JAPAN
Explore the captivating open world of feudal Japan, from spectacular castle towns and bustling ports to peaceful shrines and war-ravaged landscapes. Adventure through unpredictable weather, changing seasons, and reactive environments. Become Naoe, a shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a legendary samurai, as you experience their riveting stories and master their complementary playstyles. As Naoe, use stealth to avoid detection and agility to confound your enemies. As Yasuke, strike your foes with lethal precision and power.
Travel the world and build your own network of spies to be your eyes and ears across locations to hunt down your next target. Along the way, recruit new allies with unique abilities to help accomplish your missions.
Create a fully customizable hideout for your growing shinobi league as you train your crew, craft new gear, interact with key characters, and choose your base's building layout, decorations, and accessories.
Source:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Steam Profile
ENTER FEUDAL JAPAN
Explore the captivating open world of feudal Japan, from spectacular castle towns and bustling ports to peaceful shrines and war-ravaged landscapes. Adventure through unpredictable weather, changing seasons, and reactive environments. Become Naoe, a shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a legendary samurai, as you experience their riveting stories and master their complementary playstyles. As Naoe, use stealth to avoid detection and agility to confound your enemies. As Yasuke, strike your foes with lethal precision and power.
Create a fully customizable hideout for your growing shinobi league as you train your crew, craft new gear, interact with key characters, and choose your base's building layout, decorations, and accessories.
25 Comments on Ubisoft Releases Assassin's Creed Shadows' Cinematic CGI Launch Trailer
I'd love to be able to read Lockley's primary sources because I can't get rid of the impression that the whole black samurai thing stinks to high heaven, even if the definition of "samurai" was rather flexible at the time and there is no question there was a black dude around Nobunaga.
Woman samurai is fine (like Mulan, can pose as man and player later may learn he/she plays a woman actually).
An Arabic/Hindu/African (man or woman) for shinobi/ninja is also fine (since these could be "imported" from mainland with some slave history background).
But an African samurai, in one of the most rigid political systems for getting this type of title ?!
At least you could have make it believable guys...
Please stop rewriting history to be "more politically correct" in current times.
EDIT : OR Ubisoft simply can't make a good game without controversy to spin marketing machine up.
Which is very sad, and I hope it fails miserably in the sales department if that's the case.
I disliked the video just because i hate Ubisoft.
Exec #1: "Ghost of Tsushima did us a number so AC:S sales predictions are not looking good. Any ideas?"
Exec #2: "..."
Exec #3: "..."
Exec #4: "..."
Exec #5: "..."
Exec #1: "Come on! No one?"
Exec #4: "How about Yasuke as the male prot?"
Exec #1: "Who?"
Exec #4: "Yasuke. The Black Samurai."
Exec #2: "A black samurai?"
Exec #4: "Yes. It's a historic character. There is even an animated series on Netflix that got very good reviews."
Exec #2: "It would boost our DEI score for sure! Could even bring in some new demographics."
Exec #1: "Ok. Any one else?"
Exec #2: "..."
Exec #3: "..."
Exec #4: "..."
Exec #5: "..."
Exec #1: "Very well. Let's go with the black samurai."
Exec #3: "I don't know. ACs are stealth games. A black dude in warring states Japan would stick out like a sore thumb. Like that Trevor Noah sketch about Bond."
Exec #5: "ACs are games after all. We can downplay the effect."
Exec #3: "We can, we've always tried to make AC as historically accurate as possible."
Exec #4: "But Yasuke is a historic character."
Exec #3: "..."
Exec #1: "Then that's it!"
They pat themselves in the back and go collect their bonuses and then the announcement goes out:
Exec #1: "Oh, shit!"
Exec #2: "Oh, shit!"
Exec #3: "..."
Exec #4: "Oh, shit!"
Exec #5: "Can we just apologize and restore the native male prot?"
Exec #1: "No."
Exec #2: "That'll make it worse."
Exec #3: "Nop."
Exec #4: "No way!"
Exec #1: "We're fucked!"
Exec #2: "Yeah."
Exec #3: "Big time."
Exec #4: "Sideways."
Exec #5: "Oh, well. It was good while it lasted."
:roll:
As far as a black person in feudal japan? All true.
Please take your time to read the links and delve further into the Japanese accounts.
www.britannica.com/biography/YasukeThere was a book written by a Japanese author in 1969 which featured Yasuke:
yasuke-san.com/the-japanese-childrens-book-on-yasuke-%E5%BC%A5%E5%8A%A9/-----------
It'd also be great if people dropped the historical reality of AC games as the defence for attacking Ubisoft. FFS, you get to inhabit the soul of a bird and see through it's eyes. In one of the games, you fight Ares (which definitely didn't happen that way in real life). There are tons of examples that demonstrate the AC games are make believe based on real timelines, and in this timeline of feudal Japan, there was an african bodyguard present. So why not imagine - 'what if' they became a Samurai? -----------
I'll not defend the game itself because it's another AC game which, to me, looks lame and dull. Protracted stealth and nothing original to offer. I could be wrong, but I doubt it, and I won't be buying it. Thief and Dishonoured spoiled me for the stealth genre. Nothing else has ever come close for me.
At its core its not about whether or not its possible or 'not unusual'. Its about whether we like what we see. Its the impression of the full package that counts. Developers can do all kinds of weird shit in games. We tend to like that, if it doesn't feel out of place. Things need to make sense, or be so mystical that you want to discover the sense behind it. Shadows fails on both counts.
People clearly overwhelmingly don't like the package on offer. It feels forced, out of place, and just utterly ridiculous overall. Its trying to mix with modern day fashion to 'be something more' and fails miserably at it. And its undeniable there is a corporate non-gaming influence, the game's cast looks frighteningly similar to the umpteen other games that are supposed to tick all the corporate boxes these days. It stinks, and I smell it from miles away, and is an instant-no-buy.
Its not an immersive, interesting setting they chose; the protagonist placed as it is, is a complete shitshow that reeks of a company that is completely out of good ideas and instead guided by KPIs. Forget history or the problem with historical accuracy. Its just gutter trash.I certainly hope so.
PM me if you want to speak more about this - it's a thread derailer.
Yes, that implies that Assasin's creed isn't about mandatory stealth anymore.
Another thing, there's also no historical evidence that women were ninjas. So both characters "shouldn't exist", and both of them should be getting flamed for being inaccurate :D
Look at this trailer. The two main characters are finishing each other's sentences like a married couple from a sitcom... sentences built up out of buzzword oneliners, that say absolutely nothing. Broken English that fails to sound Japanese and instead feels like Yasuke swallowed an apple whole before voicing it. Nonsense about hope, (for what?!) and other quasi emotional nonsense. I think I need a shower now. Yuck... its that implication of something deeper going on that it wants to convey, while so clearly not having a single thing on offer when doing so. Weird, man.
I agree on other comments about AC being end of life a while ago. The plot lost any grip on tight-writing way back. It was atrocious in whichever one had the crazy (was it Odyssey?) Izu/Atlantis place. And the bizarre puzzles in Valhalla that relate to the sci-fi tech just clash so badly. It worked in the first one as it was pretending to experience or relive life as an Assassin through the Animus that was basically a high level VR device. But when they strayed from that concept, it got really fucking silly.
Same way I didn't bother with the last two Far Cry games. Old formula is shit and tired.
The previous TPU post about AC comes with a video. Watch it from 5:13 when the commentator says "'But, Simon!' I hear some of you say." to get your fill of Yasuke's stealth and keep watching only if you don't have anything better to do.
www.techpowerup.com/333867/ubisoft-compares-assassins-creed-shadows-protagonists-in-20-minute-gameplay-previewNo, there is not, but remove remove the AC regalia from the female and dress her in "normal" clothes and no one would bat an eye in the setting, she'd be just one more face in the crowd which is 90% of what stealth and infiltration are about.
On the other hand you have a big black dude in a country where not only there are no other big black dudes but where no one has ever even see a black person before. His presence will make a wave wherever he goes which is a freaking death sentence for him and anyone around him if their enemies have any kind of functioning brain and that's what makes it hard for me to suspend my disbelief.
EDIT: Forgot to mention Trevor Noah is not the first one to joke about it.
Jokes/comments/8jblhz
That version of the joke is a bit different from the one I heard many, many years ago. The one I heard goes something like this:The joke is not about the man and it's not racial, it's about the blindness and stupidity of the organization.
Irony there being, of course, that black people were absolutely not an impossible sight in Soviet Union. Not widespread, granted, but due to the Comintern and “friendly” relations with a lot of African countries seeing a black exchange student or cadet in Moscow or Saint-Petersburg was far from unfathomable. And it’s the same way to this day. A black person speaking Russian wouldn’t really be anything more than a novelty to the passersby at most.
assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/The_Creed#Hide_in_plain_sight
But then again stealth action games have a more limited market so Ubi made them open-world and more action than stealth and RPG and also added the usual Ubi grind. I enjoyed Revelations a lot but everything since then has been getting more generic and repetitive so I stopped playing AC after Black Flag.