One of the playable characters in Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be an African samurai named Yasuke. Elon Musk made questionable comments about the character, which prompted a reaction from one of Ubisoft developers.
On May 24, the CEO of X (formerly Twitter) responded to a thread about diversity in gaming. The author claimed Ubisoft is under heavy backlash “over the game’s [Assassin’s Creed Shadows] injection of DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion],” and that it’s “so thoroughly woke that it features a black gay protagonist.” In response, Musk said “DEI kills art,” which led to Ubisoft speaking out.
In an interview with Game File on June 13 (via GamesRadar), the vice president and executive producer for the Assassin’s Creed series, Marc-Alexis Côté, responded to Musk’s comments. During the conversation, one of the questions asked was about Musk’s tweet about DEI in gaming and specifically Shadows, and Côté didn’t hold back in his response.
“That tweet generated emotions, that… the first thing I wanted to do was go back on X—that I had deleted—and just tweet back. And I just took a step back” Côté said.
The developer also said Musk is “feeding hatred,” with these type of tweets. “I had a lot of three-word replies that came to mind. By attacking someone like Elon… I will not convince people about our point of view as a team,” Côté added.
The main reason behind the players’ discussion about DEI and direction is Yasuke’s role in the game. He’s expected to be a samurai in the upcoming title, while historically, that hasn’t been confirmed to be true.
Yasuke is a historical figure who served the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga between 1581 and 1582. He was of African origin, but many details about his life remain unknown, including whether he became a samurai or not. That said, Assassin’s Creed has always been inspired by history but not historically accurate—unless the final events of Assassin’s Creed 2 where Ezio fistfights the Pope really did happen.
