Assassin's Creed Head describes Shadows' marketing as a "battle" over ideology.

Ubisoft head Yves Guillemot gave an impassioned presentation that aired during Paris Games Week. The video, which came as a surprise to many, laid out the company's story about the outrage during Assassin's Creed Shadows' pre-release marketing cycle.

“What happens when a legendary franchise unveils one of its most anticipated experiences?” the narrator asks (recorded in game files). “To become the game everyone hates? When the conversation turns from gameplay to ideology? When all you say is just adding fuel to the fire?”

Before Shadows was finally released successfully, the game was delayed twice and caught up in a culture war of sorts. The game's two main characters, a Japanese woman and an African man, sparked public commentary about forced diversity. These silly conversations seemed to ignore the fact that Yasuke was an actual historical figure.

Another major talking point was a video showing a player destroying a shrine in an early build of Shadows. The video was controversial in Japan, and Ubisoft removed the shrine destruction feature from the full release of Shadows.

Is it a big battle or something?

Naoe and her father in Assassin's Creed: Shadows.

“September 2024, we were with our backs against the wall and that’s when it clicked,” the video continues. “To get out of the corner, we had to stop focusing on the people who hate us. We had to start firing on our allies. So we stopped trying to win arguments and leaned on the Assassin's Creed brand, the brand that has guided us for 18 years.”

Part of this strategy was to release comprehensive pre-launch content for game features including stealth, combat, and progression. According to Guillemot, the strategy was to show that Shadows was a video game, not a cultural message.

“The fans are back, the conversation is starting to change, and everyone who makes, plays, and loves this game can be proud again. Together with our peers, we've found confidence again – to stand up, take risks, and speak out, even in the face of our biggest haters.”

“At first I was surprised by the scope of the attack,” Guillemot said after the video, “and I quickly realized that it was a battle with the fans, a battle to show that we were actually closer to a video game than a message.” He believes fans are caught between 'I want to play games, but what I care about is self-expression in games' and 'There's a cultural message in video games.'

The belief that players want their games to be apolitical and devoid of cultural commentary is not a lesson I took from the success of Assassin's Creed Shadows, but it's a shame. It was recently reported that Ubisoft canceled Assassin's Creed, which pits the escaped slave protagonist against the Ku Klux Klan, for fear of political backlash.