Gamer's World | Assassin's Creed Shadows is Out, So What Do Gamers Think?

Assassin's Creed Shadows has sparked a heated debate over its portrayal of Japanese history. Critics label it as cultural appropriation or worse. Others defend its creative liberties, while some take a more nuanced stance. The author shares his perspective after the game's release on March 20. Follow our ongoing coverage.

Reporting the Controversy

You can't keep a good assassin down. I wrote in the summer of 2024 about the controversial reaction to Assassin's Creed Shadows, the latest in Ubisoft's popular AC series and the first to be set in feudal Japan.

Now that the game has been released, it's clearer than ever that the controversy was a storm in a teacup. Most real gamers didn't even notice it.

Backlash Explained

Since the first announcement that one of the game's dual protagonists would be a fictionalized version of Yasuke, a real-life African retainer in the court of Sengoku Period daimyo Oda Nobunaga and portrayed here as a samurai, the internet has been ablaze with naysayers. The loudest of them seem to be anti-DEI campaigners simply using a popular game series to generate controversy.

Some were upset because there was little evidence to prove the real Yasuke was a samurai. Others complained that although the game is set in Japan, it forces you to play as a black man. (The second protagonist, Naoe, is Japanese – but she's a woman, which to these people is equally unappealing.)

These thinly veiled arguments were clearly rooted in racism and misogyny, couched behind wafer-thin arguments against DEI or whatever it is that rubs these delicate post-Gamergate keyboard warriors the wrong way.

Others cited inaccuracies in the Western developer's portrayal of Japan, from oddly shaped tatami mats to the wrong kind of fruit. One bizarrely obsessed Twitter user relentlessly hounded the game over several weeks in a series of tweets for featuring out-of-season watermelons.

These are of course mistakes that detract from the game's authenticity. However, bear in mind that blue-check X users like this are encouraged to double down on divisive opinions in pursuit of ad revenue.

Creative License in Videogames

Is Shadows a perfect recreation of Sengoku Period Japan? Of course not — it's a videogame. In the fiction of Assassin's Creed, the player has been sent back from a futuristic society via a simulation called the Animus to explore the DNA memories of their ancestors, couching the whole thing in massive parenthesis. It's not a documentary, it's historical fiction. This series has previously allowed players to fist-fight the Pope — seasonally accurate fruit is hardly its biggest concern.

Instead, Shadows has been widely praised by reviewers for nailing the atmosphere of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period, the final phase of the Sengoku Period, and for its stunning depiction of the environment of Japan.

From rugged mountains and thick forests that change dramatically with the seasons to intricate castles, temples, and towns, IGN Japan's reviewer was full of praise for this version of Japan. They noted that it felt more grounded in reality than the more extravagant portrayal in Sony's 2020 game Ghost of Tsushima.

Yes, some elements are exaggerated by Ubisoft Quebec's developers. This is just like how Kamurocho is an exaggerated version of Tokyo's Kabukicho in the Like a Dragon series made by Sega in Japan. But it's a pretty damn gorgeous game to explore.

Strong Commercial Success

Indeed, now that Shadows is out, the consensus from media and players alike is that it's very good.

Assassin's Creed Shadows was reportedly the second-biggest launch of any game in the series to date in terms of first-day revenue. It was beaten only by 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which had the advantage of launching during the holiday season and the gaming boom of the pandemic.

So far, Assassin's Creed Shadows has attracted over three million players. That figure includes subscription members, not only sales. But given how many times I saw the phrase "Go woke, go broke" leveled at Shadows in the year or so leading up to its release, it's clear the game has strong commercial appeal — black samurai and all.

I had suspected that the pre-release controversy would not particularly impact sales of the game. So many of the people complaining were clearly never going to buy it in the first place.

Whenever IGN Japan posted coverage of Shadows, our comments section would be flooded with negative comments. However, it was obvious that most of these were not from our usual audience or even from gamers.

Positive Reviews

Assassin's Creed games have millions of fans, and most of them were oblivious to the hate sloshing around online. The game sold whatever it was always going to sell, regardless of the online discourse.

IGN Japan reviewed the game and gave it a score of 8/10, which on our scale means it is "great."

Our writer said, "Assassin's Creed Shadows' beautifully realized open world, engaging story, and lively characters are some of its greatest strengths. On the other hand, its side activities are not of the scale we have come to expect from the series, while some of the game's mechanics feel underdeveloped, making it a game with both strong and weak points."

IGN's team in the United States also awarded Shadows 8/10, saying, "By sharpening the edges of its existing systems, Assassin's Creed Shadows creates one of the best versions of the open-world style it's been honing for the last decade."

On Metacritic, which gives a weighted average score based on 84 accredited critic reviews, the game averaged 81%. While not perfect, Shadows was labeled by dozens of reviewers around the world as the best Assassin's Creed game in a decade. The consensus was pretty definitive.

Conspiracies and Rage Bait

Of course, in this age of social media rage bait and anti-woke conspiracy theorizing, "definitive consensus" is portrayed as evidence of collusion. According to the game's haters online faced with these positive reviews, Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft paid off all the game's reviewers and the games media can't be trusted.

Trying to argue with such uninformed vitriol on social media is like trying to prove the sun is hot, so I haven't bothered engaging with any of it. However, for the record — games media do not accept payment for review scores. The sun is hot whether people believe it or not, so why argue?

Also for the record, verified user reviews on Steam (written by people who actually bought the game) are again 81% positive. So I'd say reviewers and gamers are in perfect sync on this one.

Even Elon Musk — the richest man in the world — chose to spend his time and influence on casting aspersion on the quality of Shadows. For that, he was quickly ratioed by a witty response from the official Assassin's Creed Twitter account.

Musk Slams 'Yasuke' Game by Ubisoft as 'Terrible'

What Triggered the Controversy?

Assassin's Creed Shadows entered political debate when social media users and bloggers began saying that Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba criticized the game. They said he blasted Shadows for its portrayal of Japan and its inclusion of real-world shrines that could be vandalized by players.

All of this was massively overblown, and I helped a colleague at IGN to paint a more rational account of what actually happened.

To cut a long story short, the real concern from PM Ishiba and other politicians was not the game itself, but the recent rise in tourism and perceived link to acts of vandalism, which are of course genuine problems.

Overblown Concerns

However, the argument that games encourage real-world violence is as old as games themselves. Everything from Mortal Kombat to Grand Theft Auto to Call of Duty has been accused at one point or another of corrupting society.

There are decades worth of research out there to disprove these claims. Besides, Ubisoft had already prepared a patch to prevent players from damaging the game's temples and shrines by the time Shadows was released.

*2020's Ghost of Tsushima was set on the titular Tsushima Island island. Recently a shrine there chose to restrict access for tourists following an undisclosed incident of vandalism.*

That said, by coincidence, a few days after this debacle a shrine in Tsushima announced it would restrict access for tourists. This followed what it described as "a grave and unforgivable act of disrespect committed by foreigners."

Certainly, the rise of kick-streamers and the influx of tourists due to Japan's weak yen have caused a great deal of disruption. But even though Tsushima is the setting for the samurai game Ghost of Tsushima, that game never allowed or encouraged players to deface temples or shrines.

There also doesn't seem to be any evidence linking this real-world incident to the influence of that game or any other. If anything, the shrine in question, Watazumi Shrine, previously benefitted from charity crowdfunding from fans of the game after it was damaged by a typhoon.

A 'Great' Game

So, now that the dust has settled and the game is out, how do Japanese gamers feel about Assassin's Creed Shadows? Well, the countless numbers of screaming YouTube reaction videos and blogs insisting that Japan is outraged by Shadows are of course totally misleading. The fact is that while the Assassin's Creed series does have a dedicated fan base in Japan, it was never as popular here as it was elsewhere in the world.

With that in mind, it's doing OK. Shadows debuted in the Japan game sales charts at number five, which is respectable. The charts here are usually dominated by games made in Japan. And comments from IGN Japan's audience have been mostly positive. I'd call that a win.

As for me? I haven't had a chance to play more than a tiny bit yet. But I will. And like the majority of reviewers are saying, I'm expecting it to be "great."

Author: Daniel Robson

Daniel Robson is the chief editor of videogame news site IGN Japan. Read his series Gamer's World on JAPAN Forward, and find him on X (formerly Twitter).