Yasuke Historian Is A Joke As Complete Disaster Looms For Assassins Creed Shadows

It feels like Assassins Creed Shadows simply cannot stay out of the news. The other day, they were showcasing a One Piece Katana, and now their entire storyline is up in flames. By this point, most people are likely aware of why some are upset with this upcoming title. Over the years, the Assassins Creed Franchise has done a relatively good job of showcasing different cultures. While we do not turn to them to be historically accurate, you can at least count on them to capture the theme of the culture they are trying to showcase.

Some of my favorite games ever are Origins and Rogue. Yes, they tell fictional stories, but they also showcase historical periods and do what I consider a decent job of highlighting different cultures. This time that is being questioned when the franchise turned its attention to Japan. As most historians know, ancient Japan is known for a few things. One of those things is their samurai. If you want to highlight and showcase that culture, there is only one way to do it. You showcase an African person front and center. If you cannot tell, that part was sarcasm.

There has been much debate about whether this African samurai was real. For me, it does not matter. If you want to highlight Japanese culture, you should do it with Japanese people. There are thousands of Asian Samurai. You do not have to shift the story to the only African one. Even if he is a real person, you could probably find a Japanese person to highlight when showcasing Japanese history and culture. And no, I do not have an issue with black people.

Assassins Creed Shadows Vs. History

Black People exist, and they should be highlighted in video games. In fact, you can showcase African culture front and center in one of your games. Africa is a beautiful continent, and it would be amazing to feature it in one of your games. However, when you do decide to feature it, I hope you won’t decide to highlight some white dude who made his way there from another continent. On a personal level, I will be honest. I don’t care too much about this. I am leaning towards playing this game regardless of their accuracy.

I would love to tell you how wrong this is and how I will boycott this game, but that is not my true feeling. I have always been consistent on this. If the concept of the content that I am about to consume or play looks interesting to me, I will watch or play it. This is regardless of how accurate it is. My issue with this is not due to a black samurai. It is the moral grandstanding and gaslighting from the publisher and certain figures in the media. Those who yell about cultural appropriation and then cheer when changes are made that align with their belief system or agenda.

We all know that if Assassins Creed Shadows highlighted Native American culture in the Sixteen Hundreds and front and center was a pile of white guys, these same people would shit themselves all the way up to their necks. You would be able to smell them for miles. Kotaku would have written a thousand articles by now. They would have hunted down the developers and doxxed their families. The same people now asking why you care would be crying for months the other way around.

Yasuke Historian Vs. Assassins Creed Shadows

Until now, this game has always had one thing going for them. They claimed that the samurai featured in Assassins Creed Shadows is based on a real person. However, the details surrounding this story are not as clear-cut as you might think. It turns out that the history is heavily fabricated. For many years now, people have claimed that Yasuke was a real samurai. Books and papers that have made this claim all used a person called Tomas Lockley as a reference.

People call him the leading Yasuke historian. There is one problem, though. Lockley has been using an alias to edit Wikipedia pages. He would then use his entries as a source to write and promote books and papers. Since the allegation, Tomas Lockley has decided to go into hiding and delete his Facebook account. Over the years, many Japanese people have called him out and stated that his claims about Yasuke are nothing more than fiction. Tomas wrote this fiction, then entirely put it into Wikipedia under a false name, and then cited his books and papers as sources.

Now, ultimately, I would not blame you if you asked: Who cares if Yasuke is fictional? Assassin’s Creed Shadows does not need to be historically accurate. I agree with this. However, you have to admit that it does make Ubisoft look bad. Shadows is about samurai culture, and not having an Asian person as your lead does look bad. Ubisoft is free to tell any story, but we must be honest about why they are doing this.