IIt’s no secret that the video game industry is struggling. In the past two years, 25,000 redundant employees And over 40 studios have closed. The soaring costs of game development (it now costs hundreds of millions of dollars to create a blockbuster title), over-investment during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to create the next money-making “eternal game” The blockbuster game is under pressure thanks to a series of failed bets. Success rates are higher than ever.
This seems to be a particularly relevant predicament for Ubisoft. The company, which employs 20,000 people at 45 studios in 30 countries, has had commercial failures with its latest big licensed games, “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” and “Star Wars Outlaws.” The company has had two expensive and failed live service experiments in the past year: Skull and Bones and X-Defiant. Ubisoft’s stock price plummets, Investment partners circling like sharksrarely has the fate of a huge gaming company depended so heavily on a single release. It has already been postponed many times to ensure quality.
Against this dark backdrop, I found myself wandering the glittering halls of Ubisoft Quebec to experience the world’s first Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. The company’s historical action game series is back after a two-year hiatus. This time, the setting is feudal Japan. According to creative director Jonathan Dumont, this was the most requested setting by fans, but ironically some of the so-called fans turned to Ubisoft during the game’s development. .
Shadows centers on Yasuke, a historical figure known as the Black Samurai, and a female ninja named Naoe. This sparked a mini-culture war, with X posters and YouTube commenters furious over “historical inaccuracy” and video game wokeness. (Oddly enough, these complaints of historical inaccuracy are the same despite the fact that it stars a secret order of what are essentially time-traveling assassins doing side-quests from Karl Marx and Leonardo da Vinci.) It had never been brought up in the series until now.)
When you ask nervous Ubisoft developers about the amount of nasty comments and online harassment they’ve received over the past year, they’re understandably horrified. No one wants to address it directly. “We love making games and that’s what we wake up every morning to do,” Dumont says. “So if there is any criticism, obviously, [we receive] Subtle nuances and good feedback will always be accepted. ”
When you pick up the controller, the first character that appears is Yasuke. After a mesmerizing opening cutscene, a Portuguese missionary introduces Diogo, an African slave, to Lord Nobunaga, the ruler of the Oda family. A powerful military commander took notice of Diogo, hired him as a samurai, and changed his name to Yasuke. As I wander silently through the cobblestone streets of Harima, I am greeted with the kind of stu…
Naoe, the ninja from Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Photo: Ubisoft
Source: www.theguardian.com
