by Key Takeaways
- Ubisoft has reportedly delayed Assassin’s Creed Shadows to fix bugs and improve historical accuracy, based on concerns from the game’s Japanese audience.
- A new report claims that Ubisoft is “actively addressing” concerns about historical accuracy and is changing “some of Yasuke’s story and the way he is portrayed in the game.”
- It’s also claimed that Ubisoft skimped on asset approvals and brought historical experts on board much later than other projects, despite the game’s size.
Ubisoft needs to get Assassin’s Creed Shadows right. That’s one of the main reasons behind the game’s recent delay until next February, as the publisher announced that it was the reception of Star Wars Outlaws (and most likely its lackluster sales) that convinced the game to give Assassin’s Creed Shadows another give it a few months to cook. .
That’s the official reason for the delay anyway, but it was pretty clear from the start that Ubisoft wasn’t painting the whole picture with that statement. We don’t know exactly what’s going on behind closed doors at Ubisoft, but a new report from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson suggests that the team developing Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been dealing with some issues for some time.
According to Henderson, the reason for Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ delay isn’t just one factor. Strict development timelines, bug fixes, and concerns about the game’s historical and cultural accuracy among Japanese audiences all played a role in the delay.
The delay of Assassin’s Creed Shadows was aimed at addressing historical accuracy, it is claimed
Much of the anger surrounding Assassin’s Creed Shadows and its historical accuracy is due to Yasuke, the game’s black samurai protagonist. Since he’s a historical figure with relatively little information about him (he was a samurai, by the way), it was easy for wild claims to make the rounds on social media. Unfortunately for those who don’t like it, Ubisoft reportedly has no plans to remove it.
However, Henderson claims that his sources have told him that “some of Yasuke’s story and how he is portrayed in the game” is being changed, as well as other aspects of the game’s historical setting. According to these sources, Ubisoft had been working on these types of concerns before the game’s announcement, and the reveal “accelerated” that work.
Of course, there are also legitimate concerns about the game’s historical accuracy. Ubisoft has gotten into trouble a number of times for not paying proper attention to history, accidentally stealing a reenactment group’s flag and Zoro from One Piece’s sword to use in official artwork and respectively events.
You could call these simple mistakes and move on, but Henderson also notes that Ubisoft reportedly cut a lot of corners when it came to asset approvals, and that historical experts were brought on board much later than normal, despite the size of the project. Whether Ubisoft can address these issues thoroughly enough to satisfy fans before the new release date in February, we’ll have to wait and see.
