A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
Marc-Alexis Côté, Ubisoft’s Executive Producer for its Assassin’s Creed franchise, recently admitted the company’s aim with Assassin’s Creed Shadows is to go “beyond what is accepted truth.”
Noelle Adams and Marc-Alexis Côté via Darranged YouTube
In an interview with The New York Times that Ubisoft used as a hit piece to attack its former fans and potential customers for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Côté revealed exactly what he and his team are doing with the game.
He told the outlet, “We want people to be passionate about history. What does that mean? Stay true to well-documented moments and historical figures, but not shying away from having a critical point of view and defying clichés to go beyond what is the accepted truth.”
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
Couple this with what Game Director Charles Benoit told Xbox Wire and it is seems abundantly clear that Ubisoft is in reality trying to rewrite history.
Benoit said in May, “We’re at the end of Sengoku era, in a turning point of Japan history. Assassin’s Creed is well known for its depiction of the history and accurate recreation of the world and it’s what players can expect with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. We’re showing real historical figures, such as Oda Nobunaga and a lot of events that happened during that time, so you’re not only playing in feudal Japan, but learning about this fantastic time period.”
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
Ironically, The New York Times’ Zachary Small also shared that Côté believes this “approach would inevitably open Assassin’s Creed to more criticism in the future but that the developers have decided it was a risk worth taking.”
Côté previously admitted that he was emotionally broken by Elon Musk for simply posting that “DEI kills art” when he found out that Assassin’s Creed Shadows features a gay African protagonist in a feudal Japan setting.
DEI kills art
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2024
Côté informed Game File how this post broke him, “That tweet generated emotions, that…the first thing I wanted to do was go back on X – that I had deleted – and just tweet back. And I just took a step back. I have a mindfulness app on my phone. And I did a bit of mindfulness to try to explore the emotions that this tweet created.”
He then accused Musk of feeling hatred while being the one to actually express hatred, “For me, Elon, it’s sad, he’s just feeding hatred. I had a lot of three word replies that came to mind.”
Nevertheless, Côté continued, “By attacking someone like Elon… I will not convince people about our point of view as a team.”
Key art for Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
Côté then shared that he believes Ubisoft will convince players of his team’s point of view, which we now know is going “beyond what is the accepted truth” within the first 15 minutes of the game.
Côté said, “Yasuke is very, very grounded in the history of the franchise and how we make our choices. … We’ve got a super-mysterious historical character from which not much is known about. And for us, it was what we want in [Assassin’s Creed].”
He continued, “What Elon says is not the game that we’re building. People will have to play the game for themselves. And if, within the first 11 minutes and 47 seconds, they are not convinced of what we’re doing, we can have the discussion.”
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
“I was reviewing the game very recently, and I was like, ‘The answer is there!’ I just hope and wish that people can keep an open mind about this and see the game for what it is,” he elaborated.
“It’s an Assassin’s Creed game, and I believe the best one we’ve ever built,” he declared.
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
It is unlikely that many gamers will be giving Ubisoft and Côté that chance to the creative choices they took with the game and their ensuing responses to player dissatisfaction to those choices.
Craig Skistimas aka Stuttering Craig, who owns and hosts the Side Scrollers Podcast shared inside information from a retail source indicating that physical pre-orders for Assassin’s Creed Shadows are very low.
He wrote on X, “My insider told me that, as of this morning at their nation wide big box chain, Assassins’ Creed Shadows has less than 800 pre-orders combined for Xbox & PS5 company wide.”
He added, “They have over 900 stores. That is less than 1 preorder per store. YIKES.”
My insider told me that, as of this morning at their nation wide big box chain, Assassins’ Creed Shadows has less than 800 pre-orders combined for Xbox & PS5 company wide.
They have over 900 stores.
That is less than 1 preorder per store. YIKES. https://t.co/KHtmjqpwoh
— Stuttering Craig (Official) (@StutteringCraig) August 29, 2024
Looking at the PlayStation Store, the game’s Ultimate version, which costs $129.99 is 16th in pre-orders behind various editions of Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZEO, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Dragon Age: The Veilguard Deluxe Edition and others.
The base game barely makes it on the first page of pre-orders in the 24th place. You have to go even farther down the list to find the Gold Edition. It sits in 33rd place.
A screenshot of the PlayStation Store pre-orders taken on September 17, 2024
It’s likely Ubisoft knows the game’s sells are going to be soft as well and that they’ve known for quite some time. In the company’s most recent earnings report, Barclays’ Nick Dempsey questioned Ubisoft executives, “When I look at the second half, clearly, I think we are going to need a heavy contribution from Assassin’s Creed. But could it be those revenues would in fact be boosted by multiple hundreds of millions in partnership deals, that kind of range to get us over the line?”
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot responded, “As we mentioned, we expect Shadows to be the most ambitious title of the series. We also anticipate that Star Wars, that is usually a very strong brand around Christmas, should do very well with the busy season with a strong impact also from [inaudible] content from both games. And also we expect further growth from Rainbow Six Siege as well as a strong impact of Shadows on the back catalog of Assassin’s Creed, plus the contribution of XDefiant.”
Yves Guillemot via Ubisoft YouTube
Unsatisfied with this answer, Dempsey followed up asking, “When you talk about it being the most ambitious, are you hoping for it to be the best selling Assassin’s Creed game?”
Guillemot responded, “At this time we can say we expect [Assassin’s Creed] to be among the high sellers of the company so far.”
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
What do you make of Côté admitting that the game is trying to go “beyond what is accepted truth?”
