Assassin’s Creed Shadowsis the latest victim of the culture war. It features Yasuke,a historical Black samurai, but in a series where we fistfight the pope to steal the Apple of Eden, and where magical staffs make Greek warriors immortal, he’s somehowtoofar-fetched.
With Shadows, the anger has come from many directions - thoseclaiming to be offended on behalf of Japan, at the historical inaccuracy of romances in a series that has always kept reality at arm’s length, or simpleoutrage at playing as Yasuke at all.
Yet Shadows is the first game in a long time to give me hope. The noise mattered little, asthe game sold over one million copies in a single day, whilethe player-led Steam reviews are ‘Very Positive’. But more than that, there’s a palpable sentiment among the community that mirrors exactly what I, and so many others, are feeling - all this vitriol does not matter. Play the game, and decide how you feel from that.
“Fk it, I’m getting my own opinion”; u/Ronja_Rovardottish’s Reddit post on r/assassinscreed is succinct, but it captures the moment perfectly. We’re all tired. It isn’t just one game every now and then where backlash is stirred up by content creators, it’s every single new release. I’m still recovering fromAvowed, and I can’t even remember why people were mad. Hell, they even tried it withMonster Hunter Wildsbefore its rampant success caused a back pedal that saw people attempt to claim it as a mascot of everything they want gaming to be, not a representation of its evils.
All The Backlash Is Getting Exhausting
Sometimes a ‘woke’ game turns out to be pretty bad. Just look atDragon Age: The VeilguardandConcord- although, was anyone anywhere on the political spectrum excited for Concord? These failings ‘confirm’ that wokeness is what poisons games, conveniently ignoring the real reasons these games failed: the studio meddling, trend-chasing, and mass layoffs of veteran talent. It also side-steps progressive games likeBaldur’s Gate 3that were smash hits, and forces the position to turn on a dime when Monster Hunter Wilds orSpace Marine 2launch to positive reception. Do this for every single new release, and you have a bit of a problem.
People like u/Ronja_Rovardottish eventually tire of hearing that the game they’re excited for in a series they love is “woke garbage”, so they try it for themselves. And in most cases, they’ll probably like the game (Veilguards are pretty rare), and every time this happens, the anger in the far corners of the gaming sphere loses touch with the masses.
Poke enough fan bases, go after enough big, crowd-pleasing blockbusters, and try to wage a culture war againstallof gaming and the facade will quickly disappear, because people will play these games and quickly find that none of this outrage matters. We’re seeing that right now with Shadows, where “Fk it, I’m getting my own opinion” is clearly winning out.
We also saw it withKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, where gamers tried and failed to weaponise an optional gay romance, andwe saw it last year with Silent Hill 2 Remake’s ‘woke’ strip club sign, which turned out to have been exactly the same as the original game, which true fans were quick to point out.
It feels like the tide is finally turning. People are getting fed up and, frankly, bored with all the outrage. There’s not much point in a hobby if you spend most of it angry online, arguing with strangers. I only hope that this collective exhaustion leads somewhere productive, and we don’t need to go through this with every new release. Just play the game, find out for yourself if it’s any good, and stop letting YouTubers tell you how to feel. Gaming is only this negative if you let it be.
