There are a lot of Assassin’s Creed games I haven’t played, but when I hear that Ubisoft’s historical fiction franchise is exploring an interesting moment in human history, my ears perk up. Game File has a new report about one game that didn’t make it out of Ubisoft, and everything from its fascinating concept to the maddening reasons it was canceled makes it sound like it absolutely should have been made.
The game would have reportedly been set during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, and put players in the shoes of a formerly enslaved Black man. This man would be recruited by the titular Creed and would return to the South to fight for justice for his people. The game would have even portrayed the founding of the white supremacist organization the Ku Klux Klan. Game File‘s sources say canceling this game in July 2024 was Ubisoft “bowing to controversy” after racist backlash to Yasuke, the Black samurai in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, and concern that portraying a Black man’s life in the Reconstruction era would be “too political in a country too unstable.”
The game was in the concept phase and had been approved by Ubisoft leadership, and though it was still years away, it was canceled because the company was already dealing with hostility over Yasuke’s inclusion in Shadows and, seeing the current political climate in the United States, was wary of releasing a game that may have been seen as divisive. Other sources also note that Ubisoft’s financial struggles after the pirate game Skull & Bones underperformed and the free-to-play shooter The Division Heartland was canceled had made the company “risk-averse.”
“I was terribly disappointed but not surprised by leadership,” a source told Game File. “They are making more and more decisions to maintain the political ‘status quo’ and take no stand, no risk, even creative.”
Game File goes on to emphasize that the broader U.S. political climate played more of a role in the cancellation of the Reconstruction-era Assassin’s Creed than the Yasuke outrage campaign, and that the cancellation happened shortly after the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump on July 13. We’ve reached out to Ubisoft for comment on the situation and will update the story if we hear back.
So, that sucks. Assassin’s Creed has not always shied away from exploring difficult eras of human history, and has even knowingly woven its own mythology into real-world conflicts. It’s even told stories involving Black slaves before in Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation. It sounds like the team at Ubisoft was passionate about what they were working on, but while they were hoping to put something into the world that could maybe make an impact, someone up top got scared. What a shame.
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