Ubisoft’s Executive Producer for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Marc-Alexis Côté, dropped a bombshell during the XDS24 conference, offering a grim glimpse into the development of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows.
In a candid interview, Côté admitted that Ubisoft is in the midst of a full-blown crisis, openly acknowledging that the company has lost touch with what players actually want. This startling confession reflects a growing disconnect between the once-celebrated publisher and its dwindling fanbase
“We need to understand where the players are. This has been a question that has plagued me for the last two years. Where are they? What are they playing? All of this will become clear in the coming years as the gaming industry undergoes a major transformation,”
Marc-Alexis Côté also emphasized the urgent need to rethink Ubisoft’s approach to skyrocketing development costs, which have surged dramatically over the past five years. According to Côté, the AAA gaming sector’s “recipe for success” is no longer effective, and future survival will depend on innovation and cost optimization.
His remarks about a major transformation in the gaming industry hit the nail on the head. The industry has been stifled by nepotism and cognitive dissonance, hijacked by radical ideologies that prioritize progressive pandering over creativity and gameplay. Feminist influence has contributed nothing besides injecting superficial diversity and political correctness, with media outlets and journalists shielding corporations from critique by praising tokenistic representation.
Whether it’s adding transgender surgery scars in fantastical worlds of magic and dragons or rewriting history by shoehorning a fictitious Black protagonist into feudal Japan, the industry has become obsessed with checking diversity boxes at the expense of authentic storytelling. AAA gaming has lost its way, consumed by an adherence to ideological conformity rather than focusing on the artistry and innovation that once defined it.
Further compounding concerns, Côté revealed troubling inexperience among Ubisoft’s development teams. “One of the things that I’ve noticed since the pandemic is that we have a lot of juniors in our teams. Probably half the team building Assassin’s Creed is working on a game for the first time,” he said. While he expressed confidence that the project would ultimately meet expectations, these revelations have only deepened skepticism about the game’s readiness.
Ubisoft recently delayed the release of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows from its original November 15, 2024, launch to February 14, 2025. The company cited lessons learned from the disastrous release of Star Wars Outlaws, claiming the extra time will allow them to refine the game’s ambitious dual-protagonist narrative featuring Naoe and Yasuke. Whether Ubisoft can overcome its internal crises and deliver remains to be seen, but the industry’s current trajectory suggests it’s too late.
Ubisoft also announced a significant departure from its traditional Season Pass model, promising all players the first expansion of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows for free with preorders. Additionally, the game will launch on Steam, signaling a retreat from its previous exclusivity deals with the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft’s own storefront.
Despite these gestures, Ubisoft’s troubles run much deeper. The company is facing its worst stock performance in years, with bankruptcy looming as a genuine threat. Unfortunately, this latest announcement offers little hope for recovery, especially as Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is shaping up to be one of the most despised entries in the franchise in recent memory.
During the XDS24 conference, Marc-Alexis Côté addressed the company’s uncertain future, admitting, “I don’t know where the industry will be in five years.” The irony here is thick, players are far more concerned about whether Ubisoft itself will last another five months, especially given its history of alienating consumers with practices like digital ownership restrictions.
Côté described Shadows as a “dream project,” finally bringing the series to Feudal Japan with an ambitious dual-protagonist narrative. “This is a rich experience that can be lived through the eyes of two unique protagonists,” he stated. However, for many fans, Ubisoft’s so-called dream project has turned into a nightmare, plagued by a relentless fixation on forcing diversity quotas into every aspect of the game.
While past Assassin’s Creed titles naturally explored varied characters and cultures, modern Ubisoft games hammer players over the head with tokenized, performative inclusivity. Instead of celebrating genuine diversity, the company focuses on checklist representation, often reducing character design to stale stereotypes.
This trend has reached absurd levels. The latest Prince of Persia game offers yet another “modernized” design, fitting the industry’s obsession with noodle-haired, focus-tested caricatures.
Ubisoft’s version of “diversity” seemingly means crafting characters who are intentionally unattractive, sanitized, and stripped of relatability, all while being shielded from critique by the banner of inclusivity. Modern game design has become a bizarre exercise in marginalization hierarchies, reducing characters to their perceived “accessibility” rather than their depth or appeal.
For a company in crisis, Shadows was supposed to be a lifeline. Instead, it’s shaping up to be the final nail in the coffin for a studio that no longer seems to understand its audience, or itself.
Ubisoft, in their infinite wisdom, finally decided to grant fans’ long-standing wish for an Assassin’s Creed game set in Asia, choosing Japan as the setting. However, true to their commitment to half-baked diversity mandates, they couldn’t resist adding their own twist, introducing a Black protagonist in 1600s Japan.
Yasuke’s sparse historical record suggesting he may have served as a retainer to Oda Nobunaga offered just enough plausible deniability for Ubisoft to claim “historical authenticity” while shoehorning in a protagonist that conveniently checks every diversity box.
For the first time in franchise history, Ubisoft centered Assassin’s Creed on a real historical figure. But rather than celebrate Yasuke’s actual story, they fictionalized him as a samurai warrior, not for creative reasons but to fulfill their diversity quotas while dodging criticism. By hiding behind Yasuke’s historical obscurity, Ubisoft cleverly deflects valid critiques as “racist rhetoric,” insulating themselves from the inevitable backlash.
Beyond the historical revisionism, the game’s production has been fraught with challenges. During Ubisoft’s First-Half 2024-25 Earnings Conference Call, CEO Yves Guillemot admitted that the delay of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows would add €20 million to its already bloated budget. He justified the expense by claiming it was necessary to deliver a “well-optimized day-one experience,” a promise made in the shadow of the catastrophic failure of Star Wars Outlaws, despite that game having Ubisoft’s largest marketing budget to date.
Reports from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson unveiled even deeper issues. Late-stage adjustments to Yasuke’s storyline, architectural redesigns, and rushed efforts to ground the game in history while fitting it into the Assassin’s Creed universe have further delayed progress. Henderson also revealed that Ubisoft brought historical experts onto the project much later than usual, intensifying concerns about both cultural accuracy and the overall cohesion of the game.
I say any such report is complete and utter bullshit.
What could have been a long-awaited triumph for the franchise now risks becoming another textbook example of Ubisoft’s inability to balance ambition with authenticity. Instead of crafting a truly innovative and respectful experience, the company seems intent on rewriting history to serve corporate ideology, leaving fans with a product that feels more like a cynical PR exercise than a meaningful addition to the series.
In predictable fashion, Ubisoft’s enforced diversity mandates have managed to alienate the very culture they sought to represent, Japan. The historians and cultural consultants brought on board for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows somehow missed the mark entirely, pushing Yasuke’s fabricated “samurai” identity as historical fact, despite there being no credible evidence for such claims.
To make matters worse, Ubisoft was forced to issue an apology to Japanese historians after being caught plagiarizing materials and using AI-generated concept art for the game. This debacle followed their woefully misinformed attempt at an “immersive” Feudal Japan exhibit at this year’s Japan Expo, which bafflingly featured Chinese gongs and a replica sword from One Piece.
But Ubisoft didn’t stop there. In what can only be described as a cultural slap in the face, official merchandise for the game included a figurine with a one-legged torii gate, a deeply offensive mischaracterization of Japan’s spiritual heritage. This faux pas is particularly egregious because the only real-world example of such a structure is a solemn reminder of the devastation of the Nagasaki atomic bombing.
Ubisoft has since pulled the figurine, calling the design “insensitive,” though the damage was already done. Their insensitivity extended even further, with the company pulling out of the Tokyo Game Show mere days before the event and cynically delaying Assassin’s Creed: Shadows to February, aligning it with Black History Month.
As expected, Ubisoft’s apologists have come to their defense. Former employees of Sweet Baby Inc, now turned consultants for The New York Times, dismissed the backlash as Westerners using translation apps to fabricate outrage and misrepresent Japanese sentiment.
Yet, it’s clear that the game’s botched portrayal of Japan, coupled with its historical revisionism and racial pandering, has left a bitter taste not only among Japanese audiences but also worldwide.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft’s financial woes continue to spiral. Investor pressure mounts for the company to go private, with Tencent waiting in the wings for a potential takeover. The disastrous performance of Star Wars Outlaws only exacerbates their problems.
Despite a massive marketing push, the game was critically panned for its uninspired design and its ugly female protagonist, another product of ESG-driven game design that transforms otherwise attractive actresses of color into generic, “politically inclusive” models.
Analysts quickly slashed sales projections by millions after Ubisoft admitted the game had underperformed significantly.
With Assassin’s Creed: Shadows shaping up to be another misstep, it’s hard to see how Ubisoft can recover. Their repeated failures to respect their audience—or the cultures they exploit for profit, may ultimately mark the end of the company as we know it.
Ubisoft’s deliberate choice to cast a non-Japanese protagonist as the lens through which players experience the life of a samurai in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows speaks volumes about their priorities.
The game’s senior writer has openly stated on social media that “white people are privileged” and that there are “too many white protagonists” in gaming, leaving little doubt that this project is less about authenticity and more about pushing a politically charged narrative.
This seems to be Ubisoft Quebec’s heavy-handed response to Ghost of Tsushima, which not only delivered a respectful and meticulously crafted depiction of Feudal Japan but also consulted actual historians. The efforts of Tsushima’s creative director Jason Connell and game director Nate Fox were so well-received that they were named tourism ambassadors by the island of Tsushima itself.
It’s safe to say the only recognition Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is destined for is a permanent spot in the discount bin, closely followed by Ubisoft filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Ubisoft has chosen to lean into historical revisionism and ideological grandstanding, positioning Assassin’s Creed: Shadows as a reactionary piece rather than a genuine exploration of Japanese culture or history. At this point, the direction of the game is irreversible.
The storyline, protagonist, and thematic elements are too far along the production pipeline to be changed, no matter how severe the backlash becomes. Ubisoft has cast its die, fully aware of the consequences, and seems intent on doubling down despite widespread criticism.
While the developers continue to pay lip service to historical accuracy and lament their inability to connect with disillusioned players, the root of the issue remains unchanged: Ubisoft’s unwavering commitment to ESG and DEI-driven design choices.
This inflexibility, coupled with a growing disconnect from their audience, ensures that the company is marching toward its own demise. When Assassin’s Creed: Shadows inevitably fails to meet expectations, it will likely serve as the final nail in Ubisoft’s coffin, a monument to their inability to adapt and their insistence on prioritizing ideology over quality that they’ll see to their own grave.
