As you probably know, soon after the official announcement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and confirmation that one of the two characters will be Yasuke, an African samuraia part of the online public rose up and cried foul for various reasons.
Now, actor Abubakar Salim – who played the protagonist Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins – commented on what is happening, via his Twitter account, explaining that he found himself in the same situation years before.
Salim writes: “The fun thing is having gone through the Assassin’s Creed Origins journey, and seeing the Yasuke/Shadows story unfolding. I mean, I’m sure your hill has a nice view.”
The actor basically criticizes players who, despite being wrong, attack content solely for racial reasons.
Yasuke’s “problem” in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Historical evidence shows that Yasuke was a servant of the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga, after arriving in Japan as a servant of a Portuguese man. His servant nature made him a samurai of the Sengoku era: you didn’t have to be noble to be a samurai.
The modern conception of Samurai with a rigid caste system is something that only took place starting from the next era, namely the Edo era (which we remember is the ancient name of Tokyo), which began only decades after the period during which Assassin’s Creed is set Shadows.
This means that Yasuke was given a prestigious role under Nobunaga it automatically qualified him as a samuraidespite the fact that it had only arrived in Japan relatively recently.
Obviously those who criticize Yasuke’s samurai nature in defense of one presumed historical veracity he does this solely because he doesn’t want a character of color in a game set in Japan (and obviously ignores the fact that there is a second character who is Japanese). Let’s also remember that historical veracity is a priority of Assassin’s Creed up to a certain point: you remember the ending of Assassin’s Creed 2, yes? We don’t believe that the Pope was punched to death by a Florentine in reality.
Finally, we would like to remind you that pre-ordering Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Amazon is available in two editions with bonuses.
