this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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This complaint feels manufactured. No one complained about the romance-able historical figures in previous Japanese games, and a quick look at social media and Japanese news shows no outrage. Also, every other game features historically unknown natives? What? We have multiple characters that are children of royalty, at least two that are military warlords, and a Viking raider for fuck's sake. The only game I can think of that has a native of the region not connected to the powers that be is 3, where you play a Native American. You're often just playing essentially a secret police for the state of the country you're in. Why not have a black samurai, a notable historical figure, be the main character. That's super interesting. It's not like Japanese culture is being erased. Your outrage feels misplaced and racially motivated, and I doubt we'd be seeing so much manufactured discontent if it was a white samurai (and there were several).
Eivor was a foreigner (and an invader) for everything outside the beginning of the game, so was Kassandra/Alexios (also invaders), they just had the same skin tone as the place they're foreign in. There's a big difference between "native characters with understated culture" and just "not foreign." Those are totally different arguments, and it seems like you're trying to make both. Again, why not have an interesting character from history be explored like this. Acting as if past characters are these nebulous "local" individuals when they're often the direct children or relatives of prominent, real, historical figures, if fictional ones, seems silly. This is totally in line with past stories they've told. I really don't see a valid reason a non-local character is "problematic" in an AC game. We've done it a bunch of times. We've played a Welsh guy in the Caribbean, a Viking in Britain, and a Spartan in Greece, just to name a few. I'm sure I'm forgetting other valid examples.
It does sound more racist, because it is. Why not Yasuke? Just because he's black? Why any of the other AC protagonists? Why choose a Spartan, a highly unethical culture filled with slavery and abuse? Why choose a Welsh pirate instead of a Caribbean native? These are all pointless questions, because the answer is all the same. That's the story they wanted to tell. Maybe they wanted to highlight the historical outlier at an important time in history. We could speculate on any number of different reasons, but "DEI" doesn't make any damn sense, considering they knew how gamers would react beforehand and even went out of their way to make a statement about it.
They wanted to tell this story. If you want a different one, play a different game. There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing Yasuke as a protagonist. The series has consistently demonstrated that they don't really mind telling the stories of historical outliers, repeatedly. They shouldn't have to specifically avoid (because that is what your argument has shifted to) Yasuke for fears of "DEI." The "anti-woke" are ridiculous.