Ubisoft reportedly cancelled an Assassin’s Creed game partly due to ‘political concerns’
The cancelled game would’ve starred a black man in post-Civil War America
Ubisoft reportedly cancelled an in-development Assassin’s Creed game last summer, partly due to concerns over the political climate in the United States.
According to current and former employees, speaking anonymously to Game File, the cancelled game was planned to take place during the Reconstruction period that followed the American Civil War in the 1860s and 1870s.
It’s claimed the Assassin’s Creed game would’ve followed a Black man who had been formerly enslaved in the South and moved west to start a new life.
“Recruited by the series’ Assassins, he would return to the South to fight for justice in a conflict that would, among other things, see him confront the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan,” according to interviews with five current and former Ubisoft employees.
Three of the employees told Game File that the game was cancelled last summer by Ubisoft management in Paris for two reasons: online backlash around the reveal of Yasuke, a historically-inspired Black samurai in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and concern around the political climate in the United States.
“I was terribly disappointed but not surprised by leadership,” one 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.”
Ubisoft’s new Tencent-backed subsidiary officially started its first day of operation last week.
VGC understands that Ubisoft informed staff on Wednesday that the new subsidiary will be called Vantage Studios and has started work under the leadership of co-CEOs Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot.
