The maker of an Assassin's Creed Shadows miniature featuring Yasuke and Naoe says it is "reworking" the collective after receiving feedback about its initial "insensitive design."
PureArts unveiled the statue in September, and to my eye it looked entirely innocuous: Funko-esque takes on Yasuke and Naoe, the co-leads in Assassin's Creed Shadows, posed near a partial torii gate.
Qlectors Assassin’s Creed Shadows Yasuke & Naoe are available now WORLDWIDE! 🌎 Pre-order now ➡️ https://t.co/YtYFofSoPI pic.twitter.com/XMV76LULeWSeptember 19, 2024
But others quickly pointed out that the torii in the collectible bore a striking resemblance to the one-legged torii standing outside the Sannō Shrine, a remnant of the 1945 nuclear attack on the city of Nagasaki, half of which remained intact and upright despite being located less than 1 kilometer from the center of the blast. As you can imagine, the broken torii has considerable historical and cultural significance.
Fair criticism of the design was amplified on social media by aggrieved gamers already angered by the presence of a playable Black man in a fantasy action game set in feudal Japan; legitimate concerns about the sloppy treatment of culture gave way to wider, more vitriolic outrage directed at Ubisoft as a whole.
PureArts has now announced that the design will be changed. "We recently released an insensitive design," the company said in a message posted on X. "We appreciate and have learned from the concerns brought to our attention, and we apologize for the harm this caused.
"After reading and processing the feedback, we have immediately returned to the drawing board and are currently reworking the design of the Qlectors Assassin’s Creed Shadows Yasuke & Naoe. Stay tuned!"
PureArts added in a follow-up post that existing preorders have not been cancelled, and those who have preordered will receive an email with more information soon.
In most instances this would be a relatively minor matter: Someone picks a seemingly cool inspiration for a product, someone else discovers it's decidedly not cool, apologies are made, and plans are changed. But the reaction to the PureArts statue reveal, and today's statement about the design change, are something entirely different: A reminder of the ugliness that's surrounded Assassin's Creed Shadows since its reveal in May.
While some credit PureArts for doing the right thing, others remain intensely critical of it and Ubisoft, call for Yasuke to be removed from Assassin's Creed Shadows, and pin the blame for all that's wrong with the game on diversity and "wokeness." Naturally, there is also a contingent who are now angry that the statue design is being changed, because they paid for a one-legged torii and they want their one-legged torii.
Ubisoft hasn't done itself any favors regarding complaints about sloppiness. This was the second time such carelessness had been discovered: In July the company issued an apology to a real-life historical reenactment group for using its flag in concept art without permission. Efforts to mollify gamers who will settle for nothing less a wholesale rework of Assassin's Creed Shadows, including an acknowledgement that Yasuke's status as a samurai "is a matter of debate and discussion" and a promise that Ubisoft is not attempting to "push any specific agenda," have also not helped. Instead, as senior editor Wes Fenlon said in July, they've simply "given bad faith critics fresh cover for a new wave of attacks masquerading as 'just asking questions'."
Ubisoft announced in September that Assassin's Creed Shadows would not make its scheduled release on November 15, but will instead arrive on February 14, 2025, a major miss that takes it entirely out of the lucrative holiday quarter—a big bit of bad news for a company that desperately needs something good to happen.
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