Assassin's Creed Devs Don't Hate the British

[DonTsetsi]

It's not even close to Revelations, where the Templar were trying to free several nations from Osman tyranny.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I'm still curious which of the leading American Patriots gets to fall to the blade of an assassin. Furthermore, I'm curious how the Assassin's recruited Connor. It's been awhile since we've had a new protagonist, and both the previous ones were either already assassins and in trouble, or were three days from joining anyway before their assassin family got murdered. Are we doing the same thing here, assassin family kind of thing, or was this a recruit, who was told "hey, we know you hate the colonists and the British military for fucking over your people, how'd you like to pay them back some, oh by the way, you get a cool hood and may end up missing a finger?"

 

[The Harkinator]

There have been some very good points on both sides of the argument. In all honesty, I do believe this developer is NOT anti-British, but the promotional material and the game can be seen as such.

All the trailers and stuff have Connor eliminating British soldiers by the cartload and to date I can only see one person who had any Templar iconography (that Colonel person from one of the most recent trailers) which makes most of the trailers look a bit American propaganda-y especially since they have the 'Freedom/Liberty' slogans in the background. But this game is marketed to lots of different countries. The USA will be a bigger market than the UK so it makes more sense to side with the Americans.

Historical wise, The game is going to have some minefields to get through. The closer you get in history the better documented everything is. AC3 will risk accusations of character assassination (pun intended) and false interpretations of historical events. Assassins Creed has always found historical villains or people who were actually assassinated (Rodrigo and Cesare were REALLY deserving villains, the stuff they did was awful) but with better documentation comes less people who seemed overtly evil. Though a sure fire way to kill game sales in America would be to have the US as having Templar members, remember, these guys founded their nation so if a game represents a founding father or American leader as a templar they would have this argument levelled at them but British replaced with American.

This is also the first time Assassins Creed has had the good and bad guys represented by nations that still exist today. The political entities from previous games no longer survive today but Britain and America are both around today. In addition, in previous games, the Assassins were never overtly part of one faction. Altair killed people on both sides while Ezio tells the people of Florence that they don't have to follow the Medici (despite helping them in Acts 1-6) but to have Connor overtly support one side is different from the previous games.

I've written rather a lot there but in essence, the AC devs don't hate the British, but AC3 may have a hard time and it would have helped if they had promoted an Assassins Vs Templars struggle rather than Templar and British Vs American and Assassin.

 

[Arsen]

You all speak as if, by default, the Colonists winning was a bad thing. *shades*

Yep, I said it. Proud of my roots. Tsalagi blood overlapped with Scottish, Irish, English, German, and French roots.

That being said, we're two of the best worlds these days. I respect all both sides, unless there's truly something immoral in the wicked sense of things, going on.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I hope so, all the trailers so far have shown only brits getting a native hair cut and scenes in which the word freedom is used while the American flag is raised which does have me worried that it will be us=good brits=bad. Although Ubisoft generally do good research on each Assassins Creed game so I imagine that my worries will be proved wrong once we know more of the story elements; I trust the French Canadians won't be sore losers. Otherwise I might just go round killing minutemen in the game out of protest

I'm calling now that the story will involve a twist where both the colonists and British are ultimately controlled by the templars who are involved in a internal struggle for power and decide to use the Assassins as a pawn to give one side the edge over the other. You heard it here first.

Are the trailers really that bad though? I see what you mean about the general picture but they keep dropping hints that things will be more complex than that, certain lines such as "I will fight the enemy regardless of their allegiance" and "They speak of freedom, liberty, but for who?". Also, while all the fighting so far has been against Redcoats, Connor certainly doesn't look like he likes the Patriots that much either. In the CG trailer his only interaction with them is shoving them out of the way all like 'Screw you guys, I'm doing this on my own' and then stealing their horse; and in the gameplay demo he's not exactly chummy with the guy he talks to.

No the trailers aren't that bad I am exaggerating somewhat. I to notice those subtle hints alluding to the story being less black and white than what many of us imagine it will be. It would not make sense for a half native half british character to exclusively side with the colonists given that the colonists proved to just a bad in their treatment of the natives as the British. You might have a point about the patriots in the gameplay trailer (only just seen it this minute) he does seem to give the guy the cold shoulder.

I imagine the trailers have played safe with the details of the game's story as many marketing departments think than an american audience cannot handle themselves being portrayed in anything other than a favourable light. To honest I'd be happy with a token good Brit and a token american assassination just to say "hey not all british are evil pricks".

EDIT

somehow managed to quote you twice there :/

 

[SuperSamio64]

I'm fine, so long as in AC4 they decide to go with an Industrial Revolution setting and have a British protagonist.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Uh sorry to burst your bubble there Funk, but the Revolution was NOT a guerrilla war NOR would it have been one of the first.

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

See? Latent historical resentment. I knew it!

If we really wanted to keep America, we would have

Wasn't worth the loses though.

All I hear is "Waa-waa-waa-waa Why can't WE have an assassin?!"

As far as I know the Assasin is a British/Native American hybrid... If anyones not getting assasins its the Americans. xD. . . I mean, the only people who 'do' get an assasin this time around are pretty much extinct.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Uh sorry to burst your bubble there Funk, but the Revolution was NOT a guerrilla war NOR would it have been one of the first.

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

See? Latent historical resentment. I knew it!

If we really wanted to keep America, we would have

Wasn't worth the loses though.

All I hear is "Waa-waa-waa-waa Why can't WE have an assassin?!"

As far as I know the Assasin is a British/Native American hybrid... If anyones not getting assasins its the Americans. xD. . . I mean, the only people who 'do' get an assasin this time around are pretty much extinct.

http://gamestatics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/assassins_creed_3.jpg
Yep Real tea drinker this one.

I think it might have something to do with Marketing and Writers not working togeether properly. Marketing has decided to market him as American, although his heritage 'is' native american (And I think English, they might have changed it to fullblood native)

I personally think they couldnt have gone wrong with the Assasins logo in the background. American flag just seems so... Overused. I mean, Desmond is not Peter Parker (Not that Spiderman ever needed the Star-Sprangled Banner either)

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

In all seriousness, this is actually an interesting thought. We have a great many readers from the various parts of Great Britain - do you feel that Assassin's Creed III is unfairly targeting you? Is it going to be odd playing a character who stalks and kills your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers?

Huh, Interesting...

Not at all really, me being scottish probably affects my stance greatly but i've never considered the idea that one or more of my ancestors may have been Redcoats before. I don't feel any sort of relation to them, they were alive 200 years ago and when you say "Redcoat" i immediatly think of an englishman. Any history buffs know about this? How much of these guys were Scottish?

 

[Vault Citizen]

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

Then what were we doing in World War I, World War 2 or the Suez Crisis?

I felt a bit off put when I saw that Britain would be an enemy faction. I am aware that this is hypocritical as if someone else was in my shoes I may have told them to suck it up in the past. Sometimes when I see the game it does bother me a bit but I recognise that this reaction is purely emotional and without merit. Ultimately I don't think any less of the game because of it and I will be giving it a look. Ubisoft are doing nothing wrong and whatever issues I have are just something I will have to deal with and work through.

 

[Shadie777]

Well...I'm only a little bit annoyed at Ubisoft blatantly siding on the American side in terms of marketing. Ubisoft say they are not going to make the British the only villains but all I see in the trailers and gameplay is a fucking ton of British soldiers being killed by the assassin. Yes, there are some comments of neutrality in the trailer, but the actions within the trailer contradict it.

I doubt they are going to make this game one-sided and I don't harbor any negative feelings towards Ubisoft, I'm just disappointed at Ubisoft's marketing of the game.

 

[Amnestic]

See in 'Merica, we gots this here principle of citizenship called Jus soli: If he's born here, he's OURS.

"The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution reads, in pertinent part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Its wording was initially interpreted to exclude many Native Americans because they were not considered "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and, thus, were not American citizens. Congress declared it policy to extend citizenship to all Aboriginal peoples in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924." - Wikipedia on Jus Soli

Native Americans weren't necessarily considered American Citizens until 1924.

 

[AnarchistFish]

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

I'm half English half French and so have already been insulted twofold yay

OT: The templars are always on the side of the perceived bad guys though, so it's pretty obvious that's who the British are meant to be

 

[waj9876]

Considering what franchise we're talking about here, and how in past games it's been implied that George Washington was a Templar, I'm going to assume the British aren't the main targets. There's going to be a twist either halfway through or right at the end. And it's probably going to involve American Templars.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Yeah, well, I wouldn't really touch the AC franchise with a bargepole ever since they tried to sell me the Templars as the ultimate bad guys. I kept up with the shenanigans of unlocking a video 1.5 frames at a time, but I really do have issues with slanted, forged and revisionist handling of history. And AC, unfortunately, is all that crap, and more.

Attempting to make the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon look like the bad guys is way lower than "No Russian". They fought our war, my war, somebody else's war and in the end, they were burnt at the stake by, well, their employer. Now, instead of humbly looking back at them in awe, we make them the bad guys. Doesn't click for me, sorry.

 

[Caveworm]

Long as it doesn't turn into Mel Gibson The Patriot.


Despite being British (not offended at all) I am bloody looking forward to using that tomahawk!

 

[AnarchistFish]

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

I'm half English half French and so have already been insulted twofold.

A french english person?!?!?

What did you do in your past life to deserve that?

Better than being full English lol

World War 1 - We simply occupied them as that's where the germans were

The French were just as involved in WW1 than the British and suffered many many more casualties. Everyone just forgets all their battles cos they're dicks. Ever heard of the Battle of Verdun? Basically the French equivalent of the Somme (oh but the French actually won it).

WW2, well France was one of many countries to get invaded, not sure why France is picked out. Also Britain is an island, kinda a big advantage there.

 

[Cgull]

It's a hard for me to find something in that article to be annoyed at really, I mean, yes we're likely to end up wiping out half the English population (purely in terms of numbers, I know England isn't getting invaded) during the course of the game but so what? It's not real, it's not made with any malice, so why worry?

Speaking solely for myself I've spent many happy hours killing Russians, Germans, Americans and a hefty slice of Africa. I harbour no ill-will towards any of these people (well, maybe the Nazis), it's just that they're the voice attached to the digital dude I've been tasked to gleefully obliterate.

Now I've got that out of my system, can all the non-brits please look away? I'd like a word with my fellow countrymen...

*waits for door to close*

Right, seriously, guys, French 'coward' insults? Isn't it a little bit daft to resort to inaccurate lazy stereotypes in a thread where half the complaints have been about the potential upcoming use of an inaccurate lazy stereotype? For shame. I expect those sorts of shenanigans from our fat yank cousins.

*puts innocent look on face, puts bowler on head, sips tea, butters scone*

 

[Prince Regent]

Connor is half amerindian and half english. So no this game is not anti British.

 

[AnarchistFish]

To be fair, though, you were kind of the bad guys.

And you needed the french to win.

We'd rather lose than ally with them.

I'm half English half French and so have already been insulted twofold.

A french english person?!?!?

What did you do in your past life to deserve that?

Better than being full English lol

World War 1 - We simply occupied them as that's where the germans were

The French were just as involved in WW1 than the British and suffered many many more casualties. Everyone just forgets all their battles cos they're dicks. Ever heard of the Battle of Verdun? Basically the French equivalent of the Somme (oh but the French actually won it).

WW2, well France was one of many countries to get invaded, not sure why France is picked out. Also Britain is an island, kinda a big advantage there.

It's a good thing I am irish then, I can laugh at all of you.

And don't be silly, we know that after 1900 the french ceased to have an army. You never fought in any battles.

Irish eh? Well both of my countries have screwed yours