Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed opening disclaimer change is bizarre.

[Dalisclock]

Assassin's Creed is currently spinning its wheels, but it SHOULD be going back to its original subject matter soon.
Unless of course Assassin's Creed 7 (Syndicate is AC6)

Wasn't Syndicate more like AC8, or are we putting Brotherhood and Revelations into DLC territory like Freedom Cry and The Tyranny of King Washington? Speaking of which, how does Rogue fit into the scheme? It is 3.5? 4.5?

Seriously, they messed up the whole scheme and while back and dropping numbers again isn't helping things.

But anyway, I haven't played Unity or Syndicate but from what I've gathered(Abstergo hunting for Sages and Precursor DNA)it seems like they're trying to setup for something to happen with the Juno/Sage plot in the next game(God, I hope they are) but they've really been dragging this out. I'm pretty sure it's because they really never really thought past the Solar Flare thing and then when they had to finally deal with it after III, they had nothing other then "Well, there's Juno" and they've been desperately playing for time for the last few years trying to figure out how to build it into something interesting.

It's one of the problems this series has always had. They want to have a overarching threat in the present(Remember the threat of the Templar mind control satellite, due to be launched sometime in the near future?) but at the same time, they want to keep making these games until they stop being profitable, and obviously it's not working. We're basically back where the series was after II, where we know something big should be coming up and yet we keep getting games that don't really do anything other then play for time by distracting US with new features and prettier graphics(Brotherhood and Revelations). The problem is, the series has long since gotten old enough that it's even more tiresome now then it was before.

Also, in respect to the whole disclaimer thing.....eh, don't really care. I stopped paying attention to it a long time ago. It's a CYA after the "Lady Assassins? What craziness is this? We've never done Lady Assassin before in this series. Ever(especially not in pretty much every game up until this point, including Rogue). We wouldn't know where to begin" crap from Unity. But whatever. The series has far bigger issues then the disclaimer(Feature creep and an extremely SLOW advance of the overall plot among other things), as others have said.

 

[Dalisclock]

And yes, the series obviously has many things that don't make sense historically, like British accents in France, but this thread was specifically about equal gender representation. And that in the case of Syndicate's gangs it doesn't make sense to include it.

Except for when the British French people will start speaking French at random, because of course they will.

The Female gang members? Yeah, it stands out a bit as inaccurate but the series is filled with stuff like that. Black Flag kept doing that to me with having unopened chested filled with loot on an island populated by pirates. The answer, as always, is either THE ANIMUS DID IT! or Abestrgo is rewriting the history books again.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

So religion-esque subject matter remains the core of Assassin's Creed, regardless of individual entries failing to add anything meaningful to this storyline. The First Civilization are, for all intents and purposes, gods. And in this context, the Ubisoft religion disclaimer makes a lot of sense.

I'm sorry but your explanation makes about as much sense as having Baldur's Gate, Game of Thrones or any other media with fictional religions carry a disclaimer about the religious diversity of the developers/authors. The inclusion of fictional religions or gods is not in itself offensive.

Game of Thrones and Baldur's Gate don't take place in a world with real religions that are invalided and explicitly undermined by the narrative. To compare, the famouse Arthur C. Clark "Childhood's End" novel is very, very offensive to religious people because it features a device that allows people to visually explore the past. This device, carefully controlled and restricted, is used to demonstrate that all the major religions are based on lies.

When Assassin's Creed *finally* gets around to telling the incredibly longwinded story of the First Civilisation, that has allegedly been written already, it will have to deal with Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. The former two are the first human-First Civilisation hybrids, and in AC lore, Cain killed Abel to get his Apple of Eden.

I mean, we're right back to square zero where Ubisoft's story is appropriating and distorting the foundations of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths. It's like Evangelion without the "hey they're Japanese and ignorant of how sacred people find this stuff, so it's okay" excuse.

Whether Assassin's Creed NEEDS a disclaimer is another matter. I'm not a huge fan of disclaimers. At the same time, I think "leave well enough alone" is a good policy.

Wasn't Syndicate more like AC8, or are we putting Brotherhood and Revelations into DLC territory like Freedom Cry and The Tyranny of King Washington? Speaking of which, how does Rogue fit into the scheme? It is 3.5? 4.5?

The data files use an ACVI naming scheme. So I assume it is Number 6 without a number. Kinda like how Peace Walker was MGS5 until Konami meddled.

But anyway, I haven't played Unity or Syndicate but from what I've gathered(Abstergo hunting for Sages and Precursor DNA)it seems like they're trying to setup for something to happen with the Juno/Sage plot in the next game(God, I hope they are) but they've really been dragging this out. I'm pretty sure it's because they really never really thought past the Solar Flare thing and then when they had to finally deal with it after III, they had nothing other then "Well, there's Juno" and they've been desperately playing for time for the last few years trying to figure out how to build it into something interesting.

The Assassin's Creed storyline ran into a brick wall when Patrice Desilets left Ubisoft in 2010. Corey May, the main writer, kept on going, (leaving in 2015) but AC3, as much as I like it, in no way reflects the original plan for the series, which was supposedly going to culminate in Desmond becoming the ultimate Asssassin by learning from all the best throughout history. That whole plan went to crap, Desmond got killed off in AC3, and his content in this game was fully outsourced to another Ubisoft division that was not in proper communication with the man division.

AC4 had actual, meaningful modern-day story content. Not a huge amount, be we learnt things about the First Civilisation and Juno. Unity had zilch. Syndicate has SOME, but it's all FMVs.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Regardless, why you have a problem with a company's cynical attempt at trying to cover their ass in the event that someone is offended by their game turned into a sincere message about diversity and inclusion strikes as little more than the typical reactionary backlash to anything and everything that is even the slightest bit diverse and inclusive.

Not that there's anything wrong with being reactionary, but I simply disagree that the disclaimer should be treated as anything but a disclaimer. I don't think that having a religiously/politically/gender diverse team is anything to be proud of. Nothing wrong with it, but I can't stand people making it a point of praise. I'm criticising Marc-Alexis Cote for forgetting or ignoring the role the disclaimer played.

And, as pointed about by Gethsemani, there has been a bit of a change in the game's plot focus since the first games kind of makes the necessity to have religion (and only religion!) be included on the disclaimer.

And I disagree. I think that Assassin's Creed is drawing slowly but surely to the point where it is going to have to start treading on specifically religious toes far more firmly when it comes to First Civilisation if it wants to resolve the storyline. No more side content and codex entries. There's a good chance you'll end up playing as Cain, killing Abel, inspiring the Templars, and such. This is the sort of thing that the old disclaimer served to gloss over nicely.

 

[Imre Csete]

There is no point in looking for deeper meaning to these things, people get offended at everything, better be safe than sorry.

When a franchise known for black humour (Borderlands) has to break the 4th wall and apologise ingame for a friendzone joke, you know it's just going to be the norm now.

 

[hermes]

To be honest, this strikes me as Cote and his team misunderstanding the purpose the original disclaimer served in a headscratching manner.

On the contrary, it looks like Cote understood exactly what was the purpose of the original disclaimer. It is a cop out to try to divert blame from any misrepresentation of characters or historical context, by claiming there are people working there that are part of that context, so therefore its allowed. It serves no other propose than "we are going to portrait christian figures as mustache-twisting villains; but some of us are christians, so it is ok... right?". As such, the new disclaimer has exactly the same function and wording than the original, only updated to avoid the current shitstorm. If the original game was scared of a controversy for having a villainous Church or villainous american colons, the new one is scared of the controversy for lacking female protagonists in Unity.

Personally, I always found the message to be distracting, cynical and pretty coward. There are thousands of games (and pieces of fiction) based around historical events, and they don't feel the need to start it with "I am not racist, I know some black people..."

 

[Something Amyss]

Again, I'll point toward the likes of Indiana Jones; A series filled with magic mcguffins and ridiculous stunts. Despite all that lunacy, if you had Indy fighting a bunch of female nazi soldiers on the battlefield you'd be hard pressed not to raise an eyebrow.

I'm pretty sure I'd be hard-pressed to care because they're already so ridiculous. However, I would point out that you've gone from something historical that you "know" is wrong to something ahistorical as an example of why it's wrong.

This isn't "female Nazi soldiers," it's "no blacks in France."

 

[Something Amyss]

On the contrary, it looks like Cote understood exactly what was the purpose of the original disclaimer. It is a cop out to try to divert blame from any misrepresentation of characters or historical context, by claiming there are people working there that are part of that context, so therefore its allowed.

In fact, it's been called the "please don't kill us" clause colloquially.

 

[happyninja42]

To be honest, this strikes me as Cote and his team misunderstanding the purpose the original disclaimer served in a headscratching manner.

On the contrary, it looks like Cote understood exactly what was the purpose of the original disclaimer. It is a cop out to try to divert blame from any misrepresentation of characters or historical context, by claiming there are people working there that are part of that context, so therefore its allowed. It serves no other propose than "we are going to portrait christian figures as mustache-twisting villains; but some of us are christians, so it is ok... right?". As such, the new disclaimer has exactly the same function and wording than the original, only updated to avoid the current shitstorm. If the original game was scared of a controversy for having a villainous Church or villainous american colons, the new one is scared of the controversy for lacking female protagonists in Unity.

Personally, I always found the message to be distracting, cynical and pretty coward. There are thousands of games (and pieces of fiction) based around historical events, and they don't feel the need to start it with "I am not racist, I know some black people..."

And how many of those other games you mentioned get as much shit flung at them in the social media for their portrayal of various real world groups? I'm guessing not many. It's not like Ubisoft is being ignored when they do this stuff. Every time they make a game, there is a huge social discussion about all the various little bits of it, and how some people hate it, some love it, some think it's racist/sexist/bigoted, some think it's just fine, etc. So yeah, I think it's totally prudent of them to put that disclaimer up, because they are getting the attention, they're getting all the attention. Comparing them to some indie game who didn't bother to put up a disclaimer, but who also has barely sold a few thousand copies, compared to a AAA title that sells millions every time they drop a new title to the franchise, is a little misleading.

 

[Casual Shinji]

And yes, the series obviously has many things that don't make sense historically, like British accents in France, but this thread was specifically about equal gender representation. And that in the case of Syndicate's gangs it doesn't make sense to include it.

Except for when the British French people will start speaking French at random, because of course they will.

The Female gang members? Yeah, it stands out a bit as inaccurate but the series is filled with stuff like that. Black Flag kept doing that to me with having unopened chested filled with loot on an island populated by pirates. The answer, as always, is either THE ANIMUS DID IT! or Abestrgo is rewriting the history books again.

It is, but this particular one felt like it was there just to shut us up, after the whole Unity not including a playable female character. And that just kind of irks me. It's not done with any thought of whether it would fit the setting, but just to placate us.

 

[Erttheking]

And yes, the series obviously has many things that don't make sense historically, like British accents in France, but this thread was specifically about equal gender representation. And that in the case of Syndicate's gangs it doesn't make sense to include it.

Except for when the British French people will start speaking French at random, because of course they will.

The Female gang members? Yeah, it stands out a bit as inaccurate but the series is filled with stuff like that. Black Flag kept doing that to me with having unopened chested filled with loot on an island populated by pirates. The answer, as always, is either THE ANIMUS DID IT! or Abestrgo is rewriting the history books again.

It is, but this particular one felt like it was there just to shut us up, after the whole Unity not including a playable female character. And that just kind of irks me. It's not done with any thought of whether it would fit the setting, but just to placate us.

I don't follow. How is this shutting you up? Because it was a response to a criticism? That's shutting people up now? And for any thought of whether it would fit the setting? Since when has Ubisoft given a shit about that? Machine-guns and tnaks don't fit the Renaissance era but they put that in anyway. And ever since Brotherhood women had been brawling against Templar forces in the streets.

 

[happyninja42]

And yes, the series obviously has many things that don't make sense historically, like British accents in France, but this thread was specifically about equal gender representation. And that in the case of Syndicate's gangs it doesn't make sense to include it.

Except for when the British French people will start speaking French at random, because of course they will.

The Female gang members? Yeah, it stands out a bit as inaccurate but the series is filled with stuff like that. Black Flag kept doing that to me with having unopened chested filled with loot on an island populated by pirates. The answer, as always, is either THE ANIMUS DID IT! or Abestrgo is rewriting the history books again.

It is, but this particular one felt like it was there just to shut us up, after the whole Unity not including a playable female character. And that just kind of irks me. It's not done with any thought of whether it would fit the setting, but just to placate us.

Ok so, you keep mentioning "fitting the setting". If we're going to allow that Assassin's Creed is an alternate universe, where these 2 organizations are at the heart of all major world events, and there are Alien Architects that founded humanity, and a 2012 doomsday scenario none of which is historically accurate, and is obviously in the realm of "alternate reality" Why is it so hard to just say "this world was more gender relaxed about what roles women could play in society. And so women were allowed to be in gangs long before the real world would consider this something as normal?"
I just, I don't understand your selective level of disconnect when it comes to the various and numerous things they change for the sake of their story, or because they think it's cool. Do you get equally irked each time you use the bathook? Because they sure as hell didn't have that in the 1800's. Do you get irked when they justify stuff with "genetic memory"? I mean come on, saying "The other stuff they change is ok, but having women gangsters is just not historically accurate!" seems illogical to me. Why harp on that one aspect of change, considering all the other stuff?

And if we're not going to allow that this is an alternate reality, and hold it up to the real world historical events, then there should be a laundry list of things that irk you, and not just "there are women in the gangs".

 

[Dalisclock]

It is, but this particular one felt like it was there just to shut us up, after the whole Unity not including a playable female character. And that just kind of irks me. It's not done with any thought of whether it would fit the setting, but just to placate us.

I still can't get worked up about it. I didn't particularly care about them not having a playable female assasin in Unity either, but that doesn't mean their wierd excuse of "Women assasins are too hard to make" didn't fall flat. Especially considering pretty much every game since brotherhood had female assasins in it(and Rogue who was a main character and did her assassinating in a goddamn dress, which I still can't see how that's supposed to work).

Which turned out to be the least of Unity's problems anyway. Personally, I see the problem of having their resources divided between Unity and Rogue, which resulted in Unity being incredibly meh and buggy, while Rogue was a great concept hampered by slipshod execution(It's a fine game, but it feels like it needed a lot more love to make it actually shine and not just feel like BF as a bad guy). Instead, they should have picked one of the two and poured their resources into that. But I digress....

 

[Casual Shinji]

Probably not doing myself any favors keeping this going, but why not...

I don't follow. How is this shutting you up? Because it was a response to a criticism? That's shutting people up now?

Evie already seemed to have been that response. The female guardsmen just felt like overkill. And before that sentence gets blown up, this is not me stating that putting equal amounts of men and women in a game is disrupting the male quota, just that developers need to take into account the setting of their game, especially if it's a historical one they want to do justice, and whether or not something actually fits.

And just to give an example of the opposite... In The Last of Us you only ever fight guys, eventhough the military and the Fireflies clearly show there's plenty of women fighting alongside the men in either the cutscenes or scripted events. But Naughty Dog likely didn't feel that having Joel brutally bash in the heads of women would go over well, so it's only dudes. Eventhough when fighting the infected, there are women.

And for any thought of whether it would fit the setting? Since when has Ubisoft given a shit about that? Machine-guns and tnaks don't fit the Renaissance era but they put that in anyway.

And you're more than welcome to complain about that, should it bother you.

And ever since Brotherhood women had been brawling against Templar forces in the streets.

Those are all characters that are trained by the Assassin's though.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ok so, you keep mentioning "fitting the setting". If we're going to allow that Assassin's Creed is an alternate universe, where these 2 organizations are at the heart of all major world events, and there are Alien Architects that founded humanity, and a 2012 doomsday scenario none of which is historically accurate, and is obviously in the realm of "alternate reality" Why is it so hard to just say "this world was more gender relaxed about what roles women could play in society. And so women were allowed to be in gangs long before the real world would consider this something as normal?"
I just, I don't understand your selective level of disconnect when it comes to the various and numerous things they change for the sake of their story, or because they think it's cool. Do you get equally irked each time you use the bathook? Because they sure as hell didn't have that in the 1800's. Do you get irked when they justify stuff with "genetic memory"? I mean come on, saying "The other stuff they change is ok, but having women gangsters is just not historically accurate!" seems illogical to me. Why harp on that one aspect of change, considering all the other stuff?

And if we're not going to allow that this is an alternate reality, and hold it up to the real world historical events, then there should be a laundry list of things that irk you, and not just "there are women in the gangs".

Well, beyond the fact that everyone has a selective level of disconnect -- some things are obviously going to bother some people more than others -- there's more than enough other non-gender related bugs I have with the series. This one just happens to get introduced in the latest entry, and was a change I feel was a completely unnecessary overcompensation, considering where the game takes place.

 

[Something Amyss]

This is a double post because of a captcha fail. Please look below for the comment.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't follow. How is this shutting you up? Because it was a response to a criticism? That's shutting people up now?

This still surprises you, ert?

And how many of those other games you mentioned get as much shit flung at them in the social media for their portrayal of various real world groups? I'm guessing not many. It's not like Ubisoft is being ignored when they do this stuff. Every time they make a game, there is a huge social discussion about all the various little bits of it, and how some people hate it, some love it, some think it's racist/sexist/bigoted, some think it's just fine, etc. So yeah, I think it's totally prudent of them to put that disclaimer up, because they are getting the attention, they're getting all the attention. Comparing them to some indie game who didn't bother to put up a disclaimer, but who also has barely sold a few thousand copies, compared to a AAA title that sells millions every time they drop a new title to the franchise, is a little misleading.

I think you're kind of missing the mark here. The fact is there are thousands of historical games on the market (as he says), but Assassin's Creed isn't most of those games. It only feels like it because they put out so damn many. It's a high profile game that deals with some fairly sensitive issues on an broad scale in, as you pointed out to Shinji, what is effectively an alternate history. I can absolutely see why they'd feel the need to put up a disclaimer not despite the presence of historical games, but because of it.

I'm regularly surprised AC doesn't get more flak, because of some of the topics brought up. Not even stuff like Slavery/gender roles/sexuality (which honestly, do deserve to be discussed), but several points in ACIII make American heroess look bad, and that's the sort of shit we tend to not like. I wouldn't be shocked to find nationalist complaints from other nations, either.