For years, the samurai and ninja of Japanese video games have been portrayed in an almost-binary, black and white fashion – stoic warriors who follow an unwavering code of honor throughout their lives, making them poster representations of virtue that command respect.
While these portrayals can be riveting, they often lack nuance. Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the next mainline entry in Ubisoft’s blockbuster series, has a great opportunity to break this mold with a cast of characters never seen before in a samurai game.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Features An Obscure Japanese Era
Shadows takes place during the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1603), a time of great upheaval and conflict in feudal Japan. However, the more interesting facet about the game is its protagonists: Naoe and Yasuke, two individuals on opposite sides of a brewing war.
Naoe, a fictional but grounded character, is a kunoichi (female ninja) from the Iga province, known as the birthplace of Shinobi. She is the daughter of a legendary Iga ninja, Fujibayashi Nagato, and is inducted into the Assassin’s Order, which is the “creed” of Assassins the games deal with.
Yasuke, on the other hand, is a real historical figure. A man of African descent, Yasuke came to Japan in 1579 and served the famed daimyō Oda Nobunaga. Little is known about the real Yasuke, but the game’s developers have integrated known facts about his connections with the Jesuits, Portuguese, and Nobunaga within his role as one of Shadow‘s protagonists.
His inclusion is also very interesting, as this is the first samurai game that features Yasuke as a protagonist. Games like Nioh and Samurai Warrior 5 do feature him, but in relatively minor capacities. Many fans are undoubtedly excited to see how Ubisoft handles the character.
Why Naoe And Yasuka Should Have Conflicting Moralities
However, what Ubisoft really should do is embrace the lack of clear-cut morality that protagonists in samurai games over the years have lacked. Naoe’s and Yasuke’s premises are intriguing, but they could be far more absorbing if they grappled with moral grayness.
Naoe is a backer of the Assassins, likely driven by a desire to protect her homeland and its traditions. However, the Assassins themselves have a complex moral code, often blurring the lines between good and evil in their pursuit of order.
These pursuits could very well hit close to home for Naoe over the course of the game’s narrative. Similarly, Yasuke’s loyalty to Nobunaga, a ruthless warlord, could create an internal conflict within him upon witnessing the consequences of the war and challenge his allegiance.
There’s a near-perfect setup here for moral ambiguity within these protagonists, giving Assassin’s Creed Shadows a chance to offer a fresh perspective on Japanese history and culture, that too in a previously unexplored era, rather than the same “code of honor” cliché which games like Ghost of Tsushima and Rise of the Ronin find themselves using.
Samurai were human, after all, and with that come certain complexities which shouldn’t be ignored. In addition to their unique premises, Naoe and Yasuke’s potential stories have a chance to make them some of the best Assassin’s Creed characters ever, as well as a fresh breath of air within the subset of samurai games.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is slated to release on 15 November 2024 across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
