I'm really not interested in Assassin's Creed anymore, but I don't think I've ever seen a game so culturally divisive that people have got so wound up and bent out of shape over but it's actually quite amusing to see people go this far in how much they want to test something down.
and the only reason they did so is because they put a black samurai in that actually existed, yet argued it “wasn’t historically accurate”, like come on, you really gonna pull out the “historical accuracy” argument on a franchise that lets you use telepathy in valhalla?
I think the sentiment is in no small part caused by Ubisoft's actions as a corporate entity. They treat their developers like shit, spent years pushing their own massively unpopular storefront on PC and have management saying things like "people shouldn't own their games" before major layoffs.
it'd be one thing if people were manifesting a bad company getting punished, but that's not what people say, it's not even directed at all ubisoft games, it's AC specifically
In my circles it's not just Assassin's Creed, it's Ubisoft. It's not unwarranted either. I know there's a general sort of fatigue aimed at AC in particular in some spheres of the gaming community but anyone I know who was ambivalent or rooting against Shadows did it because of Ubisoft as a company.
Assassins Creed is like the only Ubisoft title that has consistently been doing new things and changing with each game. I would say the only part of it that stagnates/is consistently subpar is the modern storyline, which is thr least popular part of the game anyway. Ppl thought Desmond was intrusive
I can't say I agree; the settings are always new and beautiful but the actual gameplay tends to adhere to a very strict and safe formula. The last big change was the shift towards action RPG mechanics, but that was still held back by Ubisoft's approach to world design.
I disagree on it being held back, every game series has to have some comsistent throughlines otherwise you're just making multiple disconnected titles, i quite like it, but I am just a fan of big collectathons and have been since the feathers in ac2.
But I don't really care about Assassin's Creed, even the original games never really interested me. I don't think they're bad or anything just not for me. Like I said before, my main problem is with Ubisoft as a company, which is a view reflected by a lot of people I interact with IRL or online.
Its always the same these days, lotta noise online from the usual pricks but nobody in the games actual target demo of 'normal people' notices or cares. Meanwhile i find myself rooting for the boring ubisoft slop game because its detractors are the worst people in the world.
Its kinda been this way since that lady ghostbusters movie. The awful racist/sexist backlash overshadows any actual criticism or issues. Eventually you realise you dont care enough to wade in on the topic when people think you're part of that whole pile on.
Last AC sold 25 million so most reasonable fears I have seen are "Yeah Ubi kinda promised investors it would sell more than Valhalla and it's clearly more expensive, but Valhalla had the Covid buff so..tough spot to be in" also how Ubi has been kinda falling apart as of late.
AC is like CoD where it has an insane amount of shooters who'll buy every game and at launch without caring about any of the stuff that happens in game media
People who actually like the series for the series do care, the people who bought without caring dropped it when it switched to an rpg format because it was no longer "real assassins creed" and it got an engaging combat system and interactive storylines (both things that wildly helped its longevity)
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like every year people talk about how nobody cares about AC anymore but it's just a franchise with a very normie audience
Shadows looks cool though.
Odyssey to Shadows are very different games