Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been turning heads since it was released on March 20. It has been dubbed a revitalisation of the franchise that was in a dire spot, selling millions of copies in just a couple of weeks. The beautiful open-world environment, twinned with an intriguing story and stellar mechanics, is enough to fill fans with faith for the road ahead.
I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Masumi, the talented actor behind Naoe, the game’s female lead and one of the best characters Assassin’s Creed has had in many years. We discussed some of the more controversial topics from the game, including the much-talked-about ‘shrine destruction’ debate.
Here’s the full video version of the interview:
‘It’s Just Not Authentic’
I met Masumi at the BAFTA Games Awards in London, one of the most prestigious ceremonies held to celebrate achievements in the world of gaming. Masumi wasn’t up for a nomination, but she was presenting, and I jumped at the opportunity to catch up with her about Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
Our conversation turned to the representation of Japanese culture in Shadows, which came under fire numerous times ahead of the game’s launch. Being a Japanese-American actor and taking such a pivotal role in the game, I was keen to learn how Masumi felt about some of the trickier topics in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
For me, as a Japanese Naoe, I’m satisfied with my job, with what I was able to portray.
As Japanese, we grow up with the whole shrine, sacred mirrors, all of that – and I saw in the game that those are destroyable, and those things just do not happen. Watching that kind of hurts my heart a little bit.
You’re able to do some things in the game that you would just never, ever, ever be able to do in Japan, and those do hurt me. It’s just not authentic to be able to do something like that.
Shortly after the game’s release, Ubisoft patched out the ability to destroy shrines. This change came after the Japanese government debated these very scenes in parliament, revealing that they had concerns about copycat attacks across the nation.
It’s stunning to me that the game’s lead actress could be so taken aback by something so critical in the game that she has spent more than two years working on. It becomes immediately obvious how much of a blunder Ubisoft may have made by allowing players to destroy these sacred shrines.
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In Valhalla you can burn down churches, recreating real atrocities including the slaughtering of women and children. Innocent civilians are fine to be destructible objects, but a culturally important structure is too far? Alright
Japan barely even lets nature destroy these shrines it still amazes me that the team that used to travel to these historical places and learn about them fumbled this bad but then again Ubisoft clearly lost all sense of its own feet for the last 5 years now
So how did they allow players to destroy that stuff when it got patched before the game even came out so the end of this article didn’t even make sense
Let me know am I playing the unpatched version because I know for a fact I can’t destroy that stuff so I guess we’re playing that version the end of this article made no sense whatsoever the end of
Breaking objects…bad.
Murdering people…good.
Some folks just need to cry about things so they feel better about themselves.
There are some idiots that don’t seem to get out much leaving some ignorant and insensitive comments.
Yea you
“Murdering people…good.” Much like their occupation of China and Malaysia during WW2. At least they put their hands and committed to an astronomical sum in reparations unlike the other great empires, hint hint!