[ad_1]
The peculiar thing about the controversy surrounding Shadows is that while it has elicited a significant outcry from certain people upset with its perceived cultural insensitivities, the game’s revisionist mode of storytelling doesn’t deviate whatsoever from the approach the series has taken in the past. The franchise has always told an ongoing, fictional story informed and bolstered by historical figures and events, not the other way around. In other words, the going concern in Assassin’s Creed has always been the made-up stuff, not the archival stuff.
That’s not to say the games’ historical elements aren’t important, of course. From the digital recreations of Notre Dame to approximating what the Pyramids of Giza looked like during the reign of Cleopatra VII, there has always been deep value in the series’ historical research. What’s sad about the contentious rhetoric surrounding Shadows’ depiction of Japan, however, is that the game might literally be the most painstakingly detailed, lovingly crafted, respectfully researched portrayals of feudal Japan ever committed to an interactive medium.
Den of Geek visited Ubisoft back in January to learn the lengths the developers went to pay proper respects to the region and its history, and it was almost unfathomable how obsessive the team was in recreating the look and feel of the time period. They spent time in Japan, consulted historians and experts, kept real-life weaponry and armor in the office for visual reference. Down to the shingles on roofs and the types of wood used in cabinets, the team were borderline psychotic about getting the details right.
In this respect, for every historical detail the game gets “wrong,” there are thousands and thousands of details the game gets right. Shadows’ game world is a ravishingly vivid portrait of 16th century Japan that deserves to be celebrated, and it’s a shame that some may be deterred from playing the game due to a vocal minority blowing minor issues out of proportion.
But there’s a deeper point still regarding the nature of historical fiction. While it goes without saying that historicity is a crucial component of period pieces, it’s unreasonable to uncouple a historical fiction from its fictional context and then dismiss it for inaccuracies.
Assassin’s Creed has reimagined history in countless ways since its inception in 2007. In Assassin’s Creed Origins, protagonist Bayek’s wife Aya is the first person to stab Julius Caesar, amusingly suggesting the Roman Senate followed the lead of an Egyptian dissident. In Assassin’s Creed II, the big bad is the freaking Pope, whose children are depicted as incestuous in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood despite many historians now claiming that was anti-Borgia propaganda. In the same games, Leonardo da Vinci builds the player a wooden tank! Nobody complained about these “inaccuracies” for obvious reasons.
[ad_2]
