Assassin's Creed Shadows (previously Codename Red) was finally unveiled last week and immediately drew backlash for 'historical inaccuracy' and being 'woke' because one of the protagonists is a Black samurai in Japan, completely ignoring that he's based on a real historical figure called Yasuke.
The trailer has been spammed with dislikes, garnering over 500,000 at the time of writing. But gamers didn't stop there. The same is happening with the Japanese trailer, as it now has over 38,000 dislikes. Many on social media are using this to argue that Japanese people find the game offensive, but reading the comments paints a different picture.
"Speaking as a Korean," one reads. "Hello, I'm from Iran," another says. "I'm Russian," the list goes on and on with people claiming to be from China, the Phillippines, Sweden, Turkey, Brazil, the US, France, and many more countries that... aren't Japan.
One such fan tweeted, "The Japanese Are Not Happy With Assassin's Creed Shadows," garnering 41,000 likes, but in their own tweet, they show that they are among the many disliking the trailer.
The Japanese PlayStation store tells a completely different story to the rhetoric we're seeing on social media. Right now, Assassin's Creed Shadows is the third best-selling pre-order behind Final Fantasy 14: The Golden Legacy and Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree.
What's more, it's the Ultimate Edition that people are pre-ordering, AKA the most expensive version of the game. It's retailing in the UK at a staggering £114.99. Reports also surfaced yesterday that pre-orders across the board are strong despite the vocal backlash, so what we're seeing online is a vocal minority.
Assassin's Creed Shadows releases later this year on November 15.
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