Assassin’s Creed Shadows made Assassin’s Creed franchise history by having the most disliked trailer of all time.
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
The official world premiere of the trailer on Ubisoft’s YouTube channel has 7.1 million views, 265,000 likes, and over 595,000 dislikes.
Screenshot of Assassin’s Creed Shadows premiere trailer
As a point of comparison, the Assassin’s Creed Mirage cinematic world premiere has 8.7 million views since it was released back in September 2022. It only has 9,700 dislikes compared to 229,000 likes.
Screenshot of Assassin’s Creed Mirage premiere trailer
Looking back even further to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the official premiere trailer was released on the Ubisoft North America channel. It garnered 9.4 million views since it debuted on April 30, 2020. It racked up 325,000 likes and received 15 dislikes.
Screenshot of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla premiere trailer
The 2018 premiere trailer for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which was posted to the Ubisoft North America YouTube channel received 6.8 million views. It received 74,000 likes and 8,600 dislikes.
Screenshot of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey premiere trailer
In 2017, Assassin’s Creed Origins’ premiere trailer received 6.8 million views. It received 89,000 likes and 10,000 dislikes.
Screenshot of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey premiere trailer
The game is receiving significant pushback for featuring Yasuke, an historical figure of African descent in the game that is set in Japan rather than a male Japanese Samurai.
Two of the top comments on the trailer translated from Japanese read, “European and American game companies: In order to avoid racial discrimination, black characters must be included in games to to ensure the diversity of characters and subvert stereotypes. The same European and American game companies: We decided to put a black samurai in a game with a Japanese background. His mission is to kill various Asians. Thank you Ubi.”
The other states, “If this is true, if there is even a slight mention in a country’s history books that “black people existed at a certain time in history,” all the main characters in games set in that country will be black. There is a possibility.”
A screenshot of Assassin’s Creed Shadows premiere trailer’s comments
Other top comments translated from Japanese state, “It’s kind of funny, you should have cast a black protagonist in Assassin’s Creed Unity set in France instead of Sengoku Japan.”
Another reads, “It’s no good to expand on a person like Yasuke, who is only recorded in documents that are less than a few pages long, and turn it into a ‘historical fact.’ A company that practices political correctness can openly discriminate against Japanese people.”
“Discrimination against black people? Absolutely not. Black people have been replaced by white people. Now they are trying to repeat the same mistake by targeting Asians,” reads another.
A screenshot of Assassin’s Creed Shadows premiere trailer’s comments
READ: Visa and Mastercard Deny Direct Involvement in Gaming Censorship Amid Mass Backlash
The game’s Associate Narrative Director Brooke Davies did note in a subsequent trailer focusing on Yasuke and the game’s other protagonist Naoe, “The historical character of Yasuke presented a really exciting opportunity for the narrative team. We approached it in the same way that so much of the work is done in Assassin’s Creed, which is really in terms of research and history first.”
She then admitted, “Not a lot is known about him, but what we did know or we did know is that he arrived in Japan in 1579 right when our game starts. And that he had relationships with some of the most interesting people in our setting, like Oda Nobunaga, the Portuguese and Jesuits, which made it very sort of tantalizing and enticing from a narrative perspective to come in and start weaving these facts with story in between.”
What do you make of this trailer breaking the record for most disliked Assassin’s Creed premiere trailer of all time?
