Senior Writer For ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Declared: “There’s More Than Enough Games Out There With White Men As The Only Playable Characters. Let’s Do Better.”

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Senior Writer Giles Armstrong previously detailed an animus against white characters as part of representation ideology.

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

Armstrong announced he was a Senior Writer on Assassin’s Creed Shadows after the game’s trailer debuted yesterday. He wrote on X, “Now that Ubisoft Sofia has been confirmed as working on it, I can finally reveal I was a Senior Writer on Assassin’s Creed Shadows! Working under the guidance of Ubisoft Quebec and the excellent Alissa (mossinmind), I can tell you, you’re all in for a treat.

Giles Armstrong on X

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Back in 2018, Armstrong reacted to a video of actor Chadwick Boseman surprising Black Panther fans writing, “Hey #gamedev. When I say in our meetings that representation matters, well… see for yourself. Everyone wants to see a positive version of themselves on screen. Everyone. There’s more than enough games out there with white men as the only playable characters. Let’s do better.”

Giles Armstrong on X

Armstrong also shared in 2020 that he believes straight white men are privileged within the gaming industry.

He wrote in response to Game Devs of Color requesting mentors to help black game developers and artists with their careers, “Thanks for kicking this off, Game Devs of Color Expo. Game writing is a tough field even with all the privilege of being a cis white male. Based on how very few Black game writers I see, I can only imagine how much harder it must be. For advice on game writing and portfolio pieces, I’m here.”

Giles Armstrong on X

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Armstrong’s body of work consists of a number of Assassin’s Creed games. Aside from Shadows, he also worked on Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Destruction AllStars, Tropico 6, Horizon Forbidden West, Atlas Fallen, and others.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows follows the story of Yasuke and Naoe. An explainer trailer featuring Game Director Charles Benoit and Associate Narrative Director Brooke Davies from Ubisoft provided insight into the characters and why they were chosen .

Benoit began, “With our dual protagonists, we have two fantasies: the samurai and the shinobi. We want the player to experience both. And we cannot squeeze both fantasies into one character because the samurai and shinobi came from different social classes. They have different lives, so we cannot really mix them together.”

Davies then added, “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. Not a lot is known about him, but what we did know or we do 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.”

“The more we read that about the character, the more he was inspiring for us,” Benoit declared. “He’s a foreigner discovering Japan, and we thought it’s the perfect fit because he’s discovering Japan and you are discovering Japan also.”

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft

Davies then discussed Naoe, “And on the flip side, we have Naoe, who comes from the province of Iga, which is a remote mountainous area, fiercely independent and known as the birthplace of Shinobi. So they’re very contrasting perspectives that really expose a lot of different sides and facets of the era.”

Benoit continued, “When Oda came he completely destroyed Iga. You have Yasuke and Oda, they are coming to destroy the shinobi. So it kind of create this this interesting tension between two characters.”

Davies added, “We were able to connect her to the province of Iga in the legendary Igan Shinobi historical figure Fujibayashi Nagato who’s her father in the game. So we understand why she has the skills that she has and the values that she learns from her father and the people of Iga, which are valor, benevolence, and wisdom. And as a young person still at the start of the game, we get to see Naoe acquire even more of that wisdom as the story unfolds.”

Assassin’s Creed Shadows arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, PC through the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games Store, and Macs with the Apple silicon via the Mac App Store on November 15, 2024.

What do you make of Armstrong having this animus against white characters?

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