Assassin's Creed Shadows Was Always Going To Be Queer (2024)

Ubisoft has revealed that Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the newest instalment of the series slated for November 12, will once again include same-sex romances and have “more developed relationships”.

In fact, Shadows seems to be going further with this than Ubisoft ever has before. One could say that in previous games, romanceable characters were playersexual, and the relationships you had with them weren’t always intentionally queer relationships crafted for that specific purpose since the dual protagonists weren’t separate people but gender options. Since Naoe and Yasuke will have romances unique to their individually designed characters, the queer representation feels more intentional.

As anybody paying attention to the discourse around the game could have predicted, the same conservative sect of gamers who have been angry about an Assassin’s Creed set in Japan having a Black protagonist is now also upset about its protagonists having the option to have same-sex relationships.

Assassin’s Creed Has Always Had Queerness

This is, quite frankly, baffling. Assassin’s Creed has had explicitly queer characters since the early days. The Ezio Trilogy had Leonardo da Vinci, who is pretty clearly portrayed as gay, and was also likely gay or bisexual in real life. Assassin Creed Unity’s Chevalier d’Eon was probably a trans woman, or potentially intersex. That same game also portrays Marquis de Sade, who was definitely a bisexual, albeit a thoroughly evil one in real life. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate protagonist Jacob Frye is also canonically bisexual.

Then, of course, we get Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla, in which you can choose the gender of your protagonist. Regardless of which you choose, you can bone down with pretty much every romanceable character, so it’s already been established that modern AC games make your protagonists bisexual unless you opt out of those romances, which you can do.

So why would Shadows be different? This feels like the kind of thing you’d be angry about only if you were expecting conservative politics to un-queer gaming protagonists, which I would say is naive optimism from this group. It makes perfect sense for Shadows to be in keeping with the precedent already set in previous games – this shouldn’t be a surprise at all.

I’m not saying that Assassin’s Creed is the paragon of queer representation, but it’s never erased queerness. Though hom*osexuality was mostly alluded to instead of directly represented, especially in the early games, they generally haven’t ever pretended that gay people never existed throughout history, in all different places in the world.

Why Is Yasuke Queer, Though?

It would be reductive to say the ridicule from these players is simply because queerness is included – the focus is on the fact that Yasuke, specifically, is gay. The discourse has shifted from ‘Yasuke wasn’t a samurai!’ to ‘Yasuke wasn’t gay!’

Firstly, just searching the phrase ‘samurai gay’ will lead you to countless pages about hom*osexuality in Japan, and how it was actually a common practice for older, experienced nenja to train a younger warrior and take him as a lover, if the younger warrior agreed. I’m pretty sure this is pederasty, but there you go. There have been artistic representations and records of hom*osexuality in Japan dating back to the 1500s. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

Secondly, allow me to point you to my colleague Jade King’s piece about how Assassin’s Creed doesn’t care about historical accuracy. The series has always drawn characters from history and reinterpreted their real lives for the purpose of making fun video games. Were the Borgias systematically assassinated? Was Margaret Thatcher a Templar? Are the Isu real? Come on, now. The series presents an alternative history to the one we’re familiar with, intimating that there’s a large conspiracy underlying everything we know to be true. It’s a mix of fact and fiction.

It doesn’t really matter if Yasuke was queer in real life or not. It’s just an RPG mechanic. If it bothers you, just don’t choose for him to reciprocate male advances – there you go, he’s straight as an arrow. Mine’s gonna be queer as hell, though.

Assassin's Creed Shadows

Franchise

Assassin's Creed

Platform(s)

PS5 , PC , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

November 15, 2024

Developer(s)

Ubisoft Quebec

Publisher(s)

Ubisoft

Genre(s)

Action , Stealth

System

PC , PlayStation , Xbox