Assassin's Creed Shadows and the controversy over its protagonist Yasuke, the black samurai based on a historical character

The leaks about the main characters of Assassin’s Creed Shadows were accurate. Before the official announcement, there was hardly any noise on social media, but many sensed the uproar that would happen when the information reached the general public. What if agenda, what if inclusion, what if this, what if that. The noise and the controversy have been served and so it was, but the criticism and comments are based on a false premise, because Yasuke’s skin color and his samurai status are justified. He is a real historical figure, a man of African descent who won the trust of the feudal lord Oda Nobunaga.

The last few hours have been a wild dance of accounts with blue checkmarks spewing all sorts of barbarity and announcing that they will not support the video game simply because the character is black, something that they say does not fit the historical period or setting in which the adventure takes place. Others acknowledge his existence but criticize his choice. The fact that Yasuke is the way he is has mobilized a group of people who are making a lot of noise on social media and have dedicated themselves to modifying the Wikipedia page of the historical character to try to strip him of his samurai rank.

This is the true story of Yasuke, the Black Samurai

His origin is not entirely clear, some historians think he was born in Mozambique, while others opt for Nigeria or Ethiopia. Sources indicate that he came to Japan with the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano at a time when the Church was trying to spread the Gospel throughout the world. As might be expected, his skin color attracted the attention of people who had never seen a black man before. The great feudal lord Oda Nobunaga was one of those who observed the tall man who, according to the diaries of Matsudaira Ietada - one of his contemporaries - was 1.88 meters tall with charcoal skin.

Not everything is documented, time has erased some of the history and created legends around the character. What is clear is that Ubisoft is starting with a real historical figure and then adding fictional nuances, but this is how the franchise has always worked. It takes real events and real people and then adapts them to a science fiction universe. Another proof of this is that Naoe, the second protagonist of Shadows, is not a historical character, but the fictional daughter of a ninja master who lived at the time, Fujibayashi Nagato.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be released on current generation consoles (PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S) and PC on November 15th.