If there was any lingering doubt that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would be Ubisoft’s most politically charged and culturally scrutinized release to date, Marc-Alexis Coté has laid that debate to rest — emphatically.
In a sweeping and unapologetic speech delivered at a BAFTA industry gathering on November 2, Coté, the franchise head and executive producer, pushed back hard on critics accusing the upcoming Shadows installment of promoting “modern agendas.” His message? The game’s protagonists — including the now-infamous inclusion of Yasuke, the Black samurai, and Naoe, a female Japanese warrior — aren’t woke inserts. They’re “grounded in historical authenticity,” and anyone suggesting otherwise is, in his words, a “bad actor” attempting to “incite hatred.”
That’s a bold accusation — and it frames the debate not as artistic disagreement, but as moral failure.
Ya, they tried to gaslight everyone so hard over this.
But we always knew. https://t.co/ymQdPx7BQM
— Grummz (@Grummz) November 4, 2025
Coté is clearly tired of the backlash. And Ubisoft, already bleeding resources and morale, isn’t just defending the game creatively — it’s reportedly preparing to defend it legally. According to new reports, Ubisoft is poised to pursue legal action against critics whose reactions cross into what they consider harassment, and they’ve already mobilized an internal team to monitor social media posts, Reddit threads, and YouTube content around the clock.
Let that sink in: Criticism of a video game is now a legal concern if it hits the wrong tone.
Internally, the stakes are sky-high. One Ubisoft employee confided to French outlet BFM Tech & Co that Shadows must “perform very well” or the company is “in trouble.” Another said plainly: “The teams crunched like never before to finish it.” In other words, this game isn’t just a product — it’s a lifeline. And every piece of its messaging, marketing, and defense strategy is calibrated like it’s being launched into hostile territory. Because, in many ways, it is.
Ubisoft doesn’t make Assassin’s Creed anymore, or Far Cry, or Rainbow Six.
They lost it all.
Management moved it to a new company with Tencent. https://t.co/Akq7KqSELH
— Grummz (@Grummz) October 1, 2025
Ubisoft Québec knows it’s not just competing with industry rivals — like the upcoming Ghost of Yōtei, widely seen as Shadows’ spiritual competition — but also with a culture war playing out in real time. And Coté isn’t backing away. His defense of Yasuke and Naoe as dual protagonists was deeply philosophical, tying the franchise’s multicultural history to “openness” in society and railing against what he called “xenophobic” movements trying to “silence creativity.”
But here’s where things get messy: while Ubisoft claims the game’s narrative is rooted in historical authenticity, it also openly acknowledges that its dual protagonists — one fictional, one adapted from limited historical records — are intended to challenge established norms. That’s not historical reporting. That’s narrative framing, and it’s precisely what critics have flagged.
Let’s be clear: Yasuke was a real figure. But the full extent of his role as a samurai remains debated among historians. Likewise, women warriors like Naoe did exist, but their roles were rare and culturally constrained. Ubisoft’s adaptation of them as equal-billing protagonists is, by definition, historical fiction — with modern sensibilities applied. That doesn’t mean it’s invalid. It does mean it’s open to critique — a point Coté seemed unwilling to entertain unless that critique met a very narrow threshold of “legitimate.”
What complicates matters further is Ubisoft’s apparent confusion between dissent and “intolerance.” There is a clear line between harassment and criticism. But when executives begin suggesting that negative reactions could invite legal scrutiny, it starts to feel like the game itself isn’t the only thing under surveillance.
Since gamers started publicly flogging woke games in 2024:
– EA goes private.
– Ubisoft moves its best IPs to a private subsidiary.I think we had more of an effect that many realize. Ubisoft looked untouchable early 2024, but gamers took them down.
Both of these newly…
— Grummz (@Grummz) September 29, 2025
And while Coté’s speech may inspire confidence among internal teams and progressive media outlets, it’s unlikely to win over the critics who’ve grown skeptical of entertainment brands leveraging historical settings as Trojan horses for modern messaging.
The truth is, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a high-stakes gamble — one that risks alienating long-time fans while trying to expand into new cultural territory. Ubisoft is betting big that players are ready to embrace this vision. The pre-order numbers reportedly match those of Odyssey — an encouraging sign. But the looming specter of Ghost of Yōtei and the tightrope walk between historical integrity and ideological storytelling means the game’s reception will be watched more closely than anything the franchise has released in years.
As for Coté’s final words — a rallying cry against fear, censorship, and silence — they resonate with the kind of poetic idealism many gamers would cheer… if only that idealism weren’t paired with a threat of legal action for stepping out of line.
