Ubisoft has finally announced its long-awaited Assassin’s Creed game, set in feudal Japan. Subtitled “Shadows,” it follows two protagonists – a ninja named Naoe and a samurai based on the historical black samurai Yasuke.
While it’s a well-known problem that Asian representation is severely lacking in Western games, I find it hypocritical and ridiculous that we’re only talking about the need for an Asian protagonist after it was announced that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would star a black samurai becomes. As a result, the forest is missing for the trees. While I always advocate for more Asian men in AAA games, I’ll be the first to say this better representation is not will be found in another samurai hero.
Enough with the samurais
Ubisoft’s decision to focus on Yasuke – a well-known historical figure – is a smart move. An Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan that would otherwise, frankly, have been hard to distinguish from some other open-world samurai games of late. And if I want to see an Asian samurai protagonist, I don’t have to look far.
Asian samurai protagonists are already a well-trodden path. There’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Katana Zero, Like A Dragon: Ishin!, Samurai Warriors, Rise of the Ronin, Onimusha, Way of the Samurai, Way of the Samurai 2, Ghost of Tsushima… There’s also my personal favorite, Muramasa: The Demon Blade. I can go on like this forever. Therefore, it’s difficult to come to any conclusion other than that the limited imagination of AAA game development can only imagine Asian heroes wielding katanas or ninja stars.
Worse still, the complex characters brought to life so beautifully in series like Shogun are often distilled into their simplest forms in games, especially those developed by Western studios. While Japanese developer-led titles like Sekiro and Like a Dragon: Ishin use their samurai protagonists to tell nuanced stories about overcoming fantastical challenges or provide a glimpse of street-level heroics in Edo Japan, games developed in the West succeed not to achieve a similar level of complexity, often falling back on tired tropes of honor and stoicism.
And that only applies to games that try to tell a story through their samurai protagonist. In most cases, the samurai archetype initially serves as a vehicle for combat, eschewing any narrative touch in favor of a cool sword and a topknot. Think of hero games like Overwatch, whose Japanese cast includes two types of samurai and a ninja. And I thank Ghost of Tsushima for the beautifully designed open world and combat, but Jin Sakai has about as much charisma as a wet piece of cloth.
Wow, cool sword
The main complaint I have as an Asian American when it comes to representation in games is not the lack of it – as the Wikipedia page full of Asian fighters, ninjas and samurais proves – but rather the lack of it Diversity in this. I previously reported in a story about Asian-American game developers and representation that we are not a monolith and that I, a Korean-American, don’t get a sense of representation when I see a Japanese samurai or a Japanese ninja or other kung fu -Master or ancient gray-haired mystic.
Of course, all of this comes with the caveat that it’s the nature of AAA game development to focus on “cool” characters with broad appeal. Samurais and Ninjas Are cool, and their tools and weapons are suitable for big action blockbusters. So is it any surprise that characters like this are becoming standard? Maybe not, but after so many games it’s still disappointing to see how little chance these stories have with these characters.
Given the storied concept of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, with a little effort we could have our cake and eat it too. Why settle for another samurai hero when the franchise could easily go to the Mongol Empire or post-revolution China? Or even the Pacific Theater in World War II, which was a hotbed of Asian-led counter-imperial espionage?
This problem of defaulting to just a katana-wielding Asian protagonist doesn’t just affect Western studios, as both Capcom and Square Enix often only rely on Asian heroes when they need a samurai or ninja. But even then, Japan and other Asian studios are still more forward-thinking than their Western counterparts about who can be the face of their games.
It’s ironic, but Tango Gameworks is responsible for, in my opinion, the best Asian protagonist in games in the often overlooked Ghostwire: Tokyo. It is a game set in modern Tokyo and features a 21st century Asian protagonist whose responsibility lies with his dying sister. There is no feudal lord and honestly it’s everything I could have wanted from a AAA game project with an Asian lead. Not to mention the work Sega and Atlus have done with games like Yakuza, Persona, and Shin Megami Tensei that portray modern characters in unique environments.
We can’t be afraid to dream a little bigger
I find comments claiming that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a missed opportunity to feature more Asian protagonists embarrassing. As an Asian man, I don’t want us to take on the roles that are expected of us. I want the roles we didn’t have before. I would love it if the next Alan Wake-style horror game had an Asian protagonist, or if Star Wars followed in The Acolyte’s footsteps and had an Asian protagonist.
When I advocate for more diversity in games, it’s not so that the next AAA Samurai game has an Asian protagonist playing the main role, but so that the next Naughty Dog game or the next Hideo Kojima game or at least a Final Fantasy game that I can imagine has an Asian hero.
Matt Kim is a senior features editor at IGN. You can reach him @laoftd.