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Ubisoft’sAssassin ’s Creedis a prolific franchise , cross twelve main - write up games ( include upcomingAssassin ’s Creed Valhalla ) , several spin - offs , and multiple eras and locations . It proclaim at the beginning of every game to be a piece of work of a multicultural team that includes various faiths , sexual orientations , and gender personal identity . Yet time and time again , Ubisoft has managed to overlook their distaff fibre or push them to the sidelines .
Assassin ’s Creedis an on-going action game series orbit around the centuries - tenacious warfare between two shadow organisation , the Assassins and the Templars . The games have been set everywhere from Ancient Egypt to the Crusades to the American Revolution . The plot have mostly been led by a different protagonist every secret plan and have had a modern - daytime conspiracy plot personal line of credit interwoven into each title to various degree .
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Most recently , Assassin ’s Creedhas amount under scrutiny after a series of scandals at Ubisoft involved executives who had a hand in the dealership . Some of the scandals have orb around intimate wrongful conduct , but others directly involve the evolution process of severalAssassin ’s Creedgames . account have admit multiple representative whereAssassin ’s Creedgames began developing with a distaff protagonist , only to be told by marketing to shift the nidus onto a male character rather .
How Assassin’s Creed Sidelines Most of Its Female Characters
TheAssassin ’s Creedfranchise has had multiple playable female character over the years , but those characters have for the most part either had to partake the spotlight with a manly counterpart , or have star in small spinoff game . The very first lead playable distaff bravo was inAssassin ’s Creed 3 : Liberation , a spinoff game that star Aveline de Grandpré , an assassin fighting templars in eighteenth 100 New Orleans . It was also only usable at launching on the PlayStation Vita . AlthoughAssassin ’s Creed 3 : Liberationwas eventually remadeand rereleased on more mainstream platforms like Xbox 360 , it ’s telling that the first lead female assassinator was in a game aimed at a very corner grocery store . also , one of the only other times a distaff assassin receive a solo glare was when Shao Jun ledAssassin ’s Creed Chronicles : China , one of three games in a 2.5D platformer spinoff collection release by Ubisoft .
Assassin ’s Creed Syndicatewas the first mainAssassin ’s Creedgame to asterisk a woman as a distaff playable type in the form of Evie Frye , but she share the stage with matching brother Jacob , who was also a playable character . Although players could swap to Evie for undetermined - world geographic expedition , many of the game ’s main missions postulate players to utilize Jacob ; a smaller subset required the use of Evie . It was afterwards revealed from multiple Ubisoft sources that while the Gemini were suppose to have adequate play clock time , selling insist on shifting thefocus ofAssassin ’s Creed Syndicateto Jacob . The top prowess forAssassins Creed Syndicatereflects this shift of focal point , with Jacob put front and center on the box and Evie stand off to the side .
Perhaps even stranger is the case of Lydia Frye , the playable female lead of a cover campaign inAssassin ’s Creed Syndicate . Once players give a sealed point inAssassin ’s Creed Syndicate’sstory , a Modern waypoint on the edge of the map is revealed with little - to - no flourish . Players who travel to the waypoint find a portal that took them from nineteenth 100 London to the year 1916 . There they toy as Lydia Frye , Evie ’s granddaughter , in a series of missions set in World War I. Once again , a female playable character was give way almost no selling by Ubisoft , and theDarkest Hourcampaign was treated as a " secret"game hide withinAssassin ’s Creed Syndicate .
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After returning to a lead manlike booster inAssassin ’s Creed Origins(with a few missionary post playable as Bayek ’s wife - and - cuss - assassin Aya ) , Ubisoft ’s most late handling of playable female characters has been to plainly give players the option of choosing if they need a male or female avatar . It would have been nice for a woman to have a game all to herself , but the alternative to roleplay a mainAssassin ’s Creedgame as a woman from start to finish is a welcome one . WhileAssassin ’s Creed Odysseyhad player choose between sib Kassandra and Alexios , Assassin ’s Creed Valhallasimply allow ’s players make up one’s mind if master character Eivor is a Isle of Man or a woman . Additionally , Assassin ’s Creed Valhallawill let players interchange the genderof Eivor whenever they need .
Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Female Character Controversies
Ubisoft ’s controversial manipulation of playable distaff characters extend all the direction back to 2014 , when in an interview withPolygon , Ubisoft creative director Alex Amancio claimed that there were no playable female models inAssassin ’s Creed Unity’sco - op multiplayer style because it was too much additional work . Developers of the secret plan indicate it would double the work load and call for 8000 newfangled animations to be make . The internet immediately took issue with that program line , with formerAssassin ’s Creed 3animation director Jonathan Cooper stating that most of the additional invigoration would have only required a few excess day . To back up his claims , Cooper discover that Aveline , the playable female lead ofAssassin ’s Creed 3 : Liberation , had for the most part used copied animations fromAssassin ’s Creed 3lead character Connor . Only a handful of life , like Aveline ’s walk , were created tonic , to give the reference a more feminine feel . Despite the online recoil , Assassin ’s Creed Unity’smultiplayer launched without female model .
Ubisoft handle to avoid further major contestation until June 2020 , when awave of scandals at Ubisoft forced multiple resignations . Besides many troubling accusation about the fellowship ’s workplace finish and allegement of intimate actus reus , reports began to come on about variety that had been made to playable protagonists in variousAssassin ’s Creedgames , usually at the behest of then - Chief Creative Office Serge Hascoët . harmonise to account byBloomberg , Assassin ’s Creed Origins , for example , originally mean to center much of the game on distaff assassinator Aya , making her hubby Bayek a side character . The final secret plan see those part rescind . Assassin ’s Creed Odysseywas to have been the first main biz in the serial publication ( after ten other games ) where a distaff role was the exclusive lead , but once again , reports arrogate that Ubisoft selling demand the plus of a playable manlike character on the cause that games with female star characters do n’t sell , despite many examples to the reverse .
Is Ubisoft Ready to Change?
There was hope that summertime 2020 would be a wake - up call for how Ubisoft treats women , both within the society and within their games . The significant resignations and firings at the party were a footprint in the right focusing , but Ubisoft still does n’t seem in full attached to convert . Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot immortalise an apologyfor companionship missteps ahead of the September Ubisoft Forward , but the TV was only posted to Ubisoft ’s Twitter account statement the day of the event . When call for why the video had n’t been part of the actual Ubisoft Forward flow , Ubisoftcited"timing constraints " - despite the fact that Ubisoft Forward was a standalone on-line event altogether at Ubisoft ’s prudence .
To top it off , theAssassin ’s Creed UKTwitter account recently tweeted out a video to celebrate the return of the hidden blade weapon to the franchise , showing off the many , many times the weapon has been used in the games . The video , which showed off every mainAssassin ’s Creedgame , left out Evie Frye and the distaff Eivor ( Kassandra fromAssassin ’s Creed Odysseydidn’t utilize a obscure blade ) . A recut video added female characters , including Evie and Aveline , but choose to terminate the reel on a split screen of the manlike and distaff versions ofAssassins ' Creed Valhalla ’s Eivor , or else of giving distaff Eivor the full sieve . Ubisoft ’s selling clearly feel the need to reassure histrion there was a male avatar inAssassin ’s Creed Valhalla .
The fact that Ubisoft , after an full summer of contestation , could overlook their distaff fictional character ( either accidentally or intentionally ) as they celebrate the history of theAssassin ’s Creedfranchise , does n’t bode well for any immediate change of culture at the company . At least Ubisoft has hail as far as letting histrion choose to use a distaff fiber , and there will be many unrestrained female Viking assassin raiding a virtual England this fall .
Next : Best Video Games with distaff Protagonists
beginning : Polygon , Bloomberg , Ubisoft , Assassin ’s Creed UK
