Asmongold TV - Assassin's Creed Shadows Is Shameless | Asmongold Reacts | Asmongold TV

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Assassin's Creed Shadows Is Shameless | Asmongold Reacts Asmongold show for all of his stream highlights, competitions, reactions & more. ------------------------- ------------- Keywords: gaming takes, video game analysis, gaming reactions, esports commentary, mmo gaming, streamer reactions, pc gaming, gaming hot takes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We got a video here. Oh, we got a video here. It's a big one. So about a week ago, Assassin's Creed Shadows was released. There's been a lot of discourse and conversation about this game. Going up to as high as the president of the United States has commented on it. It's muted.

Okay. Let's start that again. Do you really? Yeah, Elon tweeted about it yesterday. Assassin's Creed Shadows might go down as the weirdest launch in video game history. This game has been wrapped in top. Controversy, leaks, delays, identity politics, all kinds of issues. And I've never seen a company have so much writing on the line

while simultaneously stumbling all over themselves at every given turn. Let's be honest here. Let's be clear about this. Assassin's Creed Shadows decides the fate of Ubisoft. Their future is hanging by a thread, and that thread is Assassin's Creed Shadows. And after playing the game, I'm going to be honest with you guys. That thread isn't very strong.

I'll break down my experience in detail. But let's just say that despite what games media is saying, why does this keep happening? Because people find a fucking video game and there's some sort of a cultural war about the fucking game. And then nobody wants to think about whether the game is good. It's not about, oh, well, how much discourse is about Yusuke being black? I played the game a lot. I don't give a fuck about that. Like, yeah, it seems like they obviously did it for like DEI current year reasoning.

Sure, yeah, it's fucking weird or whatever. But honestly, I don't really care. It's not really a big deal to me. But every castle has the same elites that you kill? And they do the same things? And the box is in the same place every time? What the fuck? is what I'd like to refer to as aggressively mid.

Yes. It's a Trojan horse of a game. It's very pretty. And when you peel back its exterior, there's really just nothing going on inside of it. Nothing at all. And I think a lot of people really expected that to happen. They saw that coming.

But to be honest with you, contrary to popular belief, I wanted Assassin's Creed to be good. I want Ubisoft to be good. I want this company in this game to succeed because I've enjoyed it in the past, but I just haven't been able to get into it or play it because of what they've done with it over the years.

And Ubisoft has mismanaged themselves into a corner at this point. And I don't think that they can escape. They've compromised too much. They've changed too many things. Their games have lost any real sense of identity. There's no identity and no guiding principle that the games have that make them unique. That's the problem.

There's nothing that's unique or special about these games at all. They're just like, okay, well, there it is. You're going to do this thing. There's this, you know, like below average story. And after that, you have to, like, do all these objectives on the map and then do these things. Used to be so good. Well, remember what I said before about how, like, one of the reasons why I stopped playing wow is because I felt like every expansion and patch after Legion, like BFA, Shadowlands, Dragon Flight. I just felt like I was playing Legion again and again and again.

And that's the way that I feel like with a lot of these modern games. I've already kind of played this game before it even begins. A new game release isn't going to fix that. Games journalists are already running defense for it. Their stockholders are protesting at their door. There's a legal task force that they're building to fight against content creators and the players. Japanese politicians are outraged. And even with the glowing media praise that the game got,

their share prices are still falling. It's crazy how like when a game comes out, if culture warriors don't like, well, on both sides, right? It's like the game comes out. And if chuds don't like the game, games media contorts themselves around to make themselves like it. And they downplay the negative aspects to it.

So basically what I, what I mean by that is that they actively misrepresent the product in order to make it more in line with their worldview. It's so fucking annoying to me. Like you're not even talking about the game. You're not even thinking about the game. This is about, it's about some like abstract idea that this game, like, what about the fucking game?

What's a Chud? A Chud is just a term that people use for a low intelligence or low information, right-wing, anti-woke person, basically. I think that's the best way I could explain it. A neck beard. Yes, basically a neck beard. It needs a miracle. And Ubisoft's not getting one. Before all that, a word from today, sponsor, Yvonline.

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That's a huge boost to get you started. So don't wait. Use the link in the description or in the pin comment and download Eve Online today and carve your name into the stars. Thank you to Eve Online for sponsoring today's video. The Sassas Creed Shadows isn't just another big release. It's Ubisoft's last chance at proving that they can still compete. Not because it's one of the biggest franchises in gaming, but because Ubisoft spent the last few years free falling off of a financial cliff.

Prince of Persia reviewed well, but it flop financially. X-Defiant was a live-service disaster that never made it out of beta before it got shut. Remember whenever they made the promise that they're not going to shut down the servers? And then two weeks later, the guy that said that got fired and then they shut down the servers. Down skull of bones torched millions and then sunk in the harbor. Star Wars outlaws never found an audience. Ubisoft has been bleeding money, alienating their audience, and doubling down on leadership that sees itself

with some type of brave resistance against toxic gamers, while their own investors are begging them to stop setting piles of cash on fire. And now everything is writing on Assassin's Creed shadow. This is also another problem is that I think a lot of, like, and this is an issue with, I think, games in general, is that a lot of people that make games think that it's more important for them to put forward a message.

than for them to actually make a game that's worth playing that people want to see. And I think the process of that has led to a lot of games, things like Concord or things like, you know, like body type A and B instead of like male and female. Like no player is really asking for that. These are things that are being added into the game. Like, I don't think that anybody, like,

there's a lot of players don't really care about it. but there's like almost nobody that wants it right and so the issue is that changes are being made and these games are being compromised to be less appealing and less relevant and uh you know just like less relatable to an average audience by by people that like it's like they don't even care about selling the product it's like oh we're selling video games oh really i didn't know that i thought we were trying to push this message that's the issue it's unnecessary yeah it's unnecessary and weird. Like when I see a game that has that, I think it's weird.

Now, I don't want you guys to get it twisted because over time, I do think that Assassin's Creed Shadows will strong prioritizations. Yeah. A scale back AA version with middling reviews still moved 5 million copies. Shadows is a mainline full budget release with marketing hype and the long

requested Japanese setting. It's going to push units. How many? Well, we're going to have to wait and see, but I am doubtful that it's going to be able to overcome its own budget, let alone save the company. I'll be honest with you guys. After playing it, I think that games journalists

are afraid to review this one honestly. Not because Ubisoft paid them off, but because they don't want to be responsible for pushing yet another struggling publisher further into the abyss. I don't think that's the reason why. I think they don't want to because they have decided that on the battle lines

of these social issues, that Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed Shadows is, like, it's on their side. So they have to defendant, regardless. And so like, because I remember looking at a lot of the reviews for the game. And a lot of the reviews for the game, I don't think tackled any of the actual problems with the game itself.

They were mainly just kind of them talking about like the story and an abstract. It's like they're not talking about like the gameplay. They're not talking about like, you know, how you progress through the story. Like it's all just like bullshit. And exactly on point. Yeah, exactly. So that's, they're not doing it because it's a. small publisher. If it was a small publisher they disagreed with, they'd be celebrating if it got

shut down. So the problem is really that the entire focus they have is built around trying to reinforce a worldview rather than inform the customer. Too close they see developers as allies. And with all the controversy and negative commentary around Assassin's Creed Shadows and heck, a lot of other games, they want a win. I've seen the rhetoric already talking about how people are upset for nothing, complaining for no reason, outraged, without. purpose, all because game journalists positively reviewed it. Man, it's almost like we've seen this happen before. That was with Vailgard. That was so stupid. The game sits in an 81 on Metacritic, and that score isn't being dragged down by bad reviews. It's being dragged up by

overly generous ones. VG 24-7 gave it a perfect score. 100 out of 100. Fallen... A hundred out of a hundred, really? What? What are you talking about? A hundred out of a hundred. admitting in the first sentence of their review that the game has issues. I'm sorry, but if a game has issues, it's not a perfect game. Moreover, how the hell did you guys rate Ghost of Sushima a 60? It's far too easy. The lack of consequence for failure makes it look like you're just going through the motions. That's exactly...

Yet it's knockoff version in Shadows a 100. We're hearing the same lazy talking points from Dragon Age the Vail Guard when it was reviewed. return to form for Ubisoft, a return to form for Assassin's Creed, a return to what... This is why people are like, oh, all journalism and gaming is being consolidated to the same few companies. It's like, bro, you could have one person doing journalism and gaming, and it wouldn't be any different than it is now. They all have the same opinions. They all agree with each other. There's never any actual discourse about things that gamers care about.

All they do is say the same thing over and over, and there's no. never anybody who challenges the narrative. Ever. Exactly. If this is a true return to form, we'd be talking about the original trilogy, methodical combat, gripping storytelling, incredible voice acting.

Instead, I'm seeing reviewers gushing about how the game looks, romance options, petting cats and how groundbreaking it is. Bro, if you are a reviewer and you care about petting cats, go work to, just go back to Starbucks. Please,

do me a favor and go back to, Starbucks. Gammers don't care about this. It's a nice little cute edition, but if I hear this anywhere, I immediately am like, oh my God, I'm reading a millennial review. Get me out of here. You can go prone in a video game. I keep saying this, but the industry does not seem to realize how much damage is done when you do not review these games and critique them honestly. For whatever reason, studios and publishers still take professional reviewers and journalists more seriously than actual players. EA outright said it with Dragon Age the Vail Guard, when it flopped in Ubisoft,

well, they were caught off guard when Star Wars Outlaws failed to sell despite getting a solid metacritic score. The role of... Well, they didn't get a solid metacritic score. They got a solid metacritic score from other professional reviewers. If you actually look at how players reacted to the game,

they thought it was garbage, but they focused on that because that made them feel better. It's crazy. The critic isn't to keep these studios in business or to help them sell games, is to share the player's perspective hold the industry accountable and make better games easier to make.

I've played Assassin's Creed Shadows, and this is my first Assassin's Creed game since Black Flag. And I'm around 20 hours in, and I can say without hesitation that Assassin's Creed Shadows is one of the most immersive and visually stunning worlds Ubisoft has ever created. Potentially one of the... I really agree with that. I think the world for this game is really good. Whoever did the world design and the level design for it did a really great job. Best in gaming, the lighting, the seasonal shifts, the wildlife.

the sound design, everything looks and sounds incredible. It's an environment that begs you to explore every inch of it. And the moment that you do, you realize that there's nothing actually worth exploring. The reward for straying off the beaten path is an epic rarity wall scroll that you can hang in your base or maybe a legendary rock that you can put in the corner. Hey, legend. I, oh my God, I just, I cannot agree with this anymore. This is insane.

Yeah, it's a rock. Like, it's so ridiculous. Harry sword that'll be outclassed by a common sword two levels later. Viewpoints unveiling breathtaking vistas in areas of interest only for those areas to contain nothing but the same copy-pasted objectives. Three missing scrolls, three bandits holding a hot. Yes, yes. Yes. This is the game.

This is a review. This is the actual content of the fucking video game. That's right. Finally, let's look at how What is it like playing the game? Hostage, another enemy fort, another repetitive infiltration mission, identical commanders for you to assassinate. The world doesn't have depth, it has chores.

Ubisoft had front-loaded this entire experience. It's vain, superficial, and boring as hell to play. It's the same tried and true Ubisoft formula that got them where they are today, spiraling on the edge of bankruptcy, earning XP and leveling up, Gaining skills, these things should make you feel stronger, but all assassins create shadows, they lock that behind an additional barrier. You can't unlock the next tier of abilities until you go out grinding knowledge points. Well, how do you get- You want to know how to grind knowledge points?

You have to go around and click a bunch of fucking scrolls. Do you want to know why you have to do that? Me too. I want to know why. It's a pointless, busy work activity that adds nothing to the game. All it is is a checklist gameplay padding mechanism that does nothing other than waste your time. And it's actually insane for me

to go and play like Armored Core 6 or metaphor refantazio or I'm trying to think of another game that doesn't waste your time professionally. Metal Gear Rising Revengence. Like all of these games you've already got our fucking money.

You already have the money. Well, I guess no, you don't because you have a microtransaction shop. Never mind. No, no. No. No. All this makes sense now. So they want these artificial mechanisms to keep you in the game longer because on every fucking menu screen, look what's in the corner. The fucking store.

Those, well, by praying at shrines, by finding lost scrolls, by running yellow paint obstacle courses, by completing the same. And by the way, all of these things can be immediately revealed if you buy a literal map hack from the store. You used to be able to type in Shelby in Age of Empires 2 to get a Shelby Cobra in the game that would kill everything. Now what you do is you just give them $6. Peckless, repetitive exploration activities over and over and over.

You guys get the point. And this really wouldn't be that much of a problem if you only had to do it a few times. But unlocking even the first tier of skills requires hours of grinding. By the time... And it gets worse too because it starts at 10. you need 10 knowledge points, but then whenever you reach level 4, you need 15.

I reached 20 hours of playtime. I'm no longer immersed in the game. I'm actively trying to break it. Ubisoft made a really cool move here trying to make the game better by removing persistent markers to give you a better sense of immersion, no UI clutter,

but it's all done by the repetitive checklist. That's actually a really good point that he brings up. I think that the UI in this game is actually very clean and well designed. You know, like, I don't want to just shit on the game. I think that like this UI, this is a very clean and well-designed and, you know, just subtle UI.

If you, I'm running around, holding left trigger, scanning for glowing dots so I can finish these objectives as quickly as I possibly can because I don't want to do them anymore. The first Castle Infiltration mission was exciting. You had to eliminate an elite samurai, steal a key, and unlock a major reward. But by the third time, I wasn't playing the game anymore. trying to play the system. I ran around. This is a review. This is a review of a game. He is completely fucking right. He is absolutely fucking right. So the usual issue, end game is boring? No, it's not end game. It's the game after you do it the first time. Every other

subsequent time is the same thing. Yes, this is an actual review of the game. Recklessly holding focus mode while enemies chase me so I could tag enemies, sprinting between bushes, waited until I found the elite samurai I needed to kill, then baited them into a corner, killed them one by one, and looted the reward. Which should have been a rare, intense assassination mission had already just become another formulaic Ubisoft side activity. And all of this is made worse by the combat, which just isn't interesting. It's too bare bones.

It's too simple. It's too repetitive. It's like, gotcha game. Oh my God, it actually is gotcha game combat. No, it's not. It's worse. She's killing it pretty fast. I don't know if she's gonna go through all the animation.

It's not a gotcha game. This is better. It's not even remotely close. By the way, this is actually not a great visual. Because like there's a lot of, she's like sun locking the boss. Hopefully it goes into the transition. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest, like, okay, this is one of the cool ones. If you actually, like, I probably pulled up the worst video I could possibly show you.

Um, well actually, okay, now, now we're getting to see some of the animations. Okay, here we go. This is a free gotcha game. Worth video on, press? No, it looks way better. Uh, like there are other videos that are way better. This is the first one I can find. So I just want to show you guys real quick.

You compare that with this. No actual combos, no depth to the combat, no meaningful enemy variety. Unlocking a new ability takes 50 hours of grind. finding filler, so instead, you're just running around spamming white and heavy attacks for hours. And the story's no... It's pathetic. Like, it really is. It's fucking pathetic.

Like, how has this happened? Better. Yoske and Nowe, the two main protagonists, feel completely inauthentic. Noway is introduced as an Ega clan assassin from the 16th century, yet she's constantly disregarding her father's wishes and contradicting him. One of the clan's leaders, as if she's some sort of rebellious teenager in a CW drama. This is not how. Japanese culture worked in the 1500s and it barely even works that way today. Her character writing

is so inconsistent. One moment she's a kind-hearted, cheerful young woman, the next she's a ruthless killer, next she's painting with an orphan and then she's coldly executing someone without hesitation. The writing just feels so disjointed like multiple drafts or character were just stitched together without any editing. At one point you go to me to blacksmith and he tells Nowewe that he lost his parents. Her response is, I'm sorry to hear that. Anyway, want to be our blacksmith? Maybe that'll help you get over it. What? This is the same character that just watch the eradication of her entire clan and the death of her father.

And she doesn't want to take the time to reflect on that at all or show any compassion. It just doesn't make any sense. Another really good example is her. I'm sorry for your loss. Yeah. Dynamic with Yaske, because he's responsible. This is like an email response. For killing her clan with Nobunaga.

Do they explore how difficult it would be for these two to trust one another or the complexities of that dynamic? No. it's practically, you killed my people. Yeah, that was my bad. True. Let's be best friends. At this point, I'm questioning whether or not I'll even make it to doing any of Yoske's story. To be fair, I will disagree with this small element that I think that the way that Noway and

Yoske teamed up and were allied, I actually think that it was one of the high points in the game. And I would even argue that I think it was well done. I do. I do think that part of the game was well done. To be fair, yeah, no, I, that's just, and again, that's my opinion. I agree, I liked it, yeah. To continue to play the game is now way, because to be honest, I just don't have any interest in playing him.

He doesn't fit the mold of an Assassin's Creed character. He doesn't even really fit in the world. You can't even do most of the content in the game with his character in the first place. And beyond that, his introduction is the most forced and awkward. We need this character in the game moment I've ever seen. Nobanaga looks at him and says, I see a warrior in you that has the power to shape history or you'll die. And then it fast forwards to him being Nobanaga's lead samurai, burning a village to the ground and killing its people. And Yaskay's like, this isn't like any war I've ever seen.

So much slaughter. And Nobunaga's like, ah, you're such a righteous man. Anyway, go murder those people. And Yaskay's like, it's so ridiculous. Bet. The game's story reads like the Harry Potter My Immortal fanfic. And honestly, I think that was better writing. At this point, Assassin's Creed isn't even a franchise.

It's just a storefront with a game attached. No. That's the way so many games are nowadays. And the thing is that, like, at least the gotcha games have hot characters in good combat. So, like, yeah, you want to do that? That's fine. But, like, you've got to have something good to pay money for. Literally, that's exactly what this is, at least on PC.

They implemented the Animus Launcher, which essentially is a built-in third-party launcher and a direct micro-transaction funnel. Players can buy weapons and armor with real money, not cosmetics, but legendary equipment with actual stats and unique passives. So you just buy, so you spend real money and then you get gear in the single player game and the gear makes your character do more damage? That's great. Wow.

And how much was this game again? So you had to buy the game too, right? On reviewing the store, I realized just how much of Ubisoft's game design is dictated by its monetization. The game's economy is deliberately restrictive to encourage spending. They slow you down in hopes that you spend more. The base building. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the base building is a great example.

Like, if you want to go out and how many of you guys that actually played the games, there's like three people here, how many of you guys that played the game, like you got walled by the base building? and of course you didn't because you have self-respect, but you considered buying the extra amount of, like, items because it just takes extra time and you didn't want to farm. And it was, like, annoying to you because you didn't have enough of resources in order to, like, build everything in your hideout.

Because, like, for me, like, okay, so nobody... All right, so wait, wait a minute. So nobody here played the game, but everybody's disagreeing with me about the story element that I liked. Hmm, I find that very interesting. Wow, I wonder, wow, why is that? I wonder. The game's resource system is Nerf so they get you to spend money on the store. If it was easier to do, it'd be like Monster Hunter Wilds.

You want to farm for the Arkfeld set? Kill Arkfeld a few times. Wow, now you have the set. You know why? It's because they already have your fucking money. The system as an example. Players need materials to upgrade their base, but resources are intention. unless you go out and grind endlessly or purchase supply packs from the in-game store. You can find massive bundles out in the- And it's opaque how to actually farm these resources, by the way, too. Like, if you played the game a lot, like I played the game a lot, I know where to find them.

But it's not as readily obvious. The world to be able to smuggle things out of enemy bases. But if you do that, well, then you're not going to be able to use those scouts to reveal map locations. Exactly. So either add hours of business. bloat to your play through, ignore the mechanic entirely, or spend money to utilize it. The entire... Um, was it Marco Polo that was a cheat that used to unlock a, like, there was a map hack back

in a day for RTS games? They basically took cheat codes in video games and they turned them into a store. Design is built around inconvenience just to sell you a solution. And I think that's their Achilles heel. That's the root to all of their evils. Why wasn't this talk to? about in a single review, Ubisoft games are not designed as games. They're designed as marketing attractions.

That's the reason why- Isn't it crazy that he's right about this? That like all of these reviews never discuss these topics. They never discuss gameplay. They don't discuss monetization. They don't discuss repetition. They discuss these bullshit platitudes, return to form, culture, war, like identity politics.

Nobody gives a shit about this. Like, does the game feel good to play? Not really. It's okay, but not really. Like, what is this? All the effort goes into how it looks on the outside rather than how it plays on the inside. This is a huge problem across the industry.

Yes. They've lost side of the fact that we don't just need to look at this game. We need to play it too. That's why the gameplay feels so repetitive. All of the different activities. It's why the combat is so brain dead. Well, hey, this is one of the things that, like, hey, you know, I used to create.

criticize the game, the game reviewers because they, you know, said, oh, Blackmouth Wu Kong doesn't have any women in it. Yeah, because you didn't play the game. You didn't get past chapter one and, or you would know that it does. But this is different. I think that they, maybe game reviewers like games like Ubisoft games, because once you play the game for two hours, you've already experienced all of the content the game has to offer. And everything after that is going to be the same thing. story isn't gripping and the characters are so shallow because they just want to get you in the door in hopes that you spend more that's it and there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money that's what you're in business to do that's what businesses do but you have to earn that money and ubysoft has lost sight of that so many other companies have as well yeah they had everything at their disposal to make an incredible game you have the technology the experience the money the franchise and yet assassins Creed Shadows is just another bloated, shallow micro-transaction riddled Ubisoft mess. It's so dis- Yeah, I gave the game

a six, but for what it should have been, it's lower than a six. This game should have been a nine. There is no reason this game isn't a nine. It's disappointing. I watched Mr. Maddie plays in his review, and he said,

I represent the fan that wants to get back into the franchise. If the media and Ubisoft would just stop being so defensive for just a few minutes, they would realize that the vast majority of the frustration that is coming from players is for that reason specifically. Players are watching as a franchise that they've loved drifts further and further away from them. They just can't get into it anymore. And they know what it's...

It's because it's not good and it doesn't respect their time. Like this is another big component is that like if you're a dad, how many of you guys, maybe you're not a dad yet, or maybe you are, but like let's say you just have other responsibilities and you have limited amount of time to play video games. When you open up a page and it says there are six levels and each level requires you to do 10 activities and each activity takes you 20 minutes, you go and you're like, oh, fuck, right? because you just don't have time for that anymore as an adult. So one of the big reasons why you have adults and people falling off on these franchises is because the franchises are designed for them as kids. And so you need to have a more narrow and a more focused experience, a more precise experience. And you don't have these precise experiences.

You have bloat, repetition, chores, and mandatory fun. And what happens is that a lot of those older players that grew up playing Assassin's Creed, maybe if Shadows was their first game, they'd probably play it if they were still 15, and they'd do everything, and it would be fine. But now they're 30, and they don't have the time to go and farm out and collect every scroll out of every temple in order to just unlock the ability to play their character. Like, how does this really make that, like really, ask yourself the question, how does this make the game better?

How does this improve the experience of the player? And I think that a lot of developers really need to start asking themselves these questions whenever they implement mandatory fun. So often, these systems don't do anything. They don't add anything. They don't improve anything. I found it.

Gentlemen, there it is. Right there. That's it. That's the whole thing. Capable of. They know what it can do. The investors see it too. That's the reason why they're,

that's the reason why they're protesting right now. Because they know what this company is capable of. They know what its IP is capable of. And the last thing that they want to do is see these assholes in their management run away from the problem, Scott Free, and get away with it and leave these guys holding the bag. All they want them to do is listen. Luckily for Ubisoft, well, they've built a task force to make sure that doesn't happen.

Ubisoft shareholders have been in revolt for well over a year now because Ubisoft refuses to listen to them or communicate with them. The company has been in talks with Xbox, EA, and Tencent about potential acquisitions, going private, or selling off key IPs. These discussions aren't just casual speculation. They are legally obligated to disclose every move to their shareholders because failing to do so is considered insider trading. Yet every time I see this situation covered, the media always misses the bigger picture.

They reduce it to investors just wanting more profits as if that's the only issue. But for once, the investors align with our interests. Because in this case... Well, no, no, wait a minute. The investors wanting more profits also mean that they want the game to sell. So when you make a video game and nobody's buying the fucking game, if I'm invested in a company and this company's selling potatoes and there's no potatoes being sold, I'm going to be like, man, we really need to sell more fucking potatoes.

We've got to figure out a way to get people to buy these motherfucking potatoes. They're getting ripped off harder than we are right now. Think about it for a second. Why would investors be angry about a potential? Investing in Ubisoft five years ago is a great way to turn $100 into $20. If you had $100 and you wanted to turn it into $20 five years ago, you should have invested into Ubisoft. sale or merger. Normally, shareholders love acquisitions

because that means higher returns, but Ubisoft is at its lowest value in history, and management has done nothing to fix it. If the company sells now, its executives get to walk away. How about this? I'm curious. So, if you had invested into Dogecoin, you would have made more money than if you had invested into Ubisoft.

Completely unscathed. while the investors, the people who have been putting money into Ubisoft, are left holding the bag. The backlash from their shareholders isn't because they want Ubisoft to stay independent at all costs. It's because they don't want them to sell out at rock bottom. They want the company to actually fix itself, increase the value of its shares, and go back to making award-winning games. Their frustrations come from watching Ubisoft destroy its own value, ignore every warning sign, ignore all of their customers, and try to escape the consequences. That's why their shareholders are threatening to sue, not because.

because they're greedy, but because they've been played. All this because they refuse to listen. Assassin's Creed Shadows might go down as one of the most controversial games ever made. Not because it pushed boundaries, not because it did anything revolutionary, but because Ubisoft and the media refused to acknowledge common sense, caution, and criticism,

whether it was from fans, investors, or from Japan itself. This is the problem. It's that the media acts as a protection racket for these companies, and they function as a marketing department. So they either promote or don't promote a game based off of criteria that isn't reflected by the values of their audience.

How many times have you guys seen somebody dismiss the backlash around Assassin's Creed Shadows as fake outrage? Every time concerns are raised about historical inaccuracies or cultural respect, there was always somebody there that was ready to wave it off as meaningless. It's all fake. Now, if you go and actually read the reviews, you'll see how often these same journalists are emphasizing how, authentically, Japanese the game is, and how much it respects their culture. And yet, since mid-20204, all we've seen is damage control headlines. Assassin's Creed Shadow's team issues apology to fans for marketing that is caused concern. Ubisoft apologizes to Japanese historical reenactment group for using its flag in Assassin's Creed art without permission.

Assassin's Creed Shadow's figure removed from sale for insensitive design. And more recently, Japan's Prime Minister commenting about the game... This is crazy. Think about how many... That's crazy. How do you do that? Zero days since last incident. It's insane. Warning that it may promote vandalism of shrines.

While both Japanese citizens and officials have voiced their concerns, defenders on Twitter and Western Games journalists have done nothing but shield Ubisoft and try to reframe the criticism. Outlets like The Guardian have gone far out of their way to dehumanize critics, reducing actual Japanese concerns to nothing more than right-wing outrage. Instead of engaging with the real conversation, they dismiss it with articles like the disturbing online. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Give me a minute.

There has also been fur over the game's black and female protagonists with the usual right-wing YouTubers criticizing them as woke and historically inaccurate, despite the fact that female warriors fought throughout the feudal period and that Yusukee, the Games Black Samurai, is a historical figure. You're not going to, you're not going to gaslight people into believe. leaving this. Yes, I'm sure that there were dozens of female warriors out there. It, like, it's just, this is so stupid. It's so stupid that pertaining to be Japanese comment. Yeah, it's insane. I thought we already settled this debate. We did. And that's, that's why people are mad is because it was settled. The disturbing online misogyny of Gamergate has returned if it

ever went away or no it's not and and i'm going to i'm going to tell anybody that it's like involved in us we're going to keep pushing for this stuff and we're going to get what we want we are it's going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it because the fact is that there are way more of us than there are of you and none of these game companies care about you all they care about is money and collectively we have more money. That's the reality. Assassin's Creed Shadows did pretty well because it's not awful. It's not, it's really not awful game.

It's not great, but it's not awful, right? And also here's another factor. Assassin's Creed Shadows was a brand withdrawal. Is the brand of Assassin's Creed better or worse after Assassin's Creed Shadows? I think it's worse. And so when you look at an IP, and if you look at a release of the IP in a vacuum, sometimes you can see that and be like, wow, well, that one did pretty well. Yeah, Shadowlands sold really well in World of Warcraft, but it also was such a massive brand withdrawal that it suppressed sales for the next expansion. And this is what a lot of people don't really understand in terms of like IPs.

And you have to understand this. As a content creator, you have to understand this as like, you know, taking too many sponsored streams or, you know, having too many boring streams where you don't give people what they want. Like, you have to make sure that you're giving people what they want to see. You know, it doesn't mean every day has to be an S-tier quality content day. But it has to mean that overall people are getting that type of experience that they're looking forward to by watching your stream. And I think that sometimes people might have a good stream that has a lot of numbers. but it's a boring stream, well, you can guarantee that that's not always going to happen.

And so just because one game does well, like you can look at POE, right? Is that like you can see the ripple effect of a good league in POE on the amount of people that play the next league. And so even whenever one league does well, that doesn't necessarily mean that the game is doing well or not. And so this is a lot of the,

like a lot of these complexities, people don't understand because they're not thinking. Nobody's trying to think about this. They're trying to push an agenda. And the fact is that if people like this push an agenda, players are not going to buy it. And I can also say that all of this controversy, here's one thing that I wish more people would realize. All of this controversy with Assassin's Creed did not help the game. undoubtedly if they had just gone with John Shadows, you're a traditional male protagonist in Assassin's Creed Shadows,

and they had gone through the motions and made him an edgy, you know, type of guy like the old Assassin's Creed games, I think this game would have sold a lot more copies. Then they probably would have made more money. This controversy not killing the game is not evidence that the controversy was good. It's been a challenge. Assassin's Creed Shadows and the quest to bring feudal Japan to life. Both articles push the same lazy, dishonest narrative that any criticism of Ubisoft's handling of Japanese culture history or the casting of Yaske is nothing more than a manufactured outrage campaign.

Never mind the fact that there are actual concerns coming from Japanese politicians, players, historians, and cultural groups. Never mind that the game actually uses real life shrines, their names, and alters without... To keep in mind, just a small community note here. is that in this event, Yaske was not part of the conversation. And it was about killing Japanese people and destroying sacred, like, places in Japan. So it actually didn't have anything to do with Yaske.

They didn't even talk about him. Yeah, he wasn't even mentioned. Permission. Litz players raid the royal family's tomb and other burial sites, some of the most sacred places in Jackson. Japanese culture, just to loot some epic rarity rewards and get achievements. Never mind that Ubisoft, in their infinite wisdom, gave Yaske the ability to have an affair with Nobunaga's sister, a woman famous for her faithfulness, whose bloodlines still exist today.

It's painfully obvious what these outlets are- 18 Japanese emperors are descendants of her. And now they're descendants of Yoske. Doing, they need a win against their perceived enemies. Players that just want Ubisoft to be honest about the game's accuracy and respect the culture that it's. portraying. Instead of engaging with that, they label all criticism as reactionary and ignore the actual issue. Ubisoft essentially Google searched Japan and Asian and that's the game that they made. And I think it's the... Yeah, what's this? So like Asians, they like this, uh, Boba T stuff, right? Well, we'll put that in there and then there was like, you know, like those fucking, like those

pointy things that they have? Well, I see like a photo of like one of it's like broken. So why don't we have like, uh, the girl sitting on it? And then like, like, you know, like those pointy things that they have. And then, like the Yaske standing in front of it. Why don't we sell that? Yeah. What else to age? Oh, they like dragons. Yeah, why don't we?

Oh, look at this. This is a red dragon. Well, put that. Yeah, put that in the game too. What else do they like? Oh, geez. You know, it's like the Tori. Yeah, it's crazy.

Like sushi like that. Exactly. No, they did it. Media support and their obsession with framing everything as a culture war that pushed Ubisoft to taking the most extreme delusional measure to combat that imaginary enemy by assembling a task force and a therapy group to prepare their developers for potential

online attacks. Think about that. Instead of just listening to valid criticism, Ubisoft prepared for war. In an article, which again, and this is the problem, is that we live in such an age of dishonesty that nobody can admit that there are a lot of people that go on the internet and they act like fucking animals and they are harassing the developers and I think they should be all accountable for that. That's not acceptable and it shouldn't be acceptable. So the problem isn't that. It's that all of the people that are talking about this are being mischaracterized in a massive way. Written by BFM Tech & Co. Written by Melinda Devon Salas, translated from French to English, they recalled a recent interview with Ubisoft and how they planned to protect their workers.

They write, a resurgence in sales and critical success would be a much-needed morale boost for Ubisoft and its teams, especially after navigating the turbulent waters in recent times. The game has been at the center of multiple controversies from anti-DEI movements attacking the game over the inclusion of a black samurai to criticism from certain Japanese players who see the setting as a cultural betrayal to persistent rumors of acquisition. On top of that, Ubisoft is still dealing with the fallout from the trial of former executives accused of workplace harassment and misconduct further adding to the company's woes. The atmosphere remains tense, particularly for developers to mitigate potential online backlash, Ubisoft has implemented protective measures for

its employees. We're being advised not to publicly mention on social media that we work for Ubisoft to avoid harassment. One employee revealed, we're calling many online attacks that have occurred since the game's announcement. Ubisoft is taking proactive steps to handle this extreme and stressful situation. And the worst part, as I said before, is that they're right about this. And some of the behavior that people engage in isn't acceptable at all. But the problem is that when you mischaracterize anybody criticizing this as like anti-DEI and like racist, well, when you make a pattern of lying about things, then people will also think that you're lying about other things. And that's why there's so much pushback against this.

...harassment campaign that was presented during labor meetings to support employees during the game's release. The initiative comes from Canada. There's a dedicated team monitoring all social media and responding quickly to targeted attacks. Psychological and legal support is being promised to employees who become targets. Unlike previous efforts, this time it's being taken seriously, they emphasized. HOSONX, formerly Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube videos will be closely monitored by a dedicated team, ready to report swiftly to any issues. Lawyers are already on standby prepared to file lawsuits in any cases of confirmed harassment.

How many boxes do you need to shove criticism into before you can comfortably ignore it? This is exactly why Ubisoft has gone to such ridiculous lengths because the media keeps dialing things up to 11. They've created an industry-wide hysteria where any pushback is treated as an existential threat. Sure, there are bad faith actors in every controversy. There always are. And yeah, I fully believe that there are people that are out there that are going to hijack these movements to push whatever their ideological goals are. But that's not what's happened here. The media's blanket dismissals lumping Japanese critics and actual concerned players into the same pile as online.

extremists is a coward's way out. There's plenty of... It's completely misleading. Yeah, it's complete... It sounds like threatening players. Yeah, it is. It's completely misleading. And I think that he's right about like how the media...

The media are the ones that really make all of this worse. Because like they make it impossible to have a reasoned conversation. Like if somebody says, yeah, I think it's kind of weird that you have to play as like this character because I don't really think that it's... Like, we don't really even know, like, what his history is. And on top of that, like, it just seems like this is kind of like virtue signaling, right? Like, you can't have a reasoned conversation because the media escalates everything to the most extreme degree. And I think that's really the problem is that because of that escalation, that's why you really have people behaving this way.

This is a company can and should ignore. Bad faith outrage, personal attacks and unhinged nonsense. but this isn't that. Assassin's Creed Shadows is under fire for legitimate reasons. Cultural misrepresentation, blatant disrespect, and Ubisoft's refusal to engage with criticism in good faith. And instead of having a real discussion, the media is shoving it all under the same umbrella, slapping an ideological label on it, and calling it a day. Do I believe that there are psychos that are out there that are trying to attack docs and threaten developers? Of course. That always happens. That always will happen. It's disgusting. It should be condemned and it should be mitigated. But I have a hard time

believing that it's happening at such a massive scale that Ubisoft needs to publicly announce a legal team and psychological support group for their developers. This wasn't... You don't want to know what's sad is that I do. I do. I do think it's that bad. Think about what happens to Tesla owners. Think about what's happened to like these conservative content creators that have gotten

swatted all the time. I think that the temperature for all of these topics has gotten turned up to, such an insane degree that almost nobody is willing to even think about things at all. People are spurred the fuck out. Yeah, they're totally out of their fucking minds. And it's happening everywhere. It's happening with everything. Some necessary response to overwhelming attacks, it was a panic reaction fueled by media-driven hysteria. And Ubisoft's refusal to clarify what attacks actually are makes the situation even worse by saying that they have people

that are out there that are combing Twitter, Reddit, YouTube and monitoring targeted attacks, but not defining what those attacks actually are, what they consider them to be. They're creating a chilling effect on criticism. When a company makes it clear... That's a great point that he's making, is that whenever you don't really explain what that

means, like, in my opinion, like, I haven't really tempered any of my criticism at all because, like, like, I'm, what am I harassing the company by saying the game is mid, right? I mean, like, what is this? Uh, so of course not, but a lot of other people will be like less likely to talk about it for whatever reason because it does seem like, oh, well, maybe I could get in trouble or something bad like this could happen.

It was much heavier in opposite direction. Uh, conservators anti-woke are much less likely to docks and stock. Look, I don't want to play like the who's more bad game, right? Like my point is that this kind of stuff does happen. And like, here, I'll give you guys an example. So recently there was a post on my subreddit and it was just literally a, picture of the account of like some woman that worked at uh... Ubisoft and she was a writer for Assassin's Creed Shadows. And, uh, you know, she did look like, kind of like the people that

I complained about a lot. But she's not really making any statements about the game. She's just simply a woman that worked at the game. And there's no reason to think that she had anything bad or good, uh, to, you know, have to say or anything about the game at all. And I, I left the post up because I wanted to like use it as an example on my stream is that no, Just looking at the different profiles of people that work at the game and then harassing them indiscriminately, this is not a good thing. It's not good. And this is kind of what I said before about how people aren't willing to cede ground to the other side because it's like basically other people are unreasonable. And so when you're in a circus, it's time to behave like a clown.

And I think that's what's happened is that they've created this search. And now everybody's behaving like clowns straight up. Yeah, exactly. Can't be doing that? No, it's weird. It's weird and stupid. And so of course not. It's not even to debate. Yeah, no, exactly, that the far left is is more active and suppressing ideas. No, I agree with you. I think left-ling people are much more active and suppressing ideas. But that doesn't mean that right-ling people don't do it. And when they do do it, it is bad. That's it. It's really that simple. Like, I don't need to play. Like, when you people, playing these oh but but oh but what about the other people what about the other people that it's you're you're you're just making defense you're just you're defending something for for what they're actively watching social media for attacks what do you think that does critics and content creators immediately clench up look i'm going to be honest with you guys youtube is a fragile platform for critics there are really no protections if a company decides to misuse the system if youbysoft it's trigger happy with copyright strikes or false reports a single strike could

permanently damage a channel. And before you say they won't do that, Ubisoft already got a V-tuber band by accident when they messed up with their own sponsored stream embargo. Imagine what happens when they misfire again, but this time it's a critic. This is the danger of corporation. I don't worry about that, to be honest with you.

I have never seen a company silence a content creator and DMCA a content creator for providing legitimate criticism to a video game. I have never seen this happen. I've never seen it happen. And what happened with that V-Tuber was ridiculous, but as somebody who actually also had access to the review embargo, because I got the game early,

they sent me like a whole like PowerPoint presentation of like, don't show this, don't show this stuff. Like, this is the time that you need to play and you can't play before this time. Like I got the review embargo. And so I know, like she did break the embargo,

but the problem was it was done through a third party and there was a miscommunication because of the game delay, right? That's just, happens, right? And mistakes happen. And so did Nintendo do it, though? No, I have never seen a video that is critical of a Nintendo game get DMCA'd by Nintendo for being critical. I have never seen that happen. Not yet at least. It's one thing for individual developers to protect themselves. That's understandable. But when you have an international publisher starting to put together a legal team, specifically to monitor speech across multiple platforms,

it's no longer about safety, it's about control. Ubisoft didn't clarify what their task force is actually going to do, and that uncertainty alone is enough to scare some critics into silence. This is how you kill open discussion. This is how bad games keep getting a free pass. By turning everything into a battle, they've made any real criticism, whether it's about the game's quality, historical accuracy,

or corporate dishonesty. It's all getting drowned out by noise. They're creating a world where players don't feel comfortable, voicing legitimate criticisms without being lumped in with lunatics. This has been the wildest escalation of events that I've ever seen. And that's the crazy thing is that a lot of people have gotten mad at me for the feedback that I've given about the game. And I think that I've been one of the people that's been very fair.

A lot of other people that they've either been saying this game is amazing. I'm loving it. And like, again, I'm not even saying they're lying, but like the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. for a game before. And I don't think that it's going to stop. Because you have a lot of people that are really invested in this game failing and you have a lot of people

that are really invest in the game succeeding. I just like covering it more than anything else. I don't really care what direction it goes in. It will make for interesting content either way. Just a fucking game. Yeah, exactly. I'm really interested to see how people are going to engage with this game.

I don't like it. I really don't. I hate it in fact. And the reason I hate it is because it disappoints me. Because it's a company that is so big. It's so experienced. It's been in this,

industry for so long. You have 20,000 developers. This should be the best game ever made. But they just keep aiming way on. He's right. This game should be insanely fucking good. Under the bar. It's all because of greed. It's because monetization dictates everything that they do. You know, they have a monetization director for single player games. Yeah, I could have bet that. I could have Why? Why would you do that? And they're involved in all of the biggest decisions the game makes. That's a terrible idea. It's the worst idea you could ever have.

I'm really interested to see how people engage with this game. I do not think that this is going to be the ultimate Hail Mary that they need it. It's not. Because across the board, it's just not very good. First few hours, you're going to enjoy it. I did. And I think you're going to see that, honestly, that makes a lot of sense when you start looking at the reviews because nine times out of ten,

a lot of the reviewers don't actually ever even finish these games. I also have to say that side by side, I've been playing Assassin's Creed Shadows and I've also been playing Rise of the Ronan.

I had to actively quit playing Assassin's Creed Shadows because playing that game made me so bad at Rise of the Ronan that I kept losing. So I have to stop. I quit playing Assassin's Creed Chattos until I beat Rise of the Ronan And then I can go to I can go back because like going back and forth

Like it's just like it's like you're going from like running You know it's going from like driving a car to like fucking running with ankle weights It's degrading skills. Yes and like I had to play like for an hour or two to like to get it back man Play ghosts it'll break your mind blow your mind we're gonna play it probably uh start of next month I'm thinking towards the beginning the combat downgrade well it's just hard it's just way harder that's it

like the game's way harder I'm playing on a hard motor too it's just a harder game play maybe 15 or 20 hours and move on to the next game and because of that you're going to get a very limited experience and go oh yeah it's a very good game

very pretty it is pretty we've already seen three games in the past six months about it get the same level of marketing the reviews the fans Manfare by the media, and they ultimately still resulted in no financial win. And one of those games was made by Ubisoft. And this is a really good chance this is going to be another one.

And I think the game is still going to move copies. I just don't think it's going to move that many, or as many as they need it to. Because I think it will probably sell like around 5 to 7 million copies. That's what my bet is going to be. At least, you know, like in the first year or so. I'd say 5, 7 million copies. I'm wrong. The game is essentially the call of duty

of third person action games, but I just think that... I don't think players are going to dig it as much as Ubisoft needs them to. Let's your job is in chat. There it is. Player expectations are higher than they've ever been. People don't have enough money.

And I also think that this is something else that's unique, and I probably need to look into this and write something about it. But I don't think players are into the whiplash that we've been getting with games lately. Like, just a couple of years ago, we had Baldersgate 3, which is just like a wild game. And then you go to play Starfield, right after Assassins or right after Balders Gate 3,

and you're like, what the hell is going on? These guys have way... It's simple. All of the bad games, well, to be fair, Ubisoft is in France. But other than that, all the bad games are in America, and all of the good games are in Europe. In terms of Western games.

right, you've obviously got the Asian games that are also good. So basically, if it's, if it's, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if you're, if, if, if you're, how did you make this when I just play that. And I think the same thing's going to happen with people that played kingdom come deliverance to. Exactly. You get into this game that has this crazy level of. detail in writing and authenticity

and the voice acting and the characters in the world and the immersive qualities and all of these things. Then you go and you play avowed or Assassin's Creed. And it's just like, whoa. How does this happen? I do like such a dirty grimy bitch because I've beaten

a vowed but I haven't beaten Kingdom Come Deliverance too. I need to finish that game. I haven't done that. And yeah, it's the same as like I like that's the way I felt about Rise of the Rhone. I'm like if I actually, if I quit playing Rise of the Ronan to beat Assassin's Creed Shadows, I will be the dick eater and the shit eater that everybody in my comments thinks I am whenever I rate like one of these mid games like, you know, a mid rating

like a five or six, right? Happen. Yeah, I'm like, I have to, I have to beat this. A small focus team with far less resources. Still in the cave. Yeah, exactly. Make something like that. And then you guys with literally the world that you're- Do you want to know the real reason why I do it? because I like playing video games without paying attention or caring about them and it's easier for me to not pay attention or care about a game like a vow that's the truth

tips same with dragon age can't deliver something yeah I don't have to give a fuck or think about it at all players are going to get sick of that they're not going to deal with it though look for those really crazy big banger games they just blow your mind it blows the industry out of the water there is at least one two or three

they're going to come out just about every single year they're going to ignore the rest and then play indie games. That's why I played while so long. That's what's going to happen. I think that's going to happen right now. Anyway, I'm really interested to see where things go from here. I can talk about player numbers and stuff like that.

I've seen it, but if you guys know me, I don't count my chickens before my eggs hatch. Yeah. That's anyway. Stay cool. Stay righteous. Stay safe. I'll catch you guys in the next one.

I think a lot of people also are like, family, family, family. People really downplay how much average disposable income like normal people have. A lot of people don't have a ton of fucking money. There's a video. Give it a like. This was such a good fucking video. Oh my God.

This was a good video. I'm glad that he addressed concerns about the game that are, if you can imagine this, about the actual game. Can you believe that? Having concerns about a video game that relate to the game. that relate to the game itself. Insane, isn't it?