“Assassin’s Creed 4 marks the first step into next gen for the franchise. Learn how AC4 utilizes next gen technology to create realistic oceans, dynamic weather systems, ambient lighting, and seamless ship boarding.” – Ubisoft Team
Thanks Ubisoft for making a nice looking ocean and flora that bends with the rainfall. You know what would actually be revolutionary? A female as the lead role in the game. That my besotted dudelly programming/marketing types would be fucking revolutionary.
Yerp! Efforts to maintain historical accuracy prevent Ubisoft from having a female protagonist. Concomitantly, it enables them to continue to act like complete bags of douche!
You know what isn’t revolutionary but more of the standard 365, 24/7, misogyny hailstorm women deal with *since forever*, are interviews like this:
Ubisoft steered clear of making the Assassin’s Creed III protagonist a female character because the game’s setting is not a strong match, according to creative director Alex Hutchinson. Speaking to Kotaku, Hutchinson said the American Revolution time period is all about men. “It’s always up in the air,” Hutchinson said. “I think lots of people want it, [but] in this period it’s been a bit of a pain. The history of the American Revolution is the history of men.”
Oh! Because you are making a historically accurate document and are entering Assassin’s Creed 3 into the Library of Congress NON-fiction. Jebus-dancing-christ-on-a-pogostick. It’s a historically inaccurate run around stab festival with historical trappings, nothing more.
“There are a few people, like John Adams’ wife, [Abigail]–they tried very hard in the [HBO series John Adams] to not make it look like a bunch of dudes, but it really is a bunch of dudes,” he added.
Are you fucking kidding me? You’re saying because of an HBO special you can’t possibly put a woman as lead character? This sort of vapid prolix is industry standard when it comes to worshipping the all mighty ‘peen. It is based on nothing but ignorance and misogyny. If you bothered to look you would see women play just as important role in the revolution as men did (time to google women’s role in the AR? 5 seconds), but as with much of history we favour the male based narrative.
The Assassin’s Creed franchise has bent the books of history before, but Hutchinson admitted that doing so in Assassin’s Creed III could be problematic.
“It felt like, if you had all these men in every scene and you’re secretly, stealthily in crowds of dudes [as a female assassin], it starts to feel kind of wrong,” he said. “People would stop believing it.”
Ah yes because jumping off of 3 to 7 story buildings into conveniently placed bales of hay is stone fucking cold reality. See below about the suddenly all important believably factor…
No Hutchinson dude, I’m calling shenanigans on this polished crown of turds you’re calling an explanation. You are talking out of your ass trying to avoid the issue: that is the money that greases your skids won’t pay for a female protagonist.
And admitting that you are too fucking in love with $$ to truly make a revolutionary game doesn’t look good in the press. So lets see where was that quote….
“Assassin’s Creed 4 marks the first step into next gen for the franchise. Learn how AC4 utilizes next gen technology to create realistic oceans, dynamic weather systems, ambient lighting, and seamless ship boarding.” – Ubisoft Team
Take your oceans, your pretty lights and and whatever other techno-wank you’re peddling and kindly frak-off.
Come back when you have something that actually qualifies as “revolutionary“.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
2 comments
September 21, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Reneta Scian
As a female gamer, a lesbian, and a trans* person, I’m beyond frustrated that neither those of my gender, my sexuality, nor my identification are deemed fitting to appear in most video games as anything more than a plot piece designed for a partially captive male audience. What’s really funny is that there is a lot of male gamers who do want, or even play female protagonists in games and enjoy them. And if they were marketing games with female protagonists for males and females with the same vigor they do otherwise, it would be a totally different phenomenon. But the key here is that it’s hard for me to want to play anything other than MMOs anymore because I just don’t feel I’m represented as a women, moreover anything else. However, if given the option I’ll play as female, a lesbian, and as a trans person.
What better segue than to have a character that accurately represents you in online play? But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because when female, lesbian and/or trans characters in in the mix they either become trophies for male power trips, jokes or sexualized villains, or punchlines in and of themselves (Like the trans* waitress in Katherine, whose boyfriend is complaining that his virginity was taken by a “dude”.) Katherine is a good example of a lot of tropes against women, though their doesn’t seem to be any against lesbians per say. However there is quite a few against women and the one against trans* people. Women (51% of the population), only make cameos in most mainstream production games.
That’s quite appalling. Moreover, it’s actually a little heart wrenching to know that I’ll likely not play a game as a protagonist that mostly represents me anytime in the next decade. I want characters I can relate to, not tonnes of titles laden with white, hetero, cis dude-bros who do nothing but spew bullets and mayhem in a male dystopia/utopia of male power trips and violence. I still like single player games, but find it hard when I feel like I have no relation to the character I’m playing. Likewise, I’m also sick of the weak female protagonists with daddy issues who all need a strong male to protect them likewise. Imagine how unbearably atrocious a game where you played the captured princess locked in a cell, or some sort of other damseled, distressed, incapable female, or some shackled femmebot trapped in some super soldier’s head with whom you have a captive pseudo romance with?
So I propose a new rule for games. If it would be hard to enjoy the game playing as any leading female character in the game (within the confines of the role, not as a mini-game), then it’s a bad game. Period. End of story. We’ll call it, “The Role Reversal Rule”. And I don’t know about you, but I actually had a panic attack about the simulated rape scene in Quantic Dream’s “Heavy Rain”. I finished the game only because I paid $60.00 for it and would only get $35.00 for it if I brought it back in time. I bring that title up because essentially it’s a game that is very upsetting to play when you’re in the shoes of the female protagonist. I think it would be pretty upsetting to play a game like that unless you have a ridiculous prisoner role play fetish. Last thing we need is a bunch of gamers floating around with Stockholm Syndrome. Being captured, captive, damseled, made to feel small and incapable is not funny, nor entertaining and would not make for a game people would want to play, not to mention triggering for some people who’ve lived through that.
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September 22, 2013 at 3:18 am
bleatmop
Well, the protagonist for the Vita version of AC3 was female. As was the main character for the AC2 PSP version if I recall correctly (I may not be, it’s been a long time since I played that game). I do know they have plans for a female protagonist as well, assuming the series keeps going that long. I remember the statues in the HQ in AC2 that you find shows like the 9 most influential assassins (that’s where Conner was teased). I know the Egyptian assassin was female, but I don’t recall if there were any others. Though AC4 seems like the perfect time to pull out a female lead. Whereas AC3 was about Conner chumming around with the key figures of the American Revolution (something I would admit that it would be hard to write a female into and still maintain that suspension of disbelief), AC4 is all about being a pirate and sailing the new world and finding various plot spoilers. I see no reason why a female could not captain a ship, and pirates were the quintessential meritocratic social structure. Anyone who had the ability to make them rich they would follow.
That being said, I think I’ve done a better job of defending AC3 Hutchingson has… soooo… my work is done here? Perhaps Ubisoft needs some media training for their people who will be interacting with the media?
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