Game designer Chris Fisk claims that Ubisoft originally planned to tell the story of a Japanese monk turned assassin in Assassin’s Creed Shadows rather than Yusuke.
Key art for Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
Ubisoft released their first trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows on May 15th revealing the game will focus on the characters of Naoe and Yasuke.
In an explainer video shared to their official YouTube account following the release of the trailer, Assassin’s Creed Shadows Game Director Charles Benoit provided more details on the characters.
He began, “With our dual protagonists, we have two fantasies: the samurai and the shinobi. We want the player to experience both. And we cannot squeeze both fantasies into one character because the samurai and shinobi came from different social classes. They have different lives, so we cannot really mix them together.”
The game’s Associate Narrative Director Brooke Davies then added, “The historical character of Yasuke presented a really exciting opportunity for the narrative team. We approached it in the same way that so much of the work is done in Assassin’s Creed, which is really in terms of research and history first. Not a lot is known about him, but what we did know or we do know is that he arrived in Japan in 1579 right when our game starts. And that he had relationships with some of the most interesting people in our setting, like Oda Nobunaga, the Portuguese and Jesuits, which made it very sort of tantalizing and enticing from a narrative perspective to come in and start weaving these facts with story in between.”
Benoit added, “The more we read that about the character, the more he was inspiring for us. He’s a foreigner discovering Japan, and we thought it’s the perfect fit because he’s discovering Japan and you are discovering Japan also.”
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
Davies then discussed Naoe, “And on the flip side, we have Naoe, who comes from the province of Iga, which is a remote mountainous area, fiercely independent and known as the birthplace of Shinobi. So they’re very contrasting perspectives that really expose a lot of different sides and facets of the era.”
Benoit continued, “When Oda came he completely destroyed Iga. You have Yasuke and Oda, they are coming to destroy the shinobi. So it kind of create this this interesting tension between two characters.”
Davies then added, “We were able to connect her to the province of Iga in the legendary Igan Shinobi historical figure Fujibayashi Nagato who’s her father in the game. So we understand why she has the skills that she has and the values that she learns from her father and the people of Iga, which are valor, benevolence, and wisdom. And as a young person still at the start of the game, we get to see Naoe acquire even more of that wisdom as the story unfolds.”
READ: Saber Interactive Co-Founder Matthew Karch: “AAA Development Has Become Very Risky”
However, this does not appear to have been the original conception for the game. Chris Fisk, posting under his Infinitale: Chronicles account on X revealed he worked on an Assassin’s Creed game set in the Sengoku Era of Japan back in 2013 and 2014 when he worked under contract at Aeria Games & Entertainment.
Fisk shared a brief synopsis of what Ubisoft was working on when he was working on the game over a decade ago, “The plot focused on the young monk, ‘Yamauchi Taka’ as the playable ancestor. ‘Taka’ means ‘Hawk’ to coincide with the then naming convention of every playable hero being named after a bird of prey (no idea if that changed with all of these newer, disjointed games that no longer have Desmond as the core hero that bound everything together).”
He continued, “The main conflict was about ‘The Sword of Eden’ (aka ‘Excalibur’, ‘Honjō Masamune’, ‘Genghis Khan’s Sword’, etc.). and how it had given its latest wielder, Oda Nobunaga, an unfair advantage in his conquest of Japan.”
Key art for Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
From there he detailed, “After Nobunaga is assassinated by Hattori Hanzo, Taka becomes a part of the brotherhood and, under Hanzo, is trained as an Assassin (Shinobi). The brotherhood try to transport the recovered sword out of Japan but are beset by Jesuit (Templar) ships and it is lost.”
“To make matters worse, Hanzo is assassinated as he considers retirement as a monk. His lord, Tokugawa Ieyasu, charges Taka with finding the killer (and recovering the sword). Despite Nobunaga’s successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi acquiring the sword and going on a rampage that extends into Korea, Taka steals the sword back and mad Daimyo loses his power, weakening his campaign in Korea. Incensed by the theft, Toyotomi believes he was betrayed by the Templars and basically exterminates all Jesuits (Templars) in Japan. Taka infiltrates Toyotomi’s castle and faces him in a final battle, resulting Toyotomi’s death.”
Fisk then concluded, “The ambitious daimyo is left to die as Taka slips away before his retainers could intercept him. The now seasoned assassin spares Toyotomi’s infant heir, knowing the clan has lost its teeth and will eventually wither without Hideyoshi. Ieysau begins his ambitious power grab, demanding Taka and the Brotherhood give him the sword and help him wipe away (“abstergo” in Latin) all of his enemies from Japan to fully unite it under his clan’s banners. Taka and the Brotherhood decline and vanish into the shadows with the sword.”
READ: Report: Over 50 Game Developers Took Part In Organized Scream At Game Developers Conference
In a subsequent post, Fisk shared more details, “I believe Hideyoshi Toyotomi was initially being manipulated by the Templars (Jesuits, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.) but when he failed to be a trained dog and fall in line, he was seen as too dangerous and unpredictable to the order. Hideyoshi’s ambitions grew to more than just Japan’s unification after getting the sword (started expanding into Korea).”
“Taka used this to his advantage and exploited the spy network of prostitutes and concubines from his master’s defeated former ally, Mochizuki Chiyomi, to learn how to steal the sword from Toyotomi,” he continued.
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
“There was European presence in the original treatment but, after losing the sword, Toyotomi believed he was betrayed by the Templars and has Japan purged of all Jesuits (crucifying several of them),” he relayed. “Without the backing of the Templars, and the loss of the sword, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was primed for Taka to avenge his master’s death and assassinate the mad daimyo.”
“The story didn’t follow up with the clash between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari (as that would have led to the pivotal point at Sekigahara and the rise of the Tokugawa Shōgunate). Europeans played significant roles during this point (especially with Nanban Trade of firearms). That could have been a great era for a sequel but the story treatments I worked on ended with the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and didn’t follow through to the conclusion of the Sengoku Jidai,” Fisk shared.
While Fisk details these are the story details he worked on for a game set in the Sengoku Era, former World of Warcraft Team Lead Mark Kern aka Grummz shared additional details from anonymous sources that the game might not have changed after all and what Fisk worked on was potentially for a different game set in the same era.
Kern shared to X, “I have other sources that I trust that are telling me that the story might be unchanged, after all. I can’t go into specifics, but this original poster might not have had the full story.”
He added, “Long had short of it, AC Shadows has had a long development and it has gone through many hands. We don’t know what the final result will be. Time will tell.”
On top of this, it does look like Ubisoft incorporated much of the plot details that Fisk detailed into their Assassin’s Creed: Memories game, which was an iOS exclusive role-playing trading card game that released in August 2014 and shuttered by March 2015.
The game featured Yamauchi Taka and his mission to recover the Sword of Eden.
Key art for Assassin’s Creed Memories (2014), Ubisoft
Assassin’s Creed Shadows arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna, PC through the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games Store, and Macs with the Apple silicon via the Mac App Store on November 15, 2024.
What do you make of this idea that Assassin’s Creed Shadows originally followed a Japanese monk named Yamauchi Taka?
