Summary
Assassin’s Creed Shadowshas found itself at the center of several scandals ever since release, most of them not exactly the fault of Ubisoft or the game’s developers, but ratherthe people still fuming that one of the main characters is a black man. Apart fromthat whole kettle of fish, Ubisoft has managed to stay out of trouble recently, though it appears to have landed in hot water after accidentally pinching the flag of a Japanese historical re-enactment group.
First reported bySiliconera(thanksIGN), fans recently spotted the flag of the Sekigahara Teppo-Tai in a piece of Assassin’s Creed Shadows concept art and raised the issue withone of the group’s leading members, who thenposted an image of the group’s flag as proof. On July 3, this same person revealed that Ubisoft admitted it had accidentally pinched the flag and promptly deleted the image from the game’s website.
That then brings us to July 8, on whichthe official Ubisoft Japan Twitter accountreleased a statement explaining that it has used the flag in two separate pieces of concept art and “deeply apologizes” for the matter. It also explains that an apology was directly given to the Sekigahara Teppo-Tai, and that it was accepted, but removing the flag from other forms of media would be difficult.
Ubisoft Apologizes For Using Stolen Flag In Assassin’s Creed Shadows Concept Art
While it’s been fairly simple for Ubisoft to remove the images from the website, and scrub them from the actual game if the flag has been included there too, removing them from the game’s artbook that has been included in the Collector’s Edition is more challenging. In fact, it’s likely impossible if Ubisoft has already printed the artbooks, which seems probablegiven we’re four months away from release.
Aside from that, Ubisoft has stressed that it will no longer use the flag in any promotional artwork or releases, so all is well in the end. Ubisoft might have been spared its blushes if it had maybe looked a little harder into where its artists are getting their reference images from, but at least the entire situation has been resolved.
