I'm Brett Cooper.

Guys, I am here to tell you today that the gamers are upset.

They're fighting with each other and with the gaming industry and the creators of games.

I think that there is a specific industry term for that.

I'm forgetting it.

Developers, developers, developers, developers.

Do I play games?

No, but I'm here to tell you about this story because that is my job.

So there is a new Assassin's Creed game coming out in November, I think it's November 15th, and it is called Assassin's Creed Shadows, and it will be set in feudal Japan.

But fans were obviously very confused when they realized that the main protagonist was a black man, a black samurai.

And obviously they have questions we need to discuss.

Before we dive in though, make sure that you like this video, subscribe to the comment section channel if you have not already, and then ring that notification bell so that you never miss one of our episodes.

All right, before we get into this though,

I have to give a shout out to Landon who was in my weekly live streams.

He sent me this story.

If y'all don't know, I do a weekly live stream Q&A.

It's on Daily Wire.

Plus I get so many amazing story ideas from them.

They keep me clued in on the sides of the internet that I am not in, one of which being the gaming side of the internet.

Anyway, I would have never seen this story without you, Landon, so thank you.

And if you want to join those live streams,

I'll put a link below.

The new game, Assassin's Creed Shadows, here is the poster, if you could call it that.

And the trailer was released about a week ago and it immediately garnered a response as I talked about in the introduction.

Now I obviously can't play the whole thing, but here is just a little taste.

It's exactly what I think of when I think of feudal Japan.

Ever cracked open a history book?

Samurais are so sick.

Okay, so as a non-gamer, that looks sick.

Just had to say that as an aside.

But I was reading the comments and the general consensus was that Ubisoft, which is obviously the company that made the game, that they make better trailers than they do actual games.

So maybe it won't be good, I don't know, but the trailer,

I mean, it did its job.

It was sick.

Also, this reaction might be because I just finished watching Shogun, which was such a good show.

So I'm already very much into the feudal Japan landscape at the moment.

Anyway, moving on from my personal opinions about the trailer.

Ubisoft, obviously, like I've said multiple times now, pointed out the fact that it was interesting that even though it is set in feudal Japan, they chose a black protagonist.

And to be fair, this character, Yasuke, was a real person.

There's even a whole book about him called the African Samurai.

And the story does seem fascinating.

Here is the cover of the book.

You can go look into it.

The true story of Yasuke, a legendary black warrior in feudal Japan.

One article about him said that he was an enslaved man from East Africa transported by the Portuguese to Japan.

Sounds very much like Shogun.

This is why I'm so into this.

Left behind there with a Jesuit mission, he came to be known as Yasuke and fought alongside the feudal lord, Odo Nobuganda, and became Japan's first foreign-born samurai.

This is very cool.

Like instantly, I see that book cover, I read this,

I wanna know more.

It does sound like a very cool story.

Like who knows?

Maybe this will become my newest hyper fixation, kind of like I'm always hyper fixated on my dog's health and my own health.

Everyone knows that I have been spending the last year taking my health more seriously than ever.

I've been extremely cautious about what I'm eating, what products I'm using on my skin.

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And Rough Greens is a supplement, so it's not a whole food that you have to go out and buy.

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Obviously, we know that we are what we eat, so clearly that goes for dogs as well.

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So go to roughgreens.com slash Brett, or you can call 877-66-MY-DOG.

Again, that is roughgreens.com slash Brett, or call 877-66-MY-DOG today.

Now, I don't have a problem with a game or any storyteller, whether that be a game developer or some film producer wanting to share that story and this very interesting character, but in this cultural and political climate that is obsessed with just vapid, empty representation,

I think most people would agree that choosing this specific character to drive this video game in feudal Japan is not as innocent as just wanting to share an interesting, slightly unknown historical figure, if you catch my drift.

And that is why people were instantly bothered in the comment section.

To shreds, you say.

One person said, the most heroic thing about this trailer is that they left the comments open.

Another person said, just for clarity for those without the browser extension, this video has 254,000 likes and 524,000 dislikes.

And then another person later said, current dislikes, 630K.

I will update this every single day.

And then this person commented with, as an Egyptian, I fully support the Japanese people's right to be upset with this historical abomination.

I mean, yeah, Cleopatra, anyone?

King Tut, who was not portrayed as Egyptian whatsoever?

Anyway.

I remember my grandmother saying to me,

I don't care what they tell you in school,

Cleopatra was black.

My source is that I made it the up.

Back to the point, the Japanese people are upset.

Here are a few translated comments from the YouTube comment section.

This person said, it is really disgusting that our history and culture are used as convenient tools for their political beliefs.

Say it louder for the folks at the back because that is exactly what is happening.

And y'all, this is where it gets wild because everyone's concerns about that exact thing, about this being a calculated ploy for representation, were validated right here.

This person said, Jonathan, the producer of Ubi, Ubisoft, said in an interview with a Japanese magazine, quote, I can't empathize with Japanese people, so I was looking for a non-Japanese character.

I'm sorry.

And then goes on to say, isn't this a racist remark?

For example, in the West, if somebody says

I can't empathize with black people, so I was looking for a non-black character, is that acceptable?

No, it would not be.

Obviously, that is not acceptable in our current climate.

I mean, anybody who said that would be, you know, tarred and feathered on social media.

I have not been able to find that particular Japanese interview, but I keep seeing it referenced.

So if anybody else sees it, let me know because that comment is wild.

Another person said, I was very humiliated when the director of this said in an interview we were looking for our samurai, that is a samurai who was not Japanese.

Who exactly do we mean by we?

Do you think that there are only whites and blacks in this world?

There we go, couldn't have said it better myself.

Somebody else commented this great point and said, why not simply make an Assassin's Creed game in Africa?

Kingdom of Kush, Kingdom of the Congo,

Kingdom of Zimbabwe, Ethiopian Empire,

Nubian Empire, Benin Empire, Zulu Empire,

I could go on, so much uncharted territory for video games set in Africa.

It really is not that hard.

There are so many amazing stories out there that if you wanted that kind of representation, you could lean into that.

But now you are allegedly trying to represent

Japanese people by setting this story in feudal Japan, setting this game in feudal Japan, and then you're not even making a Japanese person the title character.

It don't make no motherfucking sense.

And this was explained perfectly by this gamer on Twitter.

Yusuke is what they want to say is the first black Japanese samurai, when in all actuality, he was not even a samurai.

He was a retainer.

So he wasn't even a full blown samurai.

And for all of the characters they could have used for Japan, all these kinds of different people they could have picked from, they picked Yusuke.

Why did they pick Yusuke?

Because he's black.

So instead of using a Japanese man in a game based in Japan, like they did with the other Assassin's Creed games,

Altair, he was an Arab, obviously.

One of my favorites, Connor, in Assassin's Creed III, he was Native American.

That was fine.

And the most famous of them all, Ezio Auditore, who was Italian.

So why in all those games would you have a character representative of the region they're from?

But in this game, you want to demote a Japanese man and then use Yusuke.

I just see this and my immediate thought is they did this for brownie points.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

We're on the same page.

I always say progressive brownie points.

That is literally why they did this.

So they can pat themselves on the back and go, ooh, we're so progressive.

Ooh, we did an amazing thing.

We're highlighting a black character.

There are other races in the world and this is not racist to say whatsoever.

Okay, I'll let him finish.

He made some other great points.

I see that and I'm like, there's no other reason than I want claps for it.

There's no other reason.

And I'm an Assassin's Creed fan.

I've played every game.

That's like if Ghost of Tsushima, instead of using Jin, they used a white dude.

People would be like, that doesn't make any sense.

This doesn't make any sense to me.

It's stupid.

I mean, he hit the nail on the head.

That was so perfect.

So this video went viral on X and now has over 9 million impressions.

For the most part, people in the comment section got it.

There were a few idiots that were like, you're being over-complicating it.

Like this is amazing for black people.

And he shut them down instantly, which was so fantastic.

Anyway, great video.

And obviously even black gamers agree that this is ridiculous.

Another guy commented and said, 100% agree with you, man.

It honestly pisses me off.

I do not consider it representative of my race when they pander.

It is beyond insulting.

It's not genuine.

And then he replied and said, it is shallow.

Exactly.

That's what I and so many other people like him have been saying for years now.

It's not genuine.

You're not doing this because you actually care about black stories and black characters.

You're doing this so that you can feel good about yourself.

Brownie points, seals, clapping, virtue signaling, whatever you want to call it.

So you can win some video game awards from some progressive video game organization, whatever it is.

That's why you're doing it.

We see through it.

Obviously, we're tired of it.

Now, immediately after this response started brewing online, the media and Ubisoft went to work trying to fix this PR mess.

And IGN got an exclusive and published this gaslighting article over the weekend.

Let's not pretend we're mad.

The new Assassin's Creed Shadow Samurai isn't Asian.

It does nothing for Asian representation to have another samurai hero.

How dumb do you think I am?

I hate to be this person, but we have to acknowledge it.

Can you imagine if they did an Assassin's Creed in Africa, but then they made the title character white?

Like we would never hear the end of it.

Suddenly like BLM would have new headquarters in every single African country and they would be marching through the streets in their t-shirts, whatever it is.

But if any other race is swapped out or ignored, it's crickets.

Or worse, like in this article, they publish things like this saying, no, actually you're the problem.

You just don't get it.

You're not progressive enough.

Like we actually understand what we're doing.

It's such BS.

The first paragraph was just comical and this guy wrote, while it's a known issue that Asian representation in Western games is severely lacking,

I find it hypocritical and laughable that we're only talking about the need for an Asian protagonist now that it's been revealed that Assassin's Creed Shadows will star a black samurai.

Well, we're talking about it because you had the opportunity to make a Japanese hero and then you didn't.

So obviously people are gonna talk about it.