PM Ishiba calls Assassins Creed: Shadows gameplay “Absolutely unacceptable”

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was asked about Assassin's Creed Shadows during a House of Councillors Budget Committee meeting. Ishiba responded to accusations of Japanese religious sites, shrines, being vandalized in gameplay shared online. This came after Democratic Party member Hiroyuki Kondo shared a clip of a shrine being destroyed on X: "Wake up, Ubisoft 'defender,' and hear our voice! What kind of Assassin's Creed game destroys an actual religious site? Japanese culture is consumed but receives no respect. Here is a perfect example."

To this viral clip, Ishiba stated: "I would like to discuss with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs what to do legally," he then followed by saying: "It is absolutely unacceptable to graffiti a shrine. It is nothing but an insult to the country."

He went on to say that respecting another country's culture and religion is important and that any behavior that does the opposite will not be tolerated. This doesn't mean that Ishiba wants the game banned from Japan, but more wanted gamers to know that doing these types of things in real life is not okay.

Ubisoft did make a different version ahead of Japan's release, however.A few days after the discourse began, developers released a hotpatch that doesn't allow gamers to destroy certain items in the game. This ensures that players can't destroy shrines, which has been a controversial decision.

While some have applauded Ubisoft for being culturally sensitive, others have felt that the outrage over shrines was ridiculous to begin with. Gamers pointed out that all cultures are disrespected to an extent in video games. Wrote YouTuber Mightykeef: "There are very legitimate reasons to be upset at Ubisoft, and even criticism of AC: Shadows... but when you start saying things like this, you lose the plot and it gets hard to have a real conversation. You control the buttons you press. Also, you beat up the Pope in AC2."

While yes, insulting to demolish a shrines interior, demolishing shrines is not the main point of Assassins Creed: Shadows, and should've been ignored and dismissed as ignorance. Like what Mightykeef said, you beat up the Pope in Assassins Creed 2. You also kill people inside the Vatican, so destroying a few objects inside of a shrine is almost nothing compared to beating up the head of the Catholic Church.

Note: this happened about a month ago, but I wanted to make a thread on it.

The AP had an interesting piece on Sachi Schmidt-Hori, an associate professor of Japanese literature and culture at Dartmouth College who worked as a narrative consultant on the latest instalment in the popular Ubisoft video game franchise. Schmidt-Hori has never played Assassin's Creed Shadows, but facing an onslaught of online harassment from its fans, she quickly developed her own gameplay style: confronting hate with kindness.