A petition to cancel Assassin's Creed Shadows has already been signed by over 45,000 people

The gaming community is actively discussing the recently announced Assassin's Creed Shadows game, in particular, the issues of authenticity of the historical context and character portrayal. A group of Japanese gamers, who disagree with the way the developers presented the era of feudal Japan of the 16th century, created a petition demanding to cancel the release of this game.

According to the content of the petition, Ubisoft should immediately stop development of Assassin's Creed Shadows because the game seriously offends Japanese culture due to its incorrect portrayal of samurai. The authors claim that the game misrepresents the role and character of the samurai in Japanese history. In their opinion, samurai, as members of the upper class, should be shown as "gokemono," or servants of the nobility. The initiators of the petition believe that this misunderstanding is a serious insult to Japanese history and culture, which could lead to Asian racism.

The authors of the document demand that Ubisoft immediately suspend the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows and conduct a thorough research of Japanese history and culture, showing proper respect. So far, the petition has over 45,000 signatures out of the required 50,000.

It is unlikely that this petition will in any way affect the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows, scheduled for November 12 for PC and current-gen consoles. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how Ubisoft responds to these demands.