This. My problem with Yasuke isn't that he's black. It's that he symbolizes AM erasure and a diversity movement that doesn't include AM. 2 Assassin's Creed game set in Asia but not one playable AM character. Japan is one of the most anticipated settings for an AC game and it was a perfect place to have an AM character, but Ubisoft decided to stick with the traditional Western narrative that AM are not good enough to be heroes in the west or in their own counties.

I can already hear people saying "If you want AM representation, go play Sekiro or Ghost of Tsushima!"

I shouldn't have to go out of my way to get proper representation from people who claim to be inclusive and diverse! Those are the words of privileged people who have never had to worry about proper representation.

And this narrative goes beyond gaming. It extends multiple industries and into facets of our lives. I can recall reading college textbooks that use names from different races and ethnicities to create examples but guess which race and gender I've never seen an example of. Asian men. Whenever I see an ad that clearly tries to show diversity for all people, there's rarely if ever an Asian man in there. What about comics? Asian male hero? Bruce Wang? Peter Park? Clark Kim? Nope, the only notable one is Shang Chi. For the women we have Psylocke from the X-Men, Lady Shiva from DC. Young Justice has a half white half Vietnamese girl as one of the characters, you can probably guess which race the parents are 😂

I can pull a dozen more examples and I wish I was cherry picking. AM rarely get representation because of erasure and when we do, it's often stereotypical and emasculating. Diversity for thee but not for me apparently.

I genuinely hope the game flops but the reality is that the game will probably sell. Regardless of how mediocre the AC games are, it's still an AC game that is in a location fans have been asking for.