Skip to main content

Ubisoft cuts women from Assassin’s Creed: Unity, outrage ensues

Ubisoft has come under heavy fire from the gaming community for its recent explanation as to why there will be no playable female avatars in Assassin’s Creed: Unity‘s upcoming cooperative multiplayer mode. Unity creative director Alex Amancio lit the fuse in an interview with Polygon when he explained that the playable women were planned, but cut due to “the reality of production.”

“It’s double the animations, it’s double the voices, all that stuff and double the visual assets,” explained Amancio. When pressed by Videogamer in another interview, technical director James Therein rationalized it as, “not a question of philosophy or choice in this case at all … it was a question of focus and a question of production. Yes, we have tonnes of resources, but we’re putting them into this game, and we have huge teams, nine studios working on this game and we need all of these people to make what we are doing here.”

Recommended Videos

The gaming community remains unconvinced, however. The hashtag #womenaretoohardtoanimate has rallied their skepticism:

#womenaretoohardtoanimate
"Although we seem ok with animating courtesans and tavern wenches…"

— J. E. Kearns (@BiblioDeviant) June 12, 2014

no one tell ubisoft that indie studios with a fraction of the $ and manpower manage to animate women all the time #womenaretoohardtoanimate

— ryn ; fix your hearts (@cuttleboned) June 12, 2014

https://twitter.com/adrishaw/status/477101833157365760

More scathingly, fellow developers have jumped into the fray to call BS on Ubisoft’s flimsy justifications. Jonathan Cooper, who now works for Naughty Dog, was animation director for Assassin’s Creed 3 and animation lead on Mass Effect 1 and 2, so he should know a thing or two about the series in particular, and the more general challenges of creating alternate gender avatars. Cooper took to Twitter to debunk Ubisoft’s claims that the additional work required would be unreasonable.

In my educated opinion, I would estimate this to be a day or two's work. Not a replacement of 8000 animations. http://t.co/z4OZl3Sngl

— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014

Fun fact #2: Aveline de Grandpré shares more of Connor Kenway's animations than Edward Kenway does. pic.twitter.com/lFHHnBfLht

— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014

For those asking "why two days?", this article explains how retargetting and replacing only key animations works: http://t.co/pQFbe7UJDW

— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 12, 2014

The truth of how long it would take to add in alternate avatars probably lies somewhere between Cooper’s one to two days and Ubisoft’s claim of double the work. Getting hung up on the particulars is beside the point, though. Fans seem to be less irked by the exclusion of women from this particular game than the thick-headedness of Ubisoft’s response. Mainstream gaming has a lot of trouble producing protagonists that aren’t white men with short, brown hair, let alone people of genders besides male and races besides white, elf, or dwarf. Ubisoft is doing nothing out of the ordinary by excluding female avatars, and that’s exactly the point. By saying that it is “not a question of philosophy or choice,” the developers are tacitly accepting a status quo where half of the population is only given agency in games as a bonus feature or stretch goal – first on the cutting room floor. The subtle suppression in a lack of representation is far more insidious than any active aggression.

Some might question whether it is fair to hang the burden of an entire industry’s backward attitudes on a single developer. However, if one of the largest studios in gaming with hundreds of employees working around the world with the most powerful hardware that ever existed consider the addition of playable female characters to be too much of a burden, then whom can we expect to do so? As the anger continues to spread virally, we can almost certainly expect a mea culpa from Ubisoft, and probably the addition of women to the next game, if not Unity. Only time will tell, though whether this backlash will actually help to raise more general awareness and discourse, or just be another flash in the pan like so much hashtag outrage.

Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
How to get Knowledge Points and what they do in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
One of the protagonists in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

By the time we get to Assassin's Creed Shadows, most of us will be familiar with how the games work. Since transitioning more towards RPGs than stealth games, the titles have not only gotten longer but also embraced skill trees. Naoe and Yasuke each have unique progression paths to work through, but right away you will notice that most of the best abilities are gated off. Like Scouts, Knowledge Points are a new feature that you will need to master if you want to be the best assassin possible. We'll share all our knowledge about Knowledge Points with you.
How Knowledge Points work and how to get them

Knowledge Points are a separate system to XP that allows both Naoe and Yasuke to unlock the better and more powerful skills in all their skill trees. Unlike XP, you can't earn them by performing normal tasks or taking out enemies. Instead, Knowledge Points are rewarded for doing specific non-violent activities in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Read more
How to get and use Scouts in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Naoe perched on a spire in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

There are plenty of familiar mechanics returning in Assassin's Creed Shadows, such as fast travel and earning XP to level up both Naoe and Yasuke. One of the many new features you will be introduced to early in the game is the Scouts. Once you unlock the Hideout and are given your initial Scouts, they will become an essential tool for finding your next objective and gathering vital resources needed to upgrade your Hideout. However, how to use them or get more isn't very clearly explained for how essential they are. Let us fill you in on all the details about how Scouts work in Assassin's Creed Shadows.
How to get and use Scouts

Scouts have several primary functions, the first and most important being to scout areas on the world map. Very often, your next objective will not be placed on the map, but instead, you will have directions on the rough location of where it will be. This is where Scouts are necessary. By following the game's directions on the map, you need to put your cursor over the area it is describing and assign one or more Scouts to reveal the area. You do this by pressing Square or X to bring up the dispatch menu and then deploying them at that area. You can see how many Scouts are available on the bottom left of your screen and can assign multiple to an area by pressing the right trigger. The more Scouts you use to scout an area, the larger the area they will reveal.

Read more
How long is Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
Yasuke in Assassin's Creed Shadows fighting an enemy. He's dressed in his samurai armor.

It's no secret that the Assassin's Creed games have gotten longer and longer over the years. This is typical for Ubisoft open-world titles, but many are hoping that Assassin's Creed Shadows has scaled back on the bloat a bit. There's always fast travel and finding the fastest ways to earn XP to cut down on the grind, but there's only so much time that can be saved. If you're worried that this game might be another 100-hour time investment to fully complete, let's use our Eagle Vision to scout out how long Assassin's Creed Shadows is before you start playing.
How long is Assassin's Creed Shadows?

As you would expect, the amount of time you could put into Assassin's Creed Shadows will vary wildly based on how you approach it. You can focus on just the story and nothing else, tackle a handful of side missions and activities, or attempt to complete anything and everything the game has to offer.

Read more