Assassin's Creed Shadows Leaking Isn’t Good For Anybody

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Jade King

Published Feb 25, 2025

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin’s Creed Shadows was always going to leak. When it was delayed from its original Februar🌌y 2025 re✤lease date, I had a feeling that physical copies would escape from retailers who didn’t get the message, putting the game in the hands of folks who never signed an NDA or agreed to a review embargo. Ubisoft can ban their acco𝕴unts and try to take down any streams, screenshots, or videos that appear online, but otherwise, there is nothing it can do. The game is out there, and now things are going to get complicated.

To be honest, when a game leaks ahead of release like this, it’s pretty easy to avoid bumping into spoilers online if you’re careful enough,꧒ and I doubt Shadows’ narrative and characters are truly interesting enough to make you angry if you discover more about them ahead of playing.

Ubisoft Is Between A Rock And A Hard Place With Shadows

I could be alone in that feeling, but it’s far from the defining problem that comes from this game emerging less than a month before its scheduled launch. Ever since it was revealed, Shadows has painted a target on its back for reactionary individuals who 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:pretend to care about histo꧋rical accuracy and the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:pre🍬sence of Black characters like Yasuke, when all they care about is a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:thin excuse to express their bigotry and cast any trace 💛of inclusivity out of the gaming space.

These very same people are going to begin sharing out-of-context gameplay footage and screenshots only to act like they have suddenly emerged victorious by informing their audiences that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the woke, shallow historܫical bastardization it had always claimed it to be. The evil is defeated, and video games are saved, until the next big triple-A blockbuster c🌌omes out and the cycle repeats.

Yasuke wearing his armor at night in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

We’ve seen this play out time and time aౠga꧒in, but Ubisoft’s latest open world offering has occupied a unique position since its reveal because of the company’s reputation, the current state of the genre, and particular attention paid to how Western studios depict countries like Japan.

It’s also𒉰 a ‘clever’ target - Assassin’s Creed and Ubisoft have been treading water for a whiဣle, so regardless of this controversy, a flop or disappointment (or both) would not be surprising.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ghost of Tsushima was similarly criticised for how it depicted Japan during the invasion of the Mongols, but over time it appears to have been warmly received by players, critics, 𝓡and devs alike.

Naoe receives her hidden blade in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

What frustrates me most when watching bad-faith critics drag Shadows through the mud is that, in an ideal world, many of their criticisms would be valid and worth considering. I have been playing Assassin’s Creed for nearly 20 years, and af𒁏ter spending several hou💮rs with Shadows last month I emerged with several conc♊erns about the size and variety of its open world and the ways in which it will handle its story and characters over dozens of hours.

There is a decent chance it will be bloated and boring, but the fringe groups crying wolf about Yasuke’s race or the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:presence of watermelons in a random town don’t care about that, nor do they go into games like this ꦚwanting to enjoy them.

That’s the overriding issue with gaming discourse in the present day. When it comes to titles like Avowed, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age: The Veilguard, or Assassin’s Creed Shadows, most of the critique being raised or shared online isn’t intended to help make a game bette♒r or have some sort of dialogue with developers, but to further a damaging political ideology and punch down at the most vulnerable in our society.

Shadows is no different, though it migh๊t be the worst example of this behaviour ꦐwe’ve seen in quite some time. In the past, much of this took place in an echochamber that, as a consumer and a journalist, I could ignore, but now it feels harder and harder to stay out of the conversation.

Everybody Loses When It Comes To Leaks Like This

Assassin's Creed Shadows protagonists looking at a sunset

After hearing that Assassin’s Creed Shadows has leaked, casꦍual fans looking forward to its release might pop onto Twitter or YouTube to see what all the fuss is about, hoping they can catch a peek at the finished gameplay before it's in their hands. But, as we know, the loudest or often the least informed voices can rise to the top, and I’d hate to see those very same messages reaching people who might be influenced in all the wrong ways. People wh♌o have little to no interest in playing Shadows or sharing how Assassin’s Creed could address its problems are claiming they know best while spewing hate that ultimately has no purpose.

It’s worth noting that repo𓄧rting on leaks and informing people about them and going o💜ut of your way to spoil them are two very differeꦫnt things. The way you decide to talk about them matters.

This was always going to happen after glimpsing back at the 1🦋68澳洲幸运5开奖网:past six months of discussion🐭 around Shadows, but now that it has leaked in an unpatched state it only adds further fuel to a hateful fire that, time and time again, has proven difficult to put out. Once Shadows is out in March, it will finally be evaluated on merit, but it shouldn’t have become a target in the first place. Video games like this, and the people eager to en♓joy, support, and critique them, deserve better.