We are bringing you more news on the Assassin’s Creed Shadows situation, a look into the historical implications of the newly announced Ghost of Yotei, a peek into the Warhammer Conference, and a small celebration of Age of Empires II!
Assassin’s Creed Shadows release pushed back to early 2025
Ubisoft announced the postponement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows to February 2025 due to a number of reasons. The development team has been pushing for a delay of the release for some time now, citing the need for additional time to polish the game and address the cultural and historical concerns raised by the Japanese fan community. These issues, unfortunately, didn’t receive the necessary attention due to a strict development timeline. However, the time crunch isn’t the only factor at play. Historical experts were brought on board much later than one would expect for a project of this scale and magnitude. The team has also identified other internal issues that they simply haven’t had the time to address. As a result, the situation remains chaotic—not just for the game, but for Ubisoft as a whole. More than forty people were laid off from the team in August, and investors are squabbling over share prices aiming to “dethrone” Ubisoft’s founders in hopes of laying off even more developers.
Japanese scholar points out heavy historical implications in Ghost of Yotei
Continuing on the topic of video games set in historical Japan, the up-and-coming Ghost of Yotei, a successor to the popular Ghost of Tsushima by the Sucker Punch Productions studio, has piqued interest. Particularly the interest of a Japanese researcher who explains the title and its potential implications. The sequel is set in 1603, 300 years later than the original game, in the Hokkaido region in the north of Japan around the real-life Mount Yotei. Itsuji Tangiku, a Japanese scholar of Ainu culture and language, explains that this was not the name of the mountain in 1603, but rather it was Machineshiri as named by the Ainu people. The Japanese people started calling the mountain Shiribeshi from the Meiji era (1868–1912) onwards, from which the name Yotei was later derived. Tangiku points out that “in the year 1603, ‘Mount Yotei’ is very much a ghost toponym” that might even be “satirizing colonialism.” As the plot of the game is not made public yet, we are only left to speculate, but might we be getting a game where Indigenous people and their histories are brought to the forefront of storytelling?
The first academic conference on Warhammer in the world
There may have never been a better time to be an academic who is fascinated by and interested in studying games. On September 27 and 28, the Warhammer Conference took place in Heidelberg, Germany, bridging the world of academic research with our favorite medium. Hosting over 50 presentations by theorists and philosophers on all things Warhammer, the conference delved into therapeutic uses for veterans, fanfiction, authority and pluralism, history, theology, the concept of death, and much more. Two of my favorite abstracts I encountered while perusing the official website are ‘Occult Infrastructures: Venerate the Machine’ and ‘The Future of Animated Fear: Grimdark as a Genre Framework for Speculative Horror in Animation.’ Luckily, the conference was recorded and made available on YouTube.
25 years of Age of Empires II not only gave us memories, but also a whole generation of historians
I do not have to take out Latour’s Actor-Network Theory out of my media theory pouch to say that media has an impact on us (just as we have impact on media). For some, a game can be fascinating enough to influence and solidify someone’s dream career path. Holly Nielsen, writing for The Guardian, provides insight into historians’ personal experiences with Age of Empires II and how it reinforced their love for history. Whether it is broadening one’s historical vocabulary, knowledge of global references, relativity between events, highlighting the presence and importance of the social and cultural mundanity of the everyday, or basking in the nostalgia for an era one did not live through, but is simply fascinated by, the game afforded a whole generation of now historians an ‘in’ into the field in some way or another. What game reinforced your love for history? Let us know!
Barbora Bachanová is doing Media Studies (research MA) in the New Media & Digital Cultures track at the University of Amsterdam. Her bachelor thesis explored how streaming single-player video games transforms the single player into a collective player through Twitch’s affordances. Other than her interest in video games studies, media theory, and digital cultures, she is interested in what the video game format affords in terms of narrative, affect, and community-creation. Barbora loves running around time-managing in Persona games, occasionally playing visual novels, and watching hours long video essays on almost anything gaming related. She has yet to finish playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but is absolutely determined to do so. Twitter/X: @BarboraBach