Ubisoft Will Reportedly Fight for Assassin's Creed Shadows, Anti-Harassment Plan in Place

Good. Just because you gain anonymity online doesn't mean you get the right to abuse, threaten and bully devs or other people who are excited for the game. People will say this is an attempt to "silence gamer voices" but there are good, constructive ways to critique the game without being a dick.

C’mon folks, feel free to express your opinion on the game, but dont harass developers, keep it respectful and show some common decency! ✌🏼

It's so strange. Dislike the product, but don't harass people. That's psychotic.

The entire internet is PVP, doing this won't make Ubisoft immune to criticism. But I can almost guarantee this will be used to silence opinions that don't actually harass any individual.

Harassment online will not be tolerated.
Harassment within Ubisoft itself is fine and dandy like sour candy.
Makes sense to me.

@Retron I don't know, if they went after everyone saying a game looks bad they would go bankrupt. Lawyers and legal proceedings are incredibly expensive. Pretty sure they will only go after the internet filth, more power to them.

@Ichiban It isn't which is why employees protested many times. Sadly they cannot change the top management.

@Retron This isn’t about criticism, though. You can criticize the game, you can even review bomb it if you like, but there’s a difference between critiquing a game and harassing developers.

And they would still need to show proof of harassment towards developers if they’re gonna file a complaint, it’s not like people can be legally targeted just for having an opinion on the game.

If you don’t like the food, you put out a negative review, not threaten or abuse the kitchen staff

Just saying theres 5 games left to come out for March that are much better titles that are worth supporting.

The toxic hate the game is getting is quite frankly pathetic and so childish. If you have no interest in the game then don't play it and move on like a normal person.

God i hope this game will crush it sales wise and makes a mockery of the racist chuds and grifters.

@RagnarLothbrok Much better? You played Shadows then and these other games?

@Oregondan Yeah how dare Ubi go after people harassing and sending death threats to its staff.

Some people get way too angry at video games online.

Soooo... Does this mean they know the game will be poorly received? And is that because they know it's a "poor" product, or because they know everyone loves to viscerally hate Ubisoft?

"We will stifle freedom of speech if you say anything negat--I mean, harass the devs."

Protect your employees but don't confuse criticism and negative reviews as harassment.

@zhoont I saw two leaked reviews
IGN brazil gave it a 9
Another site called Console Creatures (never heard of it but was on Open Critic) gave it a 8.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1jds08w/assassins_creed_shadows_review_posted_early/

@ATaco
Not how free speech works, if you dislike the game then knock yourself out; but sending death threats (which is depressingly common with gamers nowadays) is never okay and should have legal repercussions.

It’s mad that it’s come to this but with mouthbreathers like Grummz around then it’s necessary. The game was never going to get a fair shake from racists, anti-woke, whatever you want to call them. With lawyers involved then it’s only feasible that they’d be going after the death threats and other serious stuff, going that far for anything frivolous is too much effort.

@zhoont Given that the report frequently cites harassment, no. They will do nothing to stifle negativity concerning the game's quality, but will do something if discourse threatens or attacks the human developers and employees working on the game.

Which I think is fairly reasonable, and the thought of abhorrent online trolls facing some sort of accountability is refreshing. Though I would still say I prefer unmitigated free speech, I'm not in a position where entire online communities are spewing vitriol about my art and life's worth. You can't threaten your barista, after all; not much reason to think you should be able to threaten a game developer, regardless of anonymity.

Must silence dissenters! Shutting down fan criticism is a terrible idea. It’s also the main reason publishers want active player counts removed from steam. They want to control the narrative about how good their game is not the the players. Hence the reason they will only give review codes to people that give favourable reviews scores.

@Oregondan Actually, this is a very good reason to support the game — or rather Ubisoft in general. This is the best news we've heard about their internal treatment of employees since that damning report of intrinsic toxicity and abuse.

Does this counter that? Not at all. But at least this shows there's someone at Ubisoft that cares about the mental wellbeing of its employees. At least, when the depressive pressures are external...

@PegasusActual93
Fair enough, I'll be keeping a keen eye to see if Ubisoft sticks to only the ones actually harassing people.

You guys need to understand that this could be Ubisoft's last chance. If this game flops too, they'll have nothing left. In this desperate stage you don't think they'll try their hardest to stop people from bad mouthing the game? What's the cost of a few lawyers if it means you don't lose the company? This is their last shot and you'd better believe they're going to try every trick in the book.

@Boxmonkey "Lawyers are already ready to file complaints in the event of proven harassment"

What you're saying isn't what this is. This is about harassment, not negative reception.

Also, given how most people can't properly conceptualize 'Steam concurrent players,' formulize a negative perception of a game they've never played based on those numbers, then perpetuate this misunderstanding into legitimate hype deflation, I really don't blame publishers for wanting to stifle those stats and let their marketing departments control the narrative. I don't necessarily think it's good for publishers to have a stranglehold on such a narrative, but I also don't think it's good for agenda-pushing influencers to employ causation/correlation fallacies to hijack the narrative.

This is going to be a nightmare. No one should be threatened, but people are going to take it too far again. The only thing is Ubisoft is going to weaponize this to prevent honest reviews that are bad or critical. At this point, the game is doomed regardless.

Good, racism shouldn't be tolerated. I didn't expect such a W from Ubisoft. Love to hear it lol.

@nessisonett Grummz is so awful even mega chud groups like the Mauler subreddit don't give him the time of day. He's the ultimate tourist, loves loli's, fakes images and emails, straight up lies and is nearly 60 years old.

@RoomWithaMoose I dunno what it’s like stateside but if online harassment is death threat levels then it’s a criminal offence in the UK if the person wants to press charges. Like you say, you can’t publicly threaten somebody in person, so any sort of ‘free speech’ argument falls flat when it’s a public forum with the same rules as everyday life.

Ubisoft has the right to protect their employee no matter how much you don't like them.

But it is just crazy that some people think "freedom of speech" means they are free to cross the line and above the law with harassing and send death threat to other people that they don't even personally know. You can dislike a product and didn't buy it. But what's the point of harassing people that you don't even know?

I guess those people are the same with people who burned down Tesla cars and damage public / private property. They think "protesting Elon Musk" means they are free to do crime and vandalism without any punishment.

It's also the same with those brainless Just Stop Oil protesters who blocked public road and did damage to many public / private property. They think "freedom of speech" means they can do whatever they want.

sigh...i'm worried with what the society has became lately. They became more and more brutal and think all their actions can't be punish.

@nessisonett Us in America just always like to talk about free speech, regardless of practicality, legality, and actuality. And a lot of us seem to forget (or just...never learned) that our constitution doesn't even protect harassment and threats in the first place.

I would say, removed from constitutions, laws, and practical ethics, I would prefer an internet where all speech is protected. But the internet is at a point akin to Icarus plummeting to Earth with wings ablaze; the idealistic freedoms promised during the internet's youth has gone too far, and in its widespread adoption, all the misery and baggage of corporeal society has infested and polluted it. Which is to say: we ruined it.

Preloading the game now.

Base game (PS5) - 102.614 Gb !!

• Thrown to the dogs and Deluxe Edition files - a few mb each for unlocks.

Anyway, hate towards developers is getting old. Just let the police track them down and throw them in jail for a few weeks and they grow up fast enough.

@Boxmonkey Seeing Asmongold the king of roaches being taking down would be a joy to watch. Him and his fanbase are toxic as hell and the day he's booted from YT can't come soon enough.

@Zeke68 My download finished a couple of hours back. Getting really excited now.

@Boxmonkey Oof. I don't even wanna touch this one...

I'm sure if Asmongold stops short of legitimate threats upon the physical and psychological welfare of Ubisoft's employees, he'll be fine. I'm guessing this is more about doxxing and active flooding of developer's socials (if that has a catchy name).

He can definitely criticize the game for actual, substantive reasons (I want you all to, for a second, think about the logistical improbability of silencing any negativity about a project on the internet. Now I want to you think about the PR nightmare such attempts would cause, which would almost certainly invalidate the costs to attempt to do so. Do you really think Ubisoft is THAT stupid...?). I'm sure he can even criticize the game for insipid, borderline/actually racist reasons (like...they haven't been taking legal action against any of this stuff as of yet, why would the game's release change that...?). If he makes a video about some developers tweet, which subsequently causes his fans to overtake said developer's socials, then Ubisoft'll send the lawyers. But if he doesn't do that, he can say whatever he wants.

@DennisReynolds Yeah, I just turned on my PS5 so It's only 7 in the morning here. But hell yeah, I really look forward to play the game too!!
I just saw the hatewagon is starting on the cesspool called YouTube... those people was never going to buy the game anyway, so what do they now... sigh

Do you guys that think this is a bad thing realize how legal systems in developed countries operate? You know what…Nevermind. Nothing I say is going to your points of view. Ignorance is bliss, right?

@Zeke68 If you want to see some positive coverage JorRaptor is a good channel for AC content, they're aren't AC exclusive but they do cover AC heavily.

@GloriosaDaisy racism?

It's stunning how many people here commenting on this are missing the point entirely. Critique the game to your hearts content..hate the game if you need to put that much energy into it but don't harass the devs. It's pretty simple really but people here seem to think it's about silencing the negative comments it will undoubtedly recieve.@DennisReynolds let me know what the games like please as we have similar tastes in games and I respect your opinion on most things.

@DennisReynolds Thanks, I have followed JorRaptor for quite some time now. I was just about to post that I don't trust "haters" posting for clicks, I rather listen to people that actually makes walkthroughs and guides because they tend to say as it really is, good or bad.
I'm too old to pay any attention to clickbaiters online

@Ludacritz I think that's an important message - but it goes equally for devs, who sometimes feel emboldened to actually troll gamers (based on provocation or not). I actually don't know how this will fall out - but the game has been one disaster after another, so who knows. The important thing to remember - whether you like the game or not ... don't attack people for having a different view (that you may not agree with). Voice your opinion - preferably based on specifics; and lets get away from using non-gaming viewpoints to discuss games.

@DennisReynolds 'so I appreciate that Asmongold comes in for a lot of hate - but watching a lot of content, including him, he's pretty tame when it comes to YT (I won't vouch for Twitch). I think people have this political aggression (on both sides) to certain people - regardless of what they say. How about lighten up on the invective - calling people the "king of roaches" is counter-productive as this just gets people angry - because you're effectively calling people that like him... cockroaches. That's pretty f'd up dude.

@Zeke68 JorRaptor has really climbed up in rankings of people who's reviews I like. He seems like a nice dude too.

@breakneck JorRaptor is one of the few games-focused YT'bers that actually likes gaming, but is also not afraid to call out problems with games - but in an even handed way. He's very low-stress, but still full of enthusiasm (though I always worry about his respiratory health). He's one of the good guys. He's also very happy not to get into the social politics side of things (in general).

@nessisonett bruh his whole posse be calling yasuke a George Floyd lookalike and I'm just sitting here thinking ya really add to that stereotype where all black people lookalike don't ya and than they do thumbnails with his face modeled over yasuke yeah they were never giving this game a fair shake even though there's certainly things to critique it about

I really can’t get excited for this game unfortunately, hope everyone who buys it day one does enjoy! Perhaps I’ll pick it up in the standard Ubisoft discount sale later in the year.

Too much attention is given to keyboard warriors and social media children these days. All they yearn for is controversy and 'clicks' while having no appreciation of the time, effort and love that has been poured into games.

I personally find them pathetic and take them for the low lives that they are.

This should be standard really. It’s expensive, and any case they bring to court will be lengthy and difficult (you have to prove both the threat, continued harassment, and psychological impact on the victim/s). But there have been multiple cases of death threats, extreme racism and sexual assault threats against anyone involved in games, which can affect real people on the other end.

They’re not planning to whisk people away in the night to unknown facilities, leaving their late-term pregnant wife and lawyer to spend two weeks hunting their location down, for speaking out a year ago, this isn’t suppressing free speech or 2025 US we’re talking about.

It's sad that this is necessary but unfortunately there is a small minority of hateful idiots who don't know how to behave. It's fine not to like something but it's not ok to start hurling abuse at people.

So they can censor youtubers that gave negative coverage of their game? I have never see anyone from ubisoft harassed on twitter because of this game, ubisoft just want to censor any negative news about this game, they gave youtubers a strike rather than cease & desist so youtubers didn't dare gave the game negative impression. Yeah, I'm done supporting ubisoft.

Click grifters are cringe hounds who add nothing to the conversation. I wish they would piss off

Hopefully the game is ok. I actually really enjoyed Outlaws so I have some hope for this one

@ATaco Freedom of Speech allows you to say what you want, it doesn't protect you from the consequences of your words.

If you threaten or abuse someone you can expect to feel those consequences rather quickly in this case it seems.

grifters complaining about now getting to target devs for this reminds me of that Patrice O Neal line "why can't I harass you?"

Grow the F up. If you don't like it, move on!

Like the great philosopher Mike Tyson once said: Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.

The fact this exists is disgusting.

@DennisReynolds he truly is one of the biggest losers on the internet.

Always fun to highlight this, but in December around Christmas this year he revealed that he hadn't played Wukong or Stellar Blade, two games that he spent months and posted about hundreds and hundreds of times.

Unhinged behaviour

Makes you wonder if this is indeed about protecting employees from harassment, or if this is a disguised way of censoring criticism on AC Shadows, considering Ubisoft is in complete financial disaster, if AC: Shadows doesn't perform well.

I'm really curious though, how the game is being received in the Japanese gaming community.

Edit:
I'm interested in this game but I don't have the need to play this on day one. I'm keeping a close eye on how this all plays out in the coming days. Not only the quality of the game, but also Ubisoft's response in how they will handle the situation is going to be a deciding factor for me, before I make a final decision if I'm going to support this company by buying AC: Shadows.
Because in all honesty, I don't think this situation is as simple and one sided as the current "Gamers are toxic" narrative that Ubisoft is claiming. I feel that they (Ubisoft) also have a responsibility in creating this mess that they are in now.

Threatening to sue gamers over criticism will certainly garner high sales! This definitely won't backfire.

Between this and a similar earlier report about Square Enix, cheers. The concrete-melting mixture of fanship and online disinhibition effect could certainly use a FAFO counterweight or two.

@Zeldorf there are market segments that would be most welcome to go wipe themselves with the money they contribute to these sales. Despite what such folks threaten, a reprise of "Great video game crash" (the titular embellishment of the very latter phenomenon notwithstanding) is unimaginable today but a "great video game fandom crash" can seem rather overdue.

@Blauwe_Chimay the golden rule of Fiction/audience relationship - I have the right to dislike what a fiction work does as long as the work has the right to do what I dislike. Most pseudocritique cases compelling the countermeasures like the one above boil down to the vehement and vocal denial of said right. Fans, an inherently addicted bunch, just struggle with the very idea of simply saying "meh" and moving on. We end up living for regular doses of what hooked us in the first place.

@Psofo no matter how asinine in itself, I don't imagine a piece of mind like "ugh, this sucks" making up much of a lawsuit. On the other hand, a more fan-flavoured tirade like "these degenerates wouldn't know good game quality if it clobbered them on their dumb heads and need to suffer alongside their families for every day we have to live with the reminder of their crap's existence" (and yes, believe it or not, I toned this example way down from what I've come across) certainly sounds like something you might be officially dared to repeat out loud in court if you're so passionate about it.

I wonder what is the lawyers definition of “slightest problems”. If they go after people who threaten devs, i am with them. But if they use this as an excuse to go after fair or even unfair criticism of the game, then screw them.

@ThaBEN I doubt the Japanese audience care that much. Also Ubisoft can't be blamed for any of the outrage here.

All the "controversy" isn't because of legitimate concerns like it being another boring Assassin's Creed game or having what I presume will be the usual repetitive open world Ubisoft formula. It's all about Yasuke and how one black guy has single handily driven racists mad and caused them to collectively meltdown.

And they're not upset about historical accuracy because these games were never historically accurate. They're literally lame sci fi games with their apple of eden and a prior advanced civilisation that created humanity stuff. Even the origin of the Assassins is different to their real life counterparts. The whole plot is basically scientology.

All these games have fictionalised historical people. They made people who should have been Christian or Muslim into atheists including the founder of the Assassin sect who irl was a devout Muslim. They even had a female Templar warrior in the first game, yet irl there were no female Templars.

So these games were never about being historically accurate or true to historical characters. It's a bit late for these people to claim outrage about that. Where were they in 2007? Apparently consuming all this "historically accurate" slop lol.

Good initiative from Ubisoft. I usually crap on them a lot but this time, my reaction is the opposite. It makes no sense to harass people over video games.

It's disheartening but once again completely predictable to see how many people here in the comments react with a conspiratorial "oh they'll just use this to shut down criticism". Companies protecting their employees against actual harassment, especially in this industry, is an unequivocally positive move and anyone who thinks otherwise has to ask themselves serious questions about why they feel that way. You might just find yourself being part of the problem.

My gut feeling says that such introspection is far too much to ask though.

A noble endeavor. It is messed up we even have to do something like this at all but that's the way things are these days. I wish them luck! They probably won't lack for targets come launch day.

I am beyond hyped for this game. Sad the crazies won’t leave the devs alone though.

@RagnarLothbrok based on nothing.

I might have been interested in this but I still remember someone at Ubisoft saying that I should get comfortable with not owning my own games so I'm still going with not owning any new Ubisoft games instead.

@nhSnork i dont think they are actually interested in going to court as that would take a lot of time and resources and by then the fate of the game will be sealed either way. The threat of going to court however against people or publications with reach, would yield a lot more immediate results. And for that it probably doesnt matter much whether they can win the case or not.
Of course this is all speculation.

One can only hope that ubisofts IPs will be bought by someone who cares about art in a real way.

@SpaceElf I'm not one to defend corporations but that was wildly misquoted by multiple outlets. Here's the bit where this came from:

"The question remains around the potential of the subscription model in games. Tremblay says that there is "tremendous opportunity for growth", but what is it going to take for subscription to step up and become a more significant proportion of the industry?

"I don't have a crystal ball, but when you look at the different subscription services that are out there, we've had a rapid expansion over the last couple of years, but it's still relatively small compared to the other models," he begins. "We're seeing expansion on console as the likes of PlayStation and Xbox bring new people in. On PC, from a Ubisoft standpoint, it's already been great, but we are looking to reach out more on PC, so we see opportunity there.

"One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That's the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That's a transformation that's been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don't lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That's not been deleted. You don't lose what you've built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.

"I still have two boxes of DVDs. I definitely understand the gamers perspective with that. But as people embrace that model, they will see that these games will exist, the service will continue, and you'll be able to access them when you feel like. That's reassuring."

Here's the URL if you're interested

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-gamers-comfortable-with-not-owning-their-games

People genuinely disgust me these days ,i don't believe they're right in the head, it's not just games either , the comments on certain news stories defy belief.

munches popcorn and watches the show, amused at both sides

@Retron Spoken like a true captial G GAMER. Grow up dude.

I'm not a very online person so haven't really seen much of this riff-raff about the game. But I've pre-ordered it because it looks really good. Simple

@SpaceElf that “get comfortable with not owning games" quote, was out-of-context misinformation pushed by outrage grifters on YouTube. The Ubisoft guy never said that in the way it was portrayed.

The full in-context quote is out there. Worth seeking it out to realise how much these people lied to you. I unsubscribed from all the channels who pushed that lie, as i could no longer be sure they weren't lying about everything else.

I’m no defender of Ubisoft by the way. I won’t be buying Shadows despite buying practically every other game in the series, and I fully support and will defend everyone hammering the game and criticising the developers online.

Just remember that Ubisoft isn't in a good financial spot right now, and they NEED this game to be a success despite the PR blunder this whole gig has been.

But I'm sure they'll use lawyer to protect their employees and not to shutdown any negative review, right? Right?

Also, funny how companies that make good games, or at least games with the bare minimum their fans expect, face little to no aggresive backlash from fans. Maybe, just maybe, try doing that next time?

@Boxmonkey No, it'll just be used for idiots who think it's ok to send death threats because there is a black person and woman in their game.

You've already decided about some conspiriacy theory to "hide negative" views of the game. Which speaks more about yourself.

You can express a negative thought about the game in a mature manner without attacks the people who made it.

@BiosNova the tiny fraction of people who send death threats are not reading your post, and if they were, they wouldn't give a monkeys about what you think.

In that regard you are talking to an empty room.

@BiosNova I haven’t said a single word about assassins creed! I couldn’t care less about this game tbh. My comments are of my concern regarding the total control publishers want over gaming media and discourse. I obviously think people making threats need to be punished! My concern is that this is more about shutting down any negative sentiment towards a game.

You only need to look at my two comments being removed for absolutely zero reason whatsoever to prove my point. I’ve been here for 13 years and only recently have I started to see people’s comments removed. That points to games media trying to completely control the narrative. Without these controls being enforced I almost guarantee places like push square wouldn’t get review keys.

Nobody is harassing the devs, this is just Ubisoft playing victim so they can dictate the narrative of shadows as we all know the game is going to be a commercial failure by looking at pre order numbers etc

@Psofo so your against freedom of speech??

Good for them, they made the right call. Meanwhile I'm interested to see how this game turns out! Got a free copy with my new PC, and I haven't truly played an AC title since Black Flag 😅

@KillerBoy there may be an element of that.

Their statement will have zero impact on anyone who might be inclined to send threats. Such people tend to be calculated and use VPN's and burner accounts etc.

So "we will take legal action" will just encourage those people even more as they do it for keks and drama.

Law enforcement would have advised Ubisoft to say nothing and they've ignored that advice for a reason.

So frankly I see this as a classic tactic we've seen in various areas in recent years, where the goal is a smearing narrative to associate legitimate critics with the faceless individuals who send threats.

It's a PR strategy to create a chilling effect and discredit all critics.

Saw a former employee tweet (in reaction to this news) that she received threats and generally troubling messages over the choice to make rooftops a certain color in Mirage, because it wasn't fully historically accurate (it was present in Baghdad but a little later than the game events).
People are terrible.

Good! People need to learn that actions have consequences

Man, the gaslighting and coping in these comments is just par of the course! The people who say "Oh, so now people can't criticize your game!" or "So now they're gonna shut down any dissenting opinions?" know exactly why Ubisoft has put this thing into place! But they'll set shields to deflect and try to spin this as some sort of play by Ubisoft to minimize their game being bad.

Heck, there's already a guy saying Ubi is doing this because they already know the game is bad. Foolishness! This sort of behavior is just a coping mechanism. One in which you minimize the things that are truly happening and pretend it's something else completely. This way, when you see thing happening you can always blame something else.

If Ubi was just trying to shut down the naysayers then you'd not be able to google the name "Assassins Creed: Shadows" and come up with mostly dissenting opinions. No! That's not what it is! When you see a Push Square article that mentions this game, and then go to the comments an of course it's full of people who don't care about the game, yet always find time to comment about how they don't care about the game. Those are the people who'll see the racism, who'll see the posts that go much farther than just criticism, and just shrug it off. They'll pretend like they don't read the very comments the rest of us are reading!

@Drago201 this is the sort of thing I'm talking about. The people who want to pretend that this is all just shutting down criticism. It's not! And the ones who are saying this act like they don't see the racist posts. Like they don't see the vitriol that's followed this game simply because Yasuke is Black.

I see all these posts about how they'd just like to have had a Japanese protag. They have that! And it's not coming from Japanese people . it's coming from people who want to pretend they're outraged one the behalf of Japanese people. The reality is, if Yasuke were any other race, there'd be no outrage. But he's the one race that belongs only as a lead in GTA games and nowhere else.