Ubisoft reportedly canceled an entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise last year after determining that its proposed setting–the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era of the 1860s and 1870s–was too controversial for its audience, according to the newsletter Game File.
The game, which was canceled early in development, would have put players in control of a Black protagonist who escaped enslavement and started a new life away from the South. He is later recruited by the Assassins, returns to the South, and confronts prominent racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Three sources told Game File that the game was cancelled due to online backlash after the reveal of Yasuke, a historically-inspired Black samurai, as a protagonist in Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the uneasy political climate in the United States. Developers working on the project were upset, believing that the company was giving in to perceived controversy.
Ubisoft has developed and published Assassin’s Creed games set in North America before. Assassin’s Creed 3 takes place during the American Revolution, set in 18th-century Boston, New York City, and the American frontier. It follows two protagonists, including one half-Indigenous Assassin seeking to avenge the death of his mother.
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