Kulturkampf

[HaughtyFrank]

Actually really weird how he’s brutalizing others. Past AC games I played had some restraint with gore. Here it’s like the doom slayer smashing skulls, but instead of cartoonish demons it’s ordinary looking Asian guys. All while he’s yelling about justice and shit?

I remember when Far Cry 3 came out people whined about a white guy killing a bunch of non-whites. That was point. Not quite Spec Ops The Line, but it was critical of him becoming this psychopath monster. Both ending were bad for him.

For some reason I doubt there will be the same revelation in this game.

It's kind of fascinating how Ubisoft goes straight to tropes that are usually criticized. Like compare his fighting style to Ghost of Tsushima. The style of samurai in Ghost mostly swift and elegant whereas Yasuke here is defined through strength and brutality. His alt weapon is just a giant club, he stomps people after they're down and even with a Katana he straight up impales people and lifts them up. Feels pretty loaded to me. 
Similarly it feels like dabbling into the white savior trope territory with the simple excuse that Yasuke isn't white. He walks through the village and all the Japanese peasants bow in front of him and he says how he represents justice for the people which again all feels loaded when it's all towards a foreigner (I'm not sure if even last samurai was that brazen). The most likely excuse is that it's fine because he after all isn't white but the framing of the poor natives who need saving seems to stay the same. You could also make the argument that since we had so many white savior stories what's the big deal with making a black savior story, but the problem with that is that it's still carried on the back of the natives so the arguments about the negative effects of a white savior story would still apply.

Is it a huge deal? Probably not, I thought when Last of Us 2 was criticized for having a boss fight against a brutish black guy it was overblown, but I find it curious how people who usually criticize this stuff now seem to be silent, maybe out of worry that it would give the Chuds a win.(I mean fuck, the same people will argue how orcs in fantasy are racist)