Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot responded to a question that the company’s latest Assassin’s Creed game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is woke.
During Ubisoft’s General Meeting 2025, Guillemot was asked by a shareholder about Assassin’s Creed Shadows, “First of all, regarding Assassin’s Creed Shadows, there’s been a lot of controversy regarding that game. How do you respond? Ubisoft has been accused and criticized for this wokist trend. This is happening in 16th century medieval Japan and the main character is an African samurai. That’s a bold choice by Ubisoft. And in the story he falls in love. That’s one of the possibilities is that he gets to fall in love with a transgender character. So woke or no woke?”
Guillemot responded, “There’s one thing you need to consider, when you get to play the game you understand that the game is full of characters and the characters actually blend in with the game. “
“Obviously, with regard to this particular game, what was our goal? We wanted to showcase characters with heroic journeys,” he said. “Everyone wants to play a hero’s journey. You shift your circumstances and you become something more and it’s a very powerful expectation from games. This is a hero quest. And it doesn’t just apply to Ubisoft, or manga series, or-. This is an actual character. This is someone who really existed. And showcasing that character has been extremely successful. And that is why we decided to tell that story. We wanted to tell a different story.”
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As for the game’s success, Ubisoft has consistently touted it to be one. In the company’s most recent 2025-26 first quarter sales report, Guillemot stated, “The first quarter delivered mixed results. On the positive side, Assassin’s Creed Shadows delivered on its expectations, with now more than 5 million unique players since its launch, and Rainbow Six Siege X received highly positive player feedback thanks to its renewed gameplay and enhanced features that drove significant player engagement growth.”
Back in March after the game was released, the company shared that it had hit 2 million players and had “surpassed the launches of Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey.”
Additionally, it was reported that the game “delivered the second-highest Day 1 sales revenue in the franchise’s history, behind only Valhalla.”
VGC also claimed that “Shadows marked Ubisoft’s best-ever Day 1 launch on the PlayStation digital store, was the most wish-listed Ubisoft title of all time, and generated over 11 million hours watched on Twitch — the strongest start for any recent Ubisoft title, including Valhalla.”
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Despite the claims of success, Ubisoft reported that its fourth quarter sales, the timeframe when Assassin’s Creed Shadows released, missed its already reduced projections by €50 million. During the company’s Third-Quarter 2024-25 Sales report, it projected it would have annual net bookings around €1.9 billion. That was revised down from a press release in September where it expected €1.95 billion. In fact, if you go back to the company’s 2023-24 full year report it claimed it was expecting “solid net bookings growth” after it had posted net bookings of €2.32 billion in 2023-24. Instead the company only hit net bookings of €1.84 billion for the entire year, a decline of over 20%. It missed its original projections by nearly €500M.
Additionally, in its first quarter report, despite touting the total number of unique players for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the company reported that it missed its projections again. Net bookings for the quarter, which ended on June 30th, only hit €281.6M. The company expected to have net bookings of €310 million. That’s nearly a 10% miss. Furthermore, that was nearly 3% lower than the company’s first quarter last year.
What do you make of Guillemot’s answer?
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What a bunch of question-dodging corporospeak malarkey from Ubi. "was the most **wish-listed** Ubisoft title of all time" Seriously?
Guillecommunist answers just like a woke propagandist.
Let me translate: "Yes, it's woke but it 'blends' with the game. So play it."
The woke never relent. Their "compromise" is the player shutting up and accepting the woke. That's all. Notice the USAID-funded media and USAID "gaming" sites all saying the same thing, "Just play it."