A planned Assassin’s Creed game set during Reconstruction, centered on a formerly enslaved person seeking revenge, was reportedly canceled in July 2024.
According to an anonymous group of Ubisoft employees, management in Paris halted development on the post–Civil War-era game, over fears of online backlash following the online reveal of Yasuke, a Black samurai protagonist in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and concerns over the increasingly tense political climate in the United States.
“Too political in a country too unstable, to make it short,” one source told Game File.
The canceled game would have taken the Assassin’s Creed franchise into one of its most modern eras, the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period of the 1860s and 1870s. The story follows a formerly enslaved Black man who heads west to begin a new life before being recruited by the Assassins. His journey leads him back to the South to fight for justice and confront the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
Employees were reportedly excited about the project and frustrated by its cancellation, viewing Ubisoft’s decision as caving to potential controversy. Fans have voiced their disappointment.
“This is why whenever big companies tell you how valuable their diversity and core beliefs are, you shouldn’t trust them,” one fan tweeted. “As soon as money’s on the line, they’ll abandon everything they believe in to appease the people who don’t even buy their product.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it. About the plethora of ways this could have been this franchise’s actual return to greatness,” another fan wrote. “How it could have deeply mattered and be remembered. This is suppression of dissenting voices. I’m so mad.”
One fan offered some consolation to those eager for a similar storyline, pointing to Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry—a downloadable content (DLC) expansion for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Set in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti) in the mid-18th century, the story follows Adéwalé, a former quartermaster of the Jackdaw, who is shipwrecked in Port-au-Prince and joins the fight to free enslaved people from brutal plantation conditions and slave ships.
“In case people don’t know, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag: Freedom Cry is an amazing DLC featuring a black assassin helping to dismantle slavery in Haiti,” the fan shared. “It’s a short but very compelling story, and I’d recommend it to anyone who would’ve been interested in the cancelled game.”
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