On May 16, gaming and entertainment news site Dexerto tweeted An image of the upcoming game Shadows of Assassin’s Creed In which one of its protagonists, the black samurai Yasuke, appears in a fighting pose. In dozens of responses, some expressed optimism, others tiredness. Assassin’s CreedThe streak has now lasted 14 games and a few people expressed frustration and anger that a black person was at the center of the narrative.
“I’m going to skip the DEI games” wrote one blue-check user X, referring to the acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion. “Why the wokeness?” asked another. Comments filled with racist and sexist language filled the thread.
A more articulate undercurrent of these reactionaries, on many online forums, had a more specific set of complaints. Some claimed that the real Yasuke’s race was never known, others that he was not a samurai but a servant, and still others claimed that he had never seen combat.
These were all pretty elaborate conclusions for a guy from 1581 who has been depicted as a samurai in Japanese media many times, including in the 2017 video game. Nioh and Samurai Warriors 5 in 2021, as well as his own Animated series on Netflix.
They also might have been the last bit of armchair history we had about Yasuke had the conversation not been sustained by a set of accounts seeking to build yet another front in the online culture war, fueling what some have been calling Gamergate 2.0. Whereas 2014’s Gamergate was focused on trying to silence feminist voices and the voices of women of color in gaming culture, this second incarnation seems focused on rolling back diversity in gaming of all kinds. Yasuke simply got in their way.
The resurgence of the Gamergate moniker came earlier this year in reaction to Sweet Baby’s work. The small consulting firm’s staff received a wave of harassment this spring over misinformation and conspiracy theories claiming the firm was a BlackRock-backed organization trying to enforce diversity in gaming. (It is not affiliated with BlackRock and merely advises on characters and plots.) Shadows of Assassin’s Creed intensified, several Publications Sweet Baby mentioned, even though the company’s CEO, Kim Belair, says the company did not work on the game.
“I think this is something that plays out in the context of the post-Gamergate era (late Gamergate?),” Belair wrote in an email to WIRED. “For a certain type of people, mostly trolls, we are synonymous with their idea of ‘gaming awareness’ or some vague idea of ‘DEI,’ but it’s ultimately a reflection of the general misinformation that fuels this campaign.”
Gamergate was not The first harassment campaign was conceived in the bowels of 4chan and its affiliated websites, but it was perhaps its greatest achievement. The attacks on developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu and media critic Anita Sarkeesian, among others, ranged from the disclosure of personal information to rape and death threats. Its principles and tactics ultimately proved valuable in drawing people into the burgeoning far-right movement. Even Pizzagate and QAnon can, in some ways, hark back to what was happening to online gamers in 2014.
“Gamergate was a recruiting ground, a channel to exploit the loneliness, discontent, and alienation of young men, often young white men, for far-right politics, extremist misogyny, white supremacy, and Nazism.” Thirsty Suitors Narrative director Meghna Jayanth told WIRED.
