In January, Ubisoft released a DLC update to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey that caused an uproar among fans, especially women and LGBTQ people. Your character, even if you played them as gay, was forced into a heterosexual relationship. Female players saw their characters forced to have a baby, a touchy subject when women are still fighting for the fundamental right to control their own bodies. Further adding insult to injury, Ubisoft called the trophy “Growing Up,” implying that abandoning a homosexual lifestyle and having a family is “Growing Up” or even remotely possible (sorry, Mike Pence, gays don’t just become straight).
After outstanding backlash, Ubisoft relented, saying they “missed the mark.” They spoke with GLAAD and promised changes.
With the latest patch, we’ve gotten a look at those changes. They’re not perfect. This isn’t everything we wanted. But, for the corner Ubisoft wrote themselves into, it could be as close to “okay” as we’re going to get. To fix this, Ubisoft would have had to remake a number of cutscenes and also change a few lines of the writing from the original game. This was more effort than Ubisoft was willing to do.
Also, I’m definitely going to spoil a few things for the game. You may want to avoid the rest of the article if you’re afraid of spoilers.
Ubisoft’s Changes
“Should I stay or should I go?” “Boy, go!”
Ubisoft made a few small changes that have a surprisingly large impact. First, they renamed the trophy. Players forced to “go straight” are no longer congratulated for “growing up.” Instead, players will get the trophy “Blood of Leonidas.” This sets the tone for the other improvements.
There’s a scene on a dock where the player can choose to say “Stay” or “Farewell” to the potential opposite sex love interest. Previously, either option had the same outcome. However, now, “Stay” features a heart icon, showing that it’s the romantic choice. “Farewell” is not.
This, unfortunately, still leads to your player going home, finding a letter from the other person, and tearing up as they read it, only to find that they decided to stay anyway. Ugh. I was trying to get rid of you, dude!
However, a cutscene here was removed if you chose farewell. Instead of a love scene, it just fades to black. Your next objective is to get food for a baby. That baby is still yours, regardless. However, instead of getting the option to say “I chose this life for family,” you can instead say “I chose this life to secure the bloodline.” It’s only slightly better, but at least your gay character only had gross straight intercourse to secure an heir. Actually, I like to think it was the first artificial insemination in history, thank you very much.
Animations, however, have not been changed. This means your character still seems to be falling in love with this person. It comes off as awkward and half-done. Ubisoft was rushing to complete the third DLC, out next week. They likely didn’t want to delay the release to fix the homophobic ending they made before.
Ubisoft didn’t announce these changes. Perhaps they knew it would invite backlash because it’s really not quite enough.
How Is This Better?
Ubisoft’s solution isn’t perfect. A perfect solution would have been a rewrite that meant your character didn’t feel like he or she needed to secure a bloodline, that anyone with Isu DNA (an Assassin) would be able to protect Atlantis. A perfect rewrite wouldn’t have involved an heir at all. However, the writers likely chose this path because they wanted your character in present day to be a descendant of the character you play as in the game, without them knowing it. They still could have done that in a different way thanks to the proliferation of the Isu alien tech throughout this world.
This is still better than the first version. At least now your gay character only did what they felt like they had to do. Sure, Ubisoft could have fixed many cutscene animations, but it’s clear they didn’t care enough to do this. Did Ubisoft do enough? No, not enough to undo the damage they did. It’s still clear they value the same sex romances less than the straight ones, a sign of unconscious bias. However, it’s as good as we’re going to get from a predominantly straight and male development crew at Ubisoft who likely don’t see why this had such a negative impact on their gay players.
How Can We Prevent Problems Like This?
It’s not that straight men can’t write compelling stories about LGBTQ characters and women. They definitely can. Anyone can. Hell, a straight male friend of mine has messaged me before, asking me for advise on a queer female character he was writing. Anyone can be open to learning about others’ experiences.
It’s that these issues will not be at the forefront of their minds, and they will not have the life experiences to tell them that forcing gay characters into a straight relationship is unconscionable. If they listened, they heard the people who were hurt by their decisions and will grow and improve. But our discomfort shouldn’t be their tool to success.
Instead, companies need to focus on diversity. If Ubisoft had more women and LGBTQ people in positions of power, this likely wouldn’t have happened. The key is to make sure you have diversity so you can better reflect the life experiences of your audience. It makes your content more innovative, more personal, and more realistic. With Odyssey, Ubisoft had the chance to extend an olive branch to women and LGBTQ people. They gave us a game with real representation. However, their lack of diversity and their internalized or subconscious homophobia that saw homosexual relationships as lesser to heterosexual relationships lead to them alienating the very audience they were hoping to build upon. Now they’ve lost many female and LGBTQ gamers who may not come back.
I was planning on getting this game. It was going to be my first Assassin’s Creed game in many years. Now? I don’t think this fix was enough. If it came with a promise to be better, to hire more diverse employees, to dedicate themselves to telling stories we can all enjoy, I’d reconsider. Ubisoft didn’t even put anything in the release notes of the patch. As it is, maybe I’ll one day play it secondhand or from a Steam/PSN sale.
The solution is simple. Teach your workforce about unconscious bias. The rest will fall into place. You’ll end up hiring more women and more minorities. Breaking the cycle is as easy as recognizing the problems that make the cycle.
Source: Stephen Totilo, Kotaku