Assassin’s Creed has garnered angry fans over a new tweet (sorry) by Ubisoft about Shadows. With the post asking, “How do you find focus? With Kata or Kuji-Kiri?,” references were made to two new gameplay systems in the next installment set in Japan in the feudal era. So eager were fans to buy into it; instead, it’s merely complaints, memes, and outright roasts in responses.
Let’s just actually target them one by one. So Kata seems like some form of rhythmic combat training minigame, while Kuji-Kiri is meditation or some mechanics for focus on stealth. Does this sound nice on paper? Fans in the negative call these “the worst and most boring features” (@math57390) while @BolonDarve56529 says these are “the worst side activities in a AAA game.”
The criticism is far from done. Players start to drop more hints and rumors about tech issues, as @stg_001 says, “Valhalla crashes for 2 weeks already!!!” Whereas @RCrume123 keeps bitching about DirectX crashing all the time in Shadows: “Fix the game, Ubisoft.” Followed by @blurdyr who quit “after about 30hrs.”
Memes are probably the harshest and most creative criticisms. According to @CrymoreSJWs, sharpening your mind goes along with “don’t play this shit,” while @SZemkova13567 states the simpler: “By not playing this slop.” The French threw in a few historical memes about samurai origin also (@dwengado), though Google Translate has a hard time with them.
Not everyone despises the new mechanics, as @C_RAY1992 says, “Kata can get kinda wild sometimes lol,” further explaining that they take a rhythm and turn it into a beat, and @crackdactyl prefers Kuji-Kiri for his own reasons of being stealth-focused. Yet, the optimistic voices are drowned out by boredom cries from @SomethinToasty, to calls for real gameplay value from @DanTheNoob, who wants these stupid mini-games to unlock actual combat combos or story flashes.
The real tea? @lycan_warlord mocks “Ubisoft chickening out of financial reports,” with @itsdeanman23 reporting “the game flopped” to the tune of a $200M loss. The truth or not, the Twitter ratio really says quite a bit, with barely 800 liking it (noted by @JeandielB) and numerous disparaging replies.
Now, they may need more than kata practice just to level their community management. Technical problems, goofy mechanics, and slowly draining the patience of the base cast Shadows on its way as one of the most hotly contested AC entries ever. Will they smooth this out before launch? Your move, Ubisoft. Maybe fix those crashes first.
