Ubisoft agrees to remove flag from Assassin’s Creed Shadows artbook, issues overall message to Japanese community 

Earlier this month, yet more controversy surrounding Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows erupted online as it came to light that concept art in the Collector’s Edition artbook used the flag of a real-life Japanese historical re-enactment group without permission. Ubisoft Japan issued a public apology to the Sekigahara Teppo-tai on July 8, however the group decided they were not satisfied with this response, and called for Ubisoft to remove the flag from the printed artbook (see related article for more details).  

The group’s leader has since confirmed on X that they have received a reply from Ubisoft on July 20. According to the post, Ubisoft will remove a clearly visible incidence of the flag from the piece of concept art with the hanged men that the group drew attention to (pictured below).  

However, it seems that the smaller reversed image of the Sekigahara Teppo-tai’s flag on the left of the zoomed-in image will not be removed. The group did not draw attention to this second incidence as it would be very hard to make out in the printed artbook. 

It seems that the Sekigahara Teppo-tai has been bombarded with Assassin’s Creed Shadows comments since the incident occurred. The group leader has said on X that they would prefer it if more people reposted and commented on content related to their re-enactment activities, especially the upcoming Battle of Sekigahara 2024 festival’s main re-enactment event on October 19 to 20, which marks the decisive battle that happened in 1600. 

Ubisoft also just released an extensive message to Japanese users regarding the game’s historical and cultural elements, which can be found in English below: 

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is scheduled to be released on November 15 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Mac.