Ever since the Assassin’s Creed Sisterhood was founded, it has had the expressed goal of “highlight[ing] and appreciat[ing] the women of AC, in the games, the dev teams, and community.” Indeed, a simple search through the tag on Twitter shows how much of this is the case, with the current work with Discord just being a recent example of the community’s good work, but it’s a beautiful thing with a dark past. As many know, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has always been dominated by male characters, and the summer of 2020 revealed the worst of it: Alexios only existing because the CCO wouldn’t allow Kassandra to be the sole character, Aya’s role being diminished from main character to side character, Elise potentially being playable but being denied that fact, and more.

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However, this is not a problem that is unique to Ubisoft but one rampant throughout the game industry. So, when Game Rant sat down with Assassin’s Creed Sisterhood founder Kulpreet Virdi, we discussed everything from AC Valhalla’s marketing and the Eivor Funko Pop to how the industry moves forward, but this idea that representation and inclusion is a force for good that extends well beyond Ubisoft was present throughout the conversation. To move forward, though, requires knowing where one is at.

As we discussed the overbearing presence of male Eivor to the underplayed and genuine Eivor Varinsdottir, it was in the context of there being no balance. Male Eivor got all the trailers and reveals; female Eivor got one slightly-modified-from-male-Eivor trailer. Male Eivor appears on the front of the case and in most major promotions, but he’s not the option player see if they choose the canon ‘Let the Animus Decide’ option. Merchandise, from T-Shirts to Funko Pops, lean heavily toward the male character. In short, there’s no proper balance between two characters who should have equal presence in the game. On this, Virdi said,

Better representation for anyone and everyone with no barrier to entry or gatekeeping is a basic right. After all, fans who boot up any Assassin’s Creed game since 2015 will see a promise, not a disclaimer but a promise: “Inspired by historical events and characters, this work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a multi-cultural team of of various beliefs, sexual orientations, and gender identities.” However, before the aforementioned CCO ‘resigned’ from Ubisoft in 2020, who had the concentrated power to cut or change any project, it doesn’t seem likely that the expression of these faiths were as important as his narrative: “Women don’t sell.”

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In terms of giving every character their due, in terms of balancing narrative, Virdi and Game Rant discussed everything from going back to a solo character game to making sure that, in terms of choice (which seems fated to appear in all future Assassin’s Creed games), both characters are fairly represented: in-game, trailers and marketing, merchandise, all of it. But in terms of the bigger picture, we asked about improvements AAA studios could make for purposes of better representation and inclusion:

The ability to be seen and be heard is, yet again, a basic right. Whether it’s in someone’s favorite music, in someone’s favorite comic book characters, or in someone’s everyday life, being seen and being heard is important. And, within the gaming industry, there is no balance in who is seen and heard. For example, one common argument proposed against the idea of games having strong woman leads…are game with strong woman leads. The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, and all of these very popular games with female leads are often used in arguments, not in celebration for what they achieved, but as a consolation prizes to dissuade other games from following their leads. We asked Virdi what she thinks about comments like these, to which she said,

Study after study has proven Virdi right: women make up a significant portion of gamers. Responses that point to these aforementioned games as arguments against more representation in video games or that “Candy Crush doesn’t count” are not good arguments in nature—one can argue that these are kneejerk reactions to resist change and perpetuate an age-old idea that “video games are for boys.” Yet, video games were initially marketed toward whole families, while popularity among women led to games like Ms. Pac-Man. The choice to ever market them to boys was one made for survival, not due to any real demographic preference.

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It’s not a cultural belief that “video games are for boys,” it was a marketing tactic that excluded a demographic because it had to in order to survive. It got lucky, as with many things in the game industry, it was all about luck. Of course, this begs a big question: It is not the 1980s anymore, the gaming market is not struggling but thriving, and the world has thousands of video games—why does the industry cling to a lost cause that study after study prove wrong, and community after community asks, “Can we please be seen, be validated, be justified in the eyes of something we love?” When asked how the industry could break from this mentality, Virdi responded,

The ability to be seen and be heard is, yet and yet again, a basic right.

There is still conversation to be had.

I know so many people who come back to my tweets and say, ‘I just want a good game and I don’t care about representation,’ but to some people, it really does matter. For all of their lives, they might have been playing something where they never feel like they are represented, and it again goes back to that point that when you do feel seen, when you do feel heard, that feeling…you can’t compare to it. You really can’t. I always use the example of seeing a Sikh man in Syndicate. I’ve never seen a video game before, one that I’ve played, where you’ve seen a Sikh man. Yes, it was a man, but it was a man with a turban and I felt seen from that. I’ll never forget that, I’ll never forget that feeling, and if we get more people feeling that, it’s only a good thing. It would be something that would be so positive to so many publishers and developers if they get people feeling that way, feeling seen, and I guess it’s that…narrative that some people don’t care about representation, but they need to understand that people do. They can’t just ignore it. If you don’t care, fine, that’s your opinion. But other people really do care and it matters to them, so the conversation still has to be had.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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