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Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s latest DLC forces something on the player (open spoilers inside)
- Thread starter Deleted member 135
- Start date
Of course. ERA loves an opportunity to tell minorities they're overreacting to something that matters to them.
Hahaha, you only get this response when the topic is lgbtq stuff. Don't click the fucking thread if you don't want to talk about.
It's dumb that this was included after the proclamation of player choice, but the entire game is based on ancestral DNA containing every generation's memories, where the player is directly accessing someone's great great great-etc grandmother or grandfather.
The story Ubisoft created can't work if the character doesn't have a child who then has a child who then has a child who then has a child who then has a child, etc.
Edit: Reading some posts in this that, it seems they've changed the system in the last few years? My bad. This is a dumb change to implement in a game that was supposed to provide player and character autonomy.
My apologies, I 100%-ed all of the game's until Black Flag when I got burned out, and now I just buy them on sale to fiddle around in, so nothing I had experienced seemed to imply the animus no longer needed a direct descendant.
It's dumb to give players a choice in their identity, and then needlessly strip it away.
The story Ubisoft created can't work if the character doesn't have a child who then has a child who then has a child who then has a child who then has a child, etc.
Edit: Reading some posts in this that, it seems they've changed the system in the last few years? My bad. This is a dumb change to implement in a game that was supposed to provide player and character autonomy.
My apologies, I 100%-ed all of the game's until Black Flag when I got burned out, and now I just buy them on sale to fiddle around in, so nothing I had experienced seemed to imply the animus no longer needed a direct descendant.
It's dumb to give players a choice in their identity, and then needlessly strip it away.
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Can you still be gay/lesbian even if you have a child? Because, you know, that's how things used to roll back at the time. You could be homosexual but if you wanted to have a son, well, the only way would be this way...
I guess I'll just avoid the DLC and have my story end when the main game is over.
I really want to see an interview or something on how they came to this decision.
Doesn't work like that anymore, you don't need to be a descendent.
I really want to see an interview or something on how they came to this decision.
Doesn't work like that anymore, you don't need to be a descendent.
My Kassandra boned everyone but the issue for me would be having a child when I didn't want her to. But then I guess when you are boning so many people you're bound to end up with this at some point..hah
You do not need to be a descendent to relive someone's memories anymore with Layla's animus. And player choices fit the story of AC because of the implications of reality itself being a simulation and possibilities of time travel and what not.
Have you even played the game? The first 3 seconds of the game tells you that they get Kassandra/Alexios dna from the spear.
At this point this AC doesn't fit player choices is borderline trolling.
You're incredibly presumptuous. I played as a bisexual Kassandra, not that it has anything to do with how valid my opinion should be.
Read the thread for god's sakes.
They changed that element of the plot.
What an absurd way to piss off, if you don't care about right or wrong, your paying customers.
It would have been so easy to just have you "mentor" a niece/nephew and bam, genetic menory solved with some added parenthood-like bond. Or adopt someone. Or fuck ubi for not thinking about heirs before allowing non-heteronormative relations.
It would have been so easy to just have you "mentor" a niece/nephew and bam, genetic menory solved with some added parenthood-like bond. Or adopt someone. Or fuck ubi for not thinking about heirs before allowing non-heteronormative relations.
I understand the implications, but isn't like half the game "forced choices" anyway? Yes, you can choose the order in which you do quests but in many there is only one way to win, which is finding an item or killing a guy. No other ways about it, you're only left with how you actually get the objective done. Not to mention the actual story cutscenes where you are watching a movie, basically, a sey of dialogues and events that is, by all means, forced on the player. I know having a child is different than being attacked by an enemy in a cutscene or something, but games by nature force choices on people, either directly (see Telltale games where you're just choosing between beaten paths) or indirectly (see open world games like this where you can choose your style, the order of missions, your paths, your tactics, but the endgame of each quest stays about the same).
She's not "your" Kassandra though, she's Ubisoft's Kassandra.
It's literally the last line of the OP: "Ubisoft wants Assassin's Creed to become an RPG where choice matters, yet they take away your choice. This is a great example of why player choice doesn't belong in the series."
Again, I totally agree that the particulars of this situation is Ubisoft fucking up. I'm disagreeing with the sentiment that you can't give a player choices and then take those choices away/ignore them for the sake of your story.
This story in particular is dumb and erasing a choice that many people felt was important.
User Banned (2 Weeks): Dismissing concerns surrounding LGBT inclusivity and representation; history of inflammatory threadwhining and antagonizing other members
Also mentioned this in the AC thread but you are in fact totally right and that is EXACTLY what I mean. If I shouldn't click the fucking thread, than people being offended about fucking everything should maybe avoid that stuff. It's fictional, it's entertainment, it can't please everybody. Am I never offended or irritated by stuff? Sure I am. But in a free society you develop a shield for that kind of stuff. I accept some stuff offend me and it's okay.
It doesn't work like this anymore. With the new Animus you can access anyone's genetic memory if you have their DNA, no descendents required. In Origins you use Bayek's DNA that you acquire from his mummified body. In Odyssey you acquire Alex/Kass DNA from the Spear of Leonidas.
Ok, think of it this way.
What does this forced choice do that all the other forced choices didn't do, and why might that have caused this different reaction?
The answer is that all those other choices didn't erase the character's sexual identity.
It can't have 100% choice though, it's impossible. There needs to be some form of narrative direction.
Right, but there's nothing necessitating narrative direction infringe on the player's choice of their protagonist's sexuality in a game that was advertised as allowing player choice as to that regard. If the developers explicitly wanted to leave the opportunity to force a heterosexual romance down the line in DLC they shouldn't have told players or even suggested that they could choose their character to be lesbian or gay.
At this point we won't know about why it was necessary until the DLC finishes but lineage was important to the entire game not gonna say who your father is since maybe some people haven't finished it, but it's a big deal I think and has series wide implications. Kassandra likely has to have a child for reasons yet unknown.
Nope. Layla literally picks up the DNA of Alexios/Kassandra off a spear and pops it into the animus and just rolls with it. Ever since they killed Desmond the ancestor aspect has been gone.
You could have Kassandra hook up with the female option (Natakas sister) and have them adopt an orphan. Problem solved.
VG247 are covering the story: Assassin's Creed Odyssey's newest DLC ignores gay characters
Really bummed Ubi went this way :-/ Yes it's their game, their story blablabla. But when your work gains some traction among a group of people and minorities, you have to be aware of that. It becomes a responsibility.
Really bummed Ubi went this way :-/ Yes it's their game, their story blablabla. But when your work gains some traction among a group of people and minorities, you have to be aware of that. It becomes a responsibility.
I understand this, which is why I said I understand the implications. But this is basically the outcome of just about any game that involves some sort of romance that isn't 100% open like The Sims: you are, more often than not, forced into certain situations. Games like Mass Effect don't handle the relationships too bad, although you could argue they are made as if they were objectives to complete rather than, y'know, get with whom you like. Anything else with a more linear storyline proposing some sort of relationship inevitably falls into this trap. If memory serves me, Assassin's Creed: Unity had something of a "forced" relationship and so did Shadow Of Mordor, and your only way to avoid those relationships was not playing the game. In Rise Of The Tomb Raider, Lara Croft is definitely flirty with one of the characters (I won't go into details for spoilers' sake) and you can't really do much about it. Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit is a game with a lot of choices, but at point you inevitably end up in a certain relationship.
The difference, of course, is Ubisoft claiming there wouldn't be forced relationships, then a DLC adds one. Other than that it would not be anything particularly unique or egregious in my opinion. I understand people who felt like their in-game character was their own extension of sorts, and as such they may not have liked this specific relationship and subsequent child-making. But I'm pretty sure these people also sit through a hundred or more situations in the game where they really didn't have control of the storyline, it's just that the game gave them a solid illusion that it actually did. Making a child in a straight relationship is obviously a more extreme example than saying a specific phrase in a dialogue, but it's different extremes of the same thing I think.
I'm aware of Kassandra/Alexios's lineage, but the fact that they may have plans for where they go storywise with the protagonist's offspring doesn't mean that it was necessary. Future in game things requiring a present in game thing doesn't really work. Nothing in game storywise is absolutely necessary, so nothing in future games story wise absolutely necessitates something happening now. There may be an internal consistency that will flow from this, but they could have made alternative plans for which internal consistency could have flowed without usurping this decision that they have previously told players was theirs to make. Basically, internal consistency doesn't justify bad decisions that suck for people outside the game.
Shouldn't the baby have Cassandras genes?I haven't playe the DLC yet but i imagine the whole point is that the child is also one of the "special" people in the AC Lore
That is a bit harsh because Ubisoft simply bends the rules for everything in AC lore whenever they want, this is just another example of that where impacted specific group of people.
Kassandra's (or Alexios's) lineage isn't entirely inconsequential.
The possible alternative would've been to perhaps have Deimos have an estranged offspring that the protagonist raises? I don't know. It gets fucky. It's a shame that the first character that they make explicitly special (Kassandra and Alexios have in-game justification for their superhuman powers) are also the first characters they make implicitly player-malleable in regards to player sexuality. Because it creates this conundrum.
If you read the thread, you'll find countless of posts pointing out that genes are practically irrelevant here, as the Animus can work off relics, not ancestry.
People who treat Kassandra/Alexios as their character won't like this line of reasoning, but we actually play as Layla. Alexios/Kassandra's lives have already been "lived." The choices we make in the animus are a fictionalization of the "actual events" of the history, and there is a limited degree of malleability. There's internal consistency for this part, at least. That is, that Kassandra or Alexios already made their choices long long ago, and there are particular things we cannot override with our own rendition of their lives as Layla.
Ultimately this is extremely thin justification, as they do very little that is interesting from the perspective of "things we can and cannot do as an animus operator rather than as the subject themsleves." This is really just in universe malarchy that is used as a trapping of the fiction when it's convenient, rather than a strong in-universe mechanic. That is, they decide what they want to do, and then when they break the rules, they come up with ways to justify it. Just like when they decided to stop having us play as Desmond, while still exploring his ancestry. They decided they wanted to kill Desmond, but keep exploring his ancestry, and they came up with an in-universe justification for that.
I was thinking of something similar. Hopefully Ubisoft finds a way to fix this.
Player has choicesbut Ubisoft has a canon story they are following. Everyone who picked Alexios their choices dont really matter since he isnt the canon hero. Probably same with this.
Havent played the 2nd dlc but does your character mate due to the reasons yiur biological father does in the game? To just pass the genes.
Havent played the 2nd dlc but does your character mate due to the reasons yiur biological father does in the game? To just pass the genes.
Damn... I get the idea that they want the bloodline to continue, out and maybe in game : after all, Pythagoras being Kass's father wasn't really his choice, he did it to perpetuate the bloodline. So i can understand why (if that's how they did it in the DLC that is).
But they could have found a way to keep a bloodline in the main-game by using Deimos before we can kill him for example. Forcing it on the player character is a bad idea i think.
But they could have found a way to keep a bloodline in the main-game by using Deimos before we can kill him for example. Forcing it on the player character is a bad idea i think.
Without knowing Ubi's development structure it's hard to say for sure, but the Odyssey sequel is deep in development there's a chance that this was always planned and I'm pretty sure it was. Like I said they kept their promise. Player choices are completely up to you for the entirety of the main game. In fact I liken it to Mass Effect 2. Maybe you say hey, my Shepard wouldn't destroy a Mass relay to stop the reapers for a month or so. Your choice is to simply not play arrival DLC and when you start ME3 your Shepard didn't kill the Batarians. But it still happens because it has to. Ubi is one of, if not the most open and inclusive developers in the industry. I trust that they forced this because it was necessary. They are at least deep in pre production on the sequel after AC2020. Kassandra has to have this kid. Player choice is a tricky thing especially in a series focused on lineage and genealogy.
I'm still disappointed but this explanation makes sense at least, knowing it would turn out like this they shouldn't have allowed player choice then.
Oh god, some of the posts in this thread are givin' me a headache. Quick dismissals and lack of social awareness sure are something!
But, yeah. I saw this getting traction on Reddit and Tumblr, but I didn't want to believe it because yikes. :/ As a lesbian who's been playing Kassandra as, ya know, a lesbian, this is incredibly disheartening. I've been enjoying the shit out of AC Odyssey, but I'd be lying if this news didn't at least dampen some of that. I understand that I could choose not to play the DLC, but that doesn't preclude me from expressing my own disappointment - especially in Ubisoft. They marketed the game with a heavy slant on player choices, especially in regards to choosing the misthios's sexuality. To have that be taken away in order to force a romance - you know, a thing the players had agency over throughout the main game - and a subsequent pregnancy... y'all can guess how LGBT gamers feel. You know, the community that has had harmful tropes and stereotypes thrown at them for decades; and, yes, that includes being forced to settle down in a hetero relationship.
And when you consider that the Animus Layla has been using the past two games doesn't even require a direct descendant, just blood from the actual assassin/misthios. Well. That's an even bigger case of what the fuck.
Ubisoft, you were doing so well. :(
But, yeah. I saw this getting traction on Reddit and Tumblr, but I didn't want to believe it because yikes. :/ As a lesbian who's been playing Kassandra as, ya know, a lesbian, this is incredibly disheartening. I've been enjoying the shit out of AC Odyssey, but I'd be lying if this news didn't at least dampen some of that. I understand that I could choose not to play the DLC, but that doesn't preclude me from expressing my own disappointment - especially in Ubisoft. They marketed the game with a heavy slant on player choices, especially in regards to choosing the misthios's sexuality. To have that be taken away in order to force a romance - you know, a thing the players had agency over throughout the main game - and a subsequent pregnancy... y'all can guess how LGBT gamers feel. You know, the community that has had harmful tropes and stereotypes thrown at them for decades; and, yes, that includes being forced to settle down in a hetero relationship.
And when you consider that the Animus Layla has been using the past two games doesn't even require a direct descendant, just blood from the actual assassin/misthios. Well. That's an even bigger case of what the fuck.
Ubisoft, you were doing so well. :(
The Animus being used in Origins and Odyssey doesn't require a direct descendant anymore to access generations of memories, just blood from the deceased assassin/misthios.
Since it's in the open Deimos is only the PC half-sibling. Pythagoras isn't Deimos' dad. So it has to be the PC.
No, I've only played 9 of the games in the series, beating 6 and 100%-ing 4 of them, and most recently put in about ten hours of Origins. Evidently Origins changed the way there Animus worked, but I hadn't gotten far enough in the modern segment to find that out. Nothing in the hundreds of hours I've put into the series indicated that there was a change, so after a dozen years and almost as many games, I assumed it was the same.
That point wasn't brought up until post 36. I edited my post.
You have to deliberately misconstrue their meaning with that trophy name to come to this conclusion. Come on.
I didn't realize. Oooops. Well then. They really backed themselves into a corner here didn't they.
I had no idea, I've edited my post (though it's riddled with typos that I'll fix), and completely agree. I assumed they had written themselves into a corner that had no business needing to be shared with the players, but considering that's not even an issue within the confines of the pseudo-science, it's outright thoughtless of Ubisoft to dismiss all of the player agency they've allowed.
Once again the straights want to erase us from videogames.
Hmm no, his/her reasoning are pretty sound, this happens to straight people too, they get told to grow up and have children. Like you are immature or some other bullshit if you choose not to have a child.
maybe it's not a deliberate misconstrual, but it just pokes at a sensitivity to similar rhetoric aimed at them in their actual lives? I agree that the developers were doubtless not intending to tell gay or lesbian players that they had to grow up and be straight, but I'm sure many lesbian and gay players will come to the unfortunate assocation with their own experiences just as honestly.
Getting told to "grow up and become straight" is way way worse than a straight person getting told to "grow up and start a family," and kind of an altogether different thing. People thinking that parenthood is the ultimate goal of life is way less upsetting than people thinking that being gay is a phase.