Assassin's Creed Civil War and Reconstruction game scrapped amid political concerns over controversial storyline: Report

Ubisoft's flagship series, Assassin's Creed, is in the limelight after reports emerged that an upcoming installation set in the US Civil War era was cancelled, Game File reported.

Amid concerns of political backlash, the makers put off the plans to create a game based on the American Civil War period of 1861 to 1865, according to the gaming news portal. The plans to scrap Civil War were made last year, as pert the report. Furthermore,

According to the explosive report, even the subsequent Reconstruction era, which planned to feature the assassin Yashuke, as a black man, was also shelved. As per initial plans, Reconstruction game centred on confrontation between members of the Ku Klux Klan, the notorious white supremacist group founded in 1865, and Yashuke.

According to Game File's correspondent Stephen Totilo, five Ubisoft employees were interviewed anonymously. The Ubisoft employees claimed that the leadership initially approved the game but Trump administration's crackdown on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) and Civil Rights era legislation prompted the makers to pull back their decision due to touchy subject matter.

What was so controversial about the game?

Before proceeding with the developers, the game was called off in the concept stage. The report indicated that the game's plot featured a formerly enslaved Black man as the hero.

The story follows a Black man who tries to escape the perils of racial violence and start a new life and moves from the South to the West. In the west, Assassins' Brotherhood recruit him after which he returns to the south to confront his old ghosts.

He comes across newly-founded far-right group named Ku Klux Klan in the South. This group aims to bring back the days of white glory of the pre-Civil War era. Since, it reportedly touched on key political issues of that era, including citizenship rights of former slaves, the unification of the Confederate and the southern states, among others, the game was cancelled.

What is Assassin's Creed?

Assassin's Creed is a Ubisoft's flagship historical action-adventure video game series based on fictional millennia-old struggle between the Order of Assassins, developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal.