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Assassin's Creed Shadows' art book is apparently being altered to remove an unauthorized flag from a real-life re-enactment group, despite Ubisoft's previous plans to leave it in
Ubisoft is addressing the unauthorized use of a real-life re-enactment group's flag in 'Assassin's Creed Shadows' art book, offering to remove it and revising the collector's edition, including a shorter art book and a price reduction.
It sounds like Ubisoft is finally fixing an issue in Assassin's Creed Shadows' art book, which was originally set to be a lasting reminder of a bizarre situation where the flag of a real life historical re-enactment group was used in concept art without permission.
The issue was first pointed out back in June by one of the members of the re-enactment group Sekigahara Teppo-tai (Sekigahara Rifle Corps), who spotted their group's flag in two pieces of concept art for Assassin's Creed Shadows. Although it was quite small in the artwork in question, it was distinctive given that it had the group's name on the front. Ubisoft Japan made a statement about it the following month, confirming that the re-enactment group had accepted an apology from the company, and that it would no longer use the artwork, with the exception of its appearances in the collector's edition art book. Better than nothing, but certainly not ideal.
At the time, it seemed like that was the end of that, but there have now been further developments. Twitter user @matchlock_kage – the same Sekigahara Teppo-tai member who raised the issue in the first place – took to the social media site earlier this week to say (translated by Google and DeepL) that Ubisoft had been in touch to say it's now possible to remove the flag from the art book entirely. According to the user, they were sent an image that showed the flag blacked out, so it sounds like the pages themselves could be altered to remove the design.
本日10月21日にUBIソフトのサポートより返信が来ました内容としてはアートブック内の旗のデザインを削除することが出来るようになったとの事でしたお見せすることはできませんが旗の部分が真っ黒になった写真が添付されてきましたあとは販売された現物を確認するだけでしょう#ACS #関ケ原鉄砲隊October 21, 2024
Curiously, this update came on the same day that Ubisoft announced changes to some of the offerings included in the collector's edition in the official Assassin's Creed Discord server. Notably, an early-access period will no longer be offered, and the Assassin's Creed Shadows Season Pass has been canceled. At least the collector's edition's expensive price tag is lowering by 230, I guess. However, the announcement also mentions that the artbook will be 76 pages long, which is eight pages less than originally advertised. This has also been reflected in an updated marketing image for the collector's edition.
Why this number has changed isn't clear – it'd be easy to guess that the artwork featuring the Sekigahara Teppo-tai flag could have been removed entirely, therefore reducing the amount of pages, but if Ubisoft is planning to essentially censor its appearance like @matchlock_kage suggests, then you wouldn't think that'd be the case. Regardless, it sounds like one way or another, Ubisoft is trying to move past the situation entirely – perhaps the game's delay to February 14 of next year has allowed it a little more time to do so properly.