Female Protagonists in Assassin's Creed Series

In the run-up to Ubisoft's release of the 2014 Assassin's Creed: Unity, there was much discussion about the lack of female character options for the customizable multiplayer mode. This lead to a backlash from fans who felt that Ubisoft was not being representative and that they did not understand the desires of fans, especially female fans, within video game fandom. 
==Background and Context==
===Previous Female Protagonists in Assassin's Creed===
Previously in the AC series, there had been only one title with a female protagonist: Assassin's Creed: Liberation, which was released on the Playstation Vita in 2012 at the same time Assassin's Creed III was released on the Playstation 3. Liberation featured the assassin Aveline de Grandpré and was not a major entry in the series as it was exclusive to the Vita. Aveline reached a wider audience when the remastered version, Assassin's Creed Liberation HD, was released for Steam, Xbox 360, and PS3 in January of 2014.
In late 2013, Aveline also was the protagonist of the Aveline DLC for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. During this DLC, NPCs say voice lines like "He's getting away!" and "After that man!", the same lines used for the game's main campaign starring Edward Kenway, showing that developers didn't bother to record all-new NPC dialogue.How Video Games Are Slowly, Quietly Introducing LGBT Heroes, Jagger Gravning, The Atlantic, February 25 2014
During one short cutscene in Assassin's Creed III, a Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) warrior woman named Kaniehtí:io is "controllable", but she is not considered a player character.
In March 2013, IGN writer Mitch Dyer asked Ashraf Ismail, the director of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, why the protagonist was yet another man, and if Ubisoft would ever "shake it up" with a woman protagonist. Ismail responded:
Racebending.tumblr.com called this answer "hogwash":
===Female Representation and Feminism in the Video Games Industry===
2014 was also the year GamerGate kicked off. Most GamerGate timelines start in August of 2014, months after Unity's release, but tension and controversy surrounding women in the video games industry and the effect of feminism on video games was already high as early as 2013, when Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest, and growing in the first half of 2014 — in January of 2014, Depression Quest was released on Steam's Greenlight service, and Quinn was immediately the target of suicide baiting and rape threats.
==Assassin's Creed: Unity==
On June 9th 2014, Ubisoft held their press conference at E3, revealing the gameplay and protagonist for Assassin's Creed: Unity. Unity's multiplayer mode allows each player to customize their Assassin's appearance, however the reporters at E3 noticed the customization options did not extend to gender. When questioned on this, "the developer confirmed that Unity will feature no playable females."Ubisoft Addresses the Absence of Female Protagonists in ‘Assassin’s Creed Unity’, GameRant.com, Denny Connolly
About the absence of a female playable character in Unity, Ubisoft technical director James Therien said that 
Ubisoft creative director Alex Amancio:
Level designer Bruno St-André:
Alex Amancio later changed his tune, stating the reason as 
In response to the media storm, Ubisoft issued a statement to Kotaku on June 11 2014:
==Media and fandom reactions==
The developers' comments were mostly met with "scorn and derision" by fans and professional commentators alike. Many people pointed out Ubisoft had previously animated a female protagonist for Assassin's Creed: Liberation and suggested the developers build off her character's model. (E.g. one commenter at The Mary Sue: "REALLY i mean, if the work was too hard... umm why not use the codes you already had for Aveline and futz with them?"http://www.themarysue.com/ubisoft-female-characters-assassins-creed-unity/#comment-1430547121)
A hashtag emerged from the controversy: #womenaretoohardtoanimate, which continued to see use on Twitter through 2016, and on Tumblr through 2015.
Noor Studios hosted a "Women are too hard to animate" game jam from June 11 2014 to July 3 2014, which received 23 submissions of small games with female lead characters.Announcing the Women Are Too Hard to Animate Jam, Kate Reynolds, June 13, 2014. Archived from the original on October 13 2015.
A Change.org petition started by Jessica Smith with the title "Ubisoft: Include More Playable Female Characters In Upcoming Game Releases" garnered 9,636 signatures. Jessica stated in the petition: 
Bern Steel, a petition supporter commented that 
In 2016, Anita Sarkeesian posted an episode of her video series Tropes vs Women in Video Games which expanded on Ubisoft's "apathetic attitude toward female inclusion" to take a look at female representation in other action/fighting games, noting that when women are present they often seem to be "sexualized treats for the player". She stated 
Sarkeesian wasn't the first one to see Ubisoft's comments as part of a wider issue; in 2014 when the controversy was new, Tim Clark wrote an op-ed for PC Gamer where he compared the Ubisoft attitude to the answer a Rockstar dev gave about why none of GTA V's leads were women: "The concept of being masculine was so key to this story." Clark's response was 
Fans across the internet commented on the issue as well:
Other fans defended Ubisoft, saying that a female (and/or other minority) protagonist would be unrealistic for historical periods.
However many people pointed out that women were a huge factor in the French Revolution. Robert Rath, writing for The Escapist, said:
Even former Ubisoft employee Jonathan Cooper (the animation director for Assassin's Creed III) was critical of Ubisoft's "too much work" rationale:
==Inspired fanworks==
At the July 2014 GaymerX convention, the group Scholarly Pigeon Cosplay created mocking cosplays of box-bodied "2 Hard 2 Render" Assassin women."The impossible to render woman - scholarly pigeon cosplay. #gx2", vine by Trin!, July 12, 2014 ArchiveIn this Assassin’s Creed Cosplay, Everything is Permitted (Except Boobs), Emily Lemay, MaxLevel.org, July 15, 2014. Archive
Tumblr user therealmcgee created an artwork of a Unity-styled female assassin character and captioned it "I want to play this game, Ubisoft."I want to play this game, Ubisoft., therealmcgee, July 5 2014. Archive 
In August 2014, Too Much Woman, a podfic monologue from the point of view of the discarded female character, was written by jedusaur and performed by originally.
In April 2015, a fan known as KaYa created a piece of art based on the "Laughing Girls" meme photo, featuring Aveline and Shao Jun underneath the text And then Ubi said "Animating women is expensive". Her caption on the picture commented, "No, I’m already over that thing Ubisoft said about animation and junk.I get why they said that.(Seriously.) I just needed an excuse to draw these two beauties in this meme."Lady protags be all, deviantART, April 30, 2015
==Later female protagonists==
===Shao Jun===
In April 2015 Ubisoft released Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, a 2.5D side-scroller with Shao Jun as the player character. Shao Jun had previously been introduced in November 2011 as a minor character Ezio met in a spinoff CGI video short.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China was originally planned to be a DLC for Assassin's Creed: UnityAssassin's Creed Unity - Dead Kings & Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China - UbiBlog, Anne Lewis, Sept 22 2014, but was eventually sold as a standalone downloadable title.
Megan Patterson, writing for Paper Droids, said that the announcement for Chronicles: China was 
Victoria McNally, writing for The Mary Sue, commented on the China announcement: 
===Evie Frye===
With the late 2015 release of Assassin's Creed Syndicate, fans were able to play as the twin protagonists Evie Frye and Jacob Frye, which appeased some of the anger. Evie was the first major playable female character in a main AC title; for most of the gameplay the player can switch freely between Jacob and Evie, though certain missions are Jacob-only or Evie-only. (Jacob's granddaughter Lydia is also a playable character for some sidequests.)
However, it was pointed out by developers that Evie's character was not created as a reaction to the Unity controversy.Assassin's Creed Syndicate's Female Hero Not Response to Unity's Gender Controversy, Says Ubisoft, Tamoor Hussain, GameSpot, July 30, 2015 Marc-Alexis Cote, the game's creative director, stated in a 2015 interview with GameSpot that "the idea of having two protagonists, which evolved into having twin protagonists, and a brother/sister relationship" was part of Syndicate's concept from the very beginning "two and a half years ago". Level design director Hugo Giard followed up by saying "Seriously, if we had changed our vision last year when the controversy broke, Evie would feel completely shoe-horned, you would be able to sense it. But because we planned it for so long, everything about her flows perfectly in the story with Jacob."Made by History: Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Tamoor Hussain, July 30, 2015
Prior to Syndicate's release, there was speculation among fans as to how major a role Evie would play in the storyline, with some people worrying that she would be fridged to provide motivation for Jacob. However, neither twin dies in the storyline.
===Layla Hassan and Aya===
Released in October 2017, Assassin's Creed: Origins had a man (Bayek) as the main protagonist, but parts of the main questline have the player characters of Aya (Bayek's wife, a Greek woman, whose memories are relived through the Animus) and Layla Hassan (an Egyptian-American woman, the modern-day protagonist).
Layla Hassan continued to be the modern-day protagonist in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.
===Kassandra===
:
In October 2018, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey was released. In this game, players are able to choose between a male protagonist, Alexios, and a female protagonist, Kassandra, to play the entirety of the ancient storyline with. Layla Hassan returns as the modern-day protagonist. You are also able to chose Kassandra's sexuality and relationships, a draw for many LGBTQ fans searching for a female protagonist. 
Ubisoft has stated that the canonical hero of Odyssey is Kassandra, however, the game's marketing and merchandise overwhelmingly features Alexios.How Odyssey is changing the face of Assassin's Creed, James Batchelor, GamesIndustry.biz, September 26 2018 It was reported that two-thirds of players chose Alexios as the protagonist.
In an interview with GameSpot, Odyssey's game director Scott Phillips did not explicitly answer questions about the Unity controversy, but he did say:
Phillips also indicated that future AC games would continue to feature protagonist choices:
A January 2020 Forbes article by Paul Tassi declared that the next AC game "Should Finally Commit To A Singular Female Lead".
===Eivor and onward===
The 2020 game Assassin's Creed: Valhalla again featured Layla Hassan as the modern-day protagonist, and introduced Eivor as the ancestral protagonist. Players can choose a male Eivor or a female Eivor, or else "let the Animus decide".
The following game, 2023's Assassin's Creed: Mirage, did not have any option for a female protagonist (contradicting Scott Phillips' earlier promise). Mirage's main protagonist is Basim Ibn Ishaq, a male character introduced in Valhalla, and the modern-day protagonist is William Miles. Some fans were disappointed that Ubisoft had not given the option to play as a woman in Mirage, and one tumblr post stated it was "Very interesting how Ubisoft removes the option to play as a woman and suddenly fans come out of the woodwork to say 'now THIS is finally Assassin’s Creed again!'"
==References==
Category:Assassin's Creed
Category:Fandom Occurrences
Category:2014 Events
Category:2018 Featured Articles
Category:Social Media Feature-Wank Wednesday