The authors of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry want to show “what happens in the world.”

Entering political messages in a video game is a tricky issue in the sense that, when you position yourself on a specific topic, you will most likely offend a collective. But the opposite is the case; bother not to delve deeply into specific topics. Something like this has happened with some of Ubisoft’s latest productions.

“I see that we have challenges in politics,” said one of the top officials of the gala company. “It hurts because I know that there is a disconnect between what we want to do with video games over the years and what we do on a day-to-day basis, ” adds Tommy François.

Speaking of the criticisms that the company has received in recent years regarding the treatment of certain current issues, François says he feels “upset” by the fact that “they did not forgive us for not being perfect. We know that. We know that we are not going far enough, “adds the Ubisoft manager. A recent example is that of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands.

“Many players do not understand that the narrative is not the type of apolitical and superficial script that was sold to them,” said one of his writers long ago. “Many try to understand that although some characters are ridiculous and make jokes, the story itself is not a joke.” François points out that during the investigation prior to the development of the game they discovered that many families in Bolivia sold drugs to the narcos to feed their children. With the special forces of the United States as protagonists, this issue was only dealt with superficially in collectables and sound archives.

“I think we were unable to create all the necessary mechanisms to communicate to the players the message we wanted to send them,” explains the manager. Obviously, the objective “is not to lecture” on certain current issues but to “show them”. The promising Watch Dogs Legion would be a good example of the direction Ubisoft wants to take when it comes to addressing political issues in his video games.