Assassin’s Creed Shadows dev explains why he ignored Elon Musk’s ‘DEI kills art’ tweet

A key Assassin’s Creed Shadows developer has explained why he chose not to address criticism aimed at the game by X and Tesla owner Elon Musk.

Speaking to journalist Stephen Totilo’s Game File, Assassin’s Creed series vice president executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté was asked about a tweet Musk posted on X regarding Yasuke, one of the game’s protagonists.

Responding to a complaint that the character is an African samurai, Musk wrote: “DEI kills art.” DEI stands for ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’.

Côté replied that he had seen the tweet and was tempted to respond to Musk, but ultimately chose not to.

“That tweet generated emotions, that… the first thing I wanted to do was go back on X – that I had deleted – and just tweet back,” he explained.

“And I just took a step back. I have a mindfulness app on my phone. And I did a bit of mindfulness to try to explore the emotions that this tweet created.

“For me, Elon, it’s sad, he’s just feeding hatred. I had a lot of three word replies that came to mind.”

Côté came to the conclusion that fighting back wouldn’t win the game any new followers, saying: “By attacking someone like Elon… I will not convince people about our point of view as a team.”

He also explained that while the game’s developers did their initial research during the early stages of develoment, Yasuke – who was a real historical figure – “kept surfacing”.

“We’ve got a super-mysterious historical character from which not much is known about. And for us, it was what we want in Assassin’s Creed,” he explained.

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He then claimed that players who try the game will realise why Yasuke was added, giving a specific indication of how long this realisation would take.

“What Elon says is not the game that we’re building,” he said. “People will have to play the game for themselves. And if, within the first 11 minutes and 47 seconds, they are not convinced of what we’re doing, we can have the discussion.”

Asked why he cited that amount of time, Côté replied: “I was reviewing the game very recently, and I was like, ‘the answer is there!’ I just hope and wish that people can keep an open mind about this and see the game for what it is. It’s an Assassin’s Creed game, and I believe the best one we’ve ever built.”