Harassed by Assassin’s Creed gamers, a professor fought back with kindness

Article content

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) — Sachi Schmidt-Hori has never played Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but facing an onslaught of online harassment from its fans, she quickly developed her own gameplay style: confronting hate with kindness.

Article content

Article content

Schmidt-Hori, an associate professor of Japanese literature and culture at Dartmouth College, worked as a narrative consultant on the latest installment in the popular Ubisoft video game franchise. The game launched March 20, but the vitriol directed at Schmidt-Hori began in May 2024 with the release of a promotional trailer.

Article content

Article content

“Once I realized that I was by myself — nobody was defending me — I just decided to do what I knew would work,” she said. “It’s very difficult to hate someone up close.”

Article content

Article content

Ancient history sparks modern-day harassment

Article content

Set in 16th century Japan, the game features Naoe, a Japanese female assassin, and Yasuke, a Black African samurai. Furor erupted over the latter, with gamers criticizing his inclusion as “wokeness” run amok.

Article content

They quickly zeroed in Schmidt-Hori, attacking her in online forums, posting bogus reviews of her scholarly work and flooding her inbox with profanity. Many drew attention to her academic research into gender and sexuality. Some tracked down her husband’s name and ridiculed him, too.

Article content

“Imagine that! Professional #WOKE SJW confirms fake history for Ubisoft,” one Reddit user said, using an acronym for “social justice warrior.” Another user called her a “sexual degenerate who hate humanity because no man want her.”

Article content

Learning Yasuke was based on a real person did little to assuage critics. Asian men in particular argued Schmidt-Hori was trying to erase them, even though her role involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters.

Article content

Article content

“I became the face of this backlash,” she said. “People wanted to look for who to yell at, and I was kind of there.”

Article content

Ubisoft told her to ignore the harassment, as did her friends. Instead, she drew inspiration from the late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis.

Article content

“I decided to cause ‘good trouble,”‘ she said. “I refused to ignore.”

Article content

Turning the tables on the trolls

Article content

Schmidt-Hori began replying to some of the angry emails, asking the senders why they were mad at her and inviting them to speak face-to-face via Zoom. She wrote to an influencer who opposes diversity, equity and inclusion principles and had written about her, asking him if he intended to inspire the death threats she was getting.

Article content

“If somebody said to your wife what people are saying to me, you wouldn’t like it, would you?” she asked.

Article content

The writer didn’t reply, but he did take down the negative article about Schmidt-Hori. Others apologized.

Article content

“It truly destroyed me knowing that you had to suffer and cancel your class and received hate from horrible people,” one man wrote. “I feel somehow that you are part of my family, and I regret it. I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart.”