Assassin’s Creed Shadows humiliates Elon Musk after he calls game ‘terrible’

An unexpected spat between Elon Musk and Ubisoft has erupted on social media, as the Assassin’s Creed X account goes rogue.

While the reaction to Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been mostly positive following its launch last week, it clearly hasn’t pleased everyone.

The game has been a culture war target over its dual protagonists, black samurai Yasuke and female shinobi Naoe, ever since it was first revealed – sparking online petitions and weird apologies from developer Ubisoft.

These tensions have led to a bizarre exchange on X, involving none other than Elon Musk and a world class diss from Ubisoft’s social media team.

This exchange was sparked by former Blizzard developer and Gamergate supporter Mark Kern, aka Grummz, who criticised Ubisoft for collaborating with Twitch streamer and left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker, to promote Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Kern’s post on X prompted a response from Musk, who called Piker a ‘fraud’ and a ‘sell out’. ‘Objectively, he is promoting a terrible game just for the money,’ he added.

While Piker didn’t respond to the claims, the official X account for Assassin’s Creed waded in with some unexpected jabs.

‘Is that what the guy playing your Path Of Exile 2 account told you?’ the Twitter account said to Musk.

This is in reference to the SpaceX CEO and senior adviser to Donald Trump misleading people about his gaming skills in Path Of Exile 2, after he admitted he had someone else level boost his account and that he wasn’t, in fact, one of the best players in the world.

The jabs didn’t stop there. When Kern replied with a screenshot with the headline ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows isn’t the hit Ubisoft desperately needs’, the game’s official account account replied: ‘Our game is out.’

This appears to be a dig at Kern’s spiritual successor to online shooter Firefall, called Em-8er, which still hasn’t been released nine years after its initial crowdfunding campaign was announced.

While it remains to be seen if Assassin’s Creed Shadows will help Ubisoft out of its financial rut, the game has seemingly sold very well. According to Ubisoft, the Japanese-themed entry hit two million players after two days, surpassing the launch of Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey.

According to Gfk/Nielsen data (via The Game Business), Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the biggest physical launch of the year so far, although its physical sales in the UK are 63% of what Assassin’s Creed Valhalla managed in November 2020.

Valhalla, however, was available on more platforms and came out during the pandemic.

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