In August 2020, the Assassin’s Creed Sisterhood formed after mistreatment after mistreatment of female characters, developers, and voice actors was revealed. It is a self-described “community initiative to highlight and appreciate the women of AC, in the games, the dev teams and community.”
Game Rant recently sat down (virtual) with Assassin’s Creed Sisterhood founder Kulpreet Virdi, with the conversation having one clear focus: moving forward. As a result, it was important to discuss the past and present of Assassin’s Creed and its marketing, but all in the goal of discussing the industry as a whole leaving behind many of the sexist behaviors found throughout it. NOTE: MASSIVE SPOILERS for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla follow. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
GR: What are your thoughts about the Eivor character that we actually got in the game?
Okay, so I can only really comment on female Eivor because I played the “Animus decides” version because I wanted to play it the way it’s meant to be played. And for the “Animus decides” version, you play her pretty much the whole game apart from one sequence. Even that in itself was a bit problematic, what came out of that sequence, but I really enjoyed my time with her. She was really fierce. She was great. I mean, she’s a Viking woman and she was kind of everything I expected the Viking woman to be, but you know, it was a shame that the marketing just didn’t really reflect her. She was a really enjoyable character if you played her, and male Eivor on the marketing just didn’t really reflect her at all. So, it’s a really difficult one because if you play the “Animus decides” version, you play her pretty much the entire game. She’s a fantastic character in her own right.
GR: So with the fact that we’re getting marketing with this male character and that the Animus decides” shows you’re female Eivor for 99.9% of the game, what do you think that tells fans of Assassin’s Creed? Minority fans, women fans?
I think if you went through the whole game and you played as male Eivor, then you might not see a problem with the way that it was marketed because you see him throughout the game. Obviously, there’s that plot twist, you know the spoiler plot twist, but if you played ‘the Animus decides’ version or you played as female Eivor, you’d be really disappointed.
I think, as a woman playing that or as a minority, if you picked female Eivor, and you feel represented by her, that actually the decision was made not to include her in any marketing or very minimal marketing. And she didn’t really have her own time to shine. I mean, they put out that trailer, that CGI trailer about, I think, probably about three months after the initial trailer had dropped. But it was the exact same trailer, and a lot of people have criticized that saying, “Well, if you look at it closely, it doesn’t look like that tailored to her.” It was exactly the same thing, [and] it would have been nice to see to see a female Eivor trailer, which was showing her not as a copy paste of the of the trailer that came before.
And I don’t know the ins and outs of whether that was just a complete copy and paste, but they should have just given her her own trailer, showing a completely different scenario than that. That would have been great, and I think a lot of people would have really enjoyed that. But it says a lot, actually, when we got the same trailer. And a lot of minorities and a lot of women were so represented by that trailer, even though it was the same one as the one before…it was almost like “that was all we were going to get. And we should celebrate that.”
GR: So, it felt like consolation prize?
Yeah, I was really conflicted. Because you know what, I when I saw that trailer, I was so happy because I was like, wow, this is like the first time that we’ve seen a full CGI trailer. I mean, I think we had one for Evie, didn’t we? But it wasn’t as long as that? You know that the trailer with her in the mill?
And I can remember being really happy seeing that one, but that wasn’t like a key marketing piece at all. It really was jus “this is Evie.” But the CGI trailer for Valhalla was quite a long thing. It was like the reveal trailer, wasn’t it? Well, it was a trailer that they dropped pretty early on, and I can remember seeing that and feeling really represented in that sense, because it was a strong assassin woman. Well, assassin we thought at the time when the trailer dropped, and we just didn’t really have any of that before then. Looking at my Twitter feed and the way that I saw members of AC Sisterhood reacting to that was just amazing. Because, you know, it’s that happiness, it’s that joy, you get out of feeling represented. So I was quite conflicted, because, you know, for once I felt that happiness, but then I kind of went away and thought, you know, they could have done that better, because they could have given her a completely separate scenario, a trailer, which wasn’t the same as the male counterpart.
GR: That also brings to mind the fact that, you know, Boss Logic was the first one to, you know, put this game out there, he made that cover and all that. And I remember watching it because he started with the hair first. Many thought there was going to be a female character. Then, he started filling in the beard. But, for the first, I don’t know, month for the game, female Eivor was something that was really hidden. How would you have wished that went like with the trailer and moving forward? How do you wish that what went?
So, the Boss Logic art stream was really innovative. It was such an amazing way to reveal a game and hats off to Boss Logic and Ubisoft for that because we were in lockdown. And that was like, I think, it was like an eight hour stream and I could not stop watching the whole thing, without even getting up really. I think that’s a positive way to try and get a game out there that, but I think, deep down, we knew that they were probably going to have this whole choice aspect.
People who’ve been following the franchise for a few years might’ve noticed they’ve gone down this RPG route. The two character thing was probably something we were deep down expecting. And I think me personally, I still thought, what if they just give us a woman, you know, because it’s something that people have been asking for, for ages. But when I saw the Boss Logic trailer, where they kind of revealed the protagonist, and I agree, there was that kind of excitement before the beard went on. And because they tapered the waist, didn’t they, and then everybody got really excited. And then they put the braids. And then they put the beard on. And I could just see cause I had my socials up at the same time as watching this. And I could just see so many people go, “Oh, it’s a male. Again, it’s a male. Again, it’s a male again.”
They didn’t even reveal her at that point. Like, she wasn’t part of Boss Logic stream at all. And if you’re going to do a dual protagonist with a choice, in my mind, I would have thought it would have been better to actually have both of them on some on the artwork. So, if you have male Eivor and female Eivor on the same artwork, they could have easily done that. If they didn’t want to go for just female Eivor, because ideally I think that was the thing we wanted to see was just a one solo female protagonist, I think the positive way to combat kind of that negativity would have been to put both of them in that artwork.
GR: Right? You know that if it’s going to be a choice between the two, that seems obvious to show what your choices are?
And also, if there’s no difference between them narrative wise, then why don’t you show both of them?
GR: Exactly. Because I mean, you played the let the “Animus decide” option. You see how that character duality works, you and I know how this whole plot twist with who Eivor is and who she was. Does that character duality, do you think that justifies the way they approach the character?
I see this in two ways, because I do get annoyed that if you played “Animus decides” version as the canon version, you know, male Eivor doesn’t exist. It’s heavy. Right? And yeah, that’s the thing. I guess maybe they were like, ‘oh, maybe we don’t want to add a spoiler in, you know, just to say, we will slap male Eivor all over the marketing,’ but it’s not actually available to play [him] in the game when you find out who he really is.
But I feel like that’s really unfair, in terms of marketing, because at that point, you think of that as male Eivor. And a lot of people have criticized this and said, “Well, you know, you’re selling the Viking dream here. You’re selling that Viking fantasy, so you’re putting, you know, a Viking man on the cover.” But I guess if that was really the case, then I guess it strengthens the argument as to having them both on the cover if he isn’t actually Eivor. Because then I guess once people have played the game, they’re going to question it, aren’t they? Why was he on the cover? I’ve actually had someone come to me on Twitter saying that “I feel really angry about this because I played it until like”…because it’s quite a while into the game until you play the Asgard arc, which is where it all kind of starts to get revealed…and he says “I played the ‘Animus decides’ options because that’s the canon version a “true” AC player should play and I felt really ripped off.”
I get it from their side in the sense that they didn’t want to reveal this whole story, but if not including him on the marketing, then you have to show both sides. A lot of people were annoyed, myself included. When I played and got to that point in the story, I thought, “Well, why the hell is he on the cover?”
GR: With that argument in mind, I found it interesting to chose to use Havi as Odin has multiple names. They don’t refer to Havi as Odin, but that’s who he is. Why couldn’t it have been Havi and Eivor? No one would have known because it’s not a common name, like with Alexios and Kassandra.
Yeah. It’s just one of those things where the more you think about it, the more it can be annoying. And I think I was a little bit disappointed in that, actually. Because you could you could really tell, well, my timeline anyway because it’s mainly AC fans, when people got to that point in the game, because they were just expressing their concerns about….I don’t feel represented in the sense that it’s not accurate with your marketing, which is not accurate with the story.
But then you see the argument that, “Oh, but the marketing didn’t want to spoil the narrative.” I guess the only way you could have gotten around that was have both of them in your marketing, have both male and female Eivor in your marketing. I’ll stand by that in terms of, you know, after playing Valhalla. I mean, I think female Eivor should have had the spotlight on in the marketing, but then if they don’t want to do that, the other option is to include both of them, not just include the male.
GR: You’ve already touched on this, but do you think this marketing material gave fans a true representation of the game?
In short answer, probably no. I guess with male Eivor and this twist with Havi and Odin, it’s all very much you need to play the game to understand it. I think the thing that upset me the most was the TV advert that we got over here. It was just male Eivor. There was no reference to any kind of female Eivor at all. And I guess if you’re paying, if you picked up that game as a consumer, and you weren’t a fan of Assassin’s Creed, because that happens, people pick up games because they think they’re interested in it. And some people might want to play that male Viking fantasy. That’s fine if that’s what they want to play. But if they pick that up, play the “Animus decides” version because when you load the game up, it says that’s the recommended thing to play.
And then they’re playing the whole game: 99.9% of it is female Eivor. They’re going to be very confused, particularly if they don’t follow all of the background and all the discussions and all the arguments that was that were going on online in the fandom. I knew that female Eivor was an option in the game, but if somebody who wasn’t a fan of AC looked at that and the front cover of the game and all the marketing that went out, they wouldn’t have known that. I don’t think they would have know. Because we’re fans of AC, we know that it was there. But a consumer who would have just picked that off the shelf, they wouldn’t have known that. And I think that’s really unfair.
GR: Yeah, if we look at the gaming market right now, Norse and Viking mythos is everywhere. It’s very popular. Skyrim, that new survival game Valheim, it all play into that Viking aspect that gamers love, and that could have been reason enough to pick this game up if someone hasn’t played. You don’t get that fantasy if you chose the canon option.
Exactly. I mean, female Eivor is obviously an option in the game, but I think think that choice and the fact that you could choose was even marketed enough. I don’t think it was in my opinion.
GR: So this treatment of her and this emphasis of male Eivor over her, do you think this is a continuation of what has happened with past Assassin’s Creed protagonists, like Aya’s role being diminished and Kassandra having Alexios tacked on?
Possibly, I think it is in line with everything that they’ve done before. And, you know, they had an opportunity to try and change it a little bit because people were quite vocal about how they felt about Kassandra’s marketing. Even though she is the canon protagonist, Alexios is on the cover, and he got most of the marketing and the attention. I think, because people are being a lot more vocal about it, I guess I was expecting them to have taken that in mind with the comments, and the feedback that everybody gave with the marketing for Odyssey. It just feels like, again, they were trying to hide female Eivor. And that just felt, you know, as a woman, a woman who loves the franchise, and a woman who loves the games, that just felt really kind of disheartening.
GR: Shifting gears just a little bit, there’s the new Funko Pops. There’s two versions of it, both of which are Havi, but it says Eivor on it. How do you feel about the fact that this Havi Funko pop misappropriates Eivor’s name?
Again, it’s the whole spoilery thing. I get why they’ve done it, I really do get why they’ve done it. It’s that balance between a spoiler and actually representing who the protagonist is. I mean, the devs have said that both are canon. Because if you pick it up, and it says Havi on it, you’re kind of like, oh, who is Havi? The main person on the marketing, on the cover, it says that it’s Eivor. So how do you know what to read? It’s a bit confusing in that sense. But I think the thing that I took the most issue with, with the whole Pop discourse that went on, is the fact that they have made two Pops. And they are both male Eivor.
I think that is really the issue, and the thing that kind of struck me, it’s like, call it what you want…I mean, obviously, it’s not right calling the Pop Eivor…but it’s the fact that they actually have manufactured two Pops, and both of these Pops are male. There’s women out there who want to buy merch that represents them, too. It’s not just women either, you know, collectors want to have have both, they want to buy something which represents their playthrough of the game.
Online, you saw so many people saying, “Well, firstly, this is Havi. And secondly, where is female Eivor.” If you’re going to to make two, then surely the logical thing to do would have been one male and one female, which represent the two choices that you’re given in the game. And I guess, when you have the marketing, and then you have that on top of the marketing and how that was treated, I guess people can put those two together and just come away from that feeling really disheartened. And it was really obvious in my mind that they could have easily have just given us female Eivor as well as male Eivor. I mean, then there wouldn’t have been any kind of any problem with that. Everybody’s happy.
GR: If it just said “male Eivor” and “female Eivor,” it wouldn’t have technically been wrong.
Absolutely that as well.
GR: Decisions like this, they don’t happen overnight. With this whole Funko Pop and the marketing and all that, how long do you think it took with this Funko Pop deal? How long do you think something like this, [the decision] to put out to male versions, of the Funko Pop has been decided?
So, Funko, they do officially licensed products, so they don’t make things that they don’t have a license to, and Ubisoft obviously own the rights to Assassin’s Creed. They own the rights to the likeness of the characters, they basically own anything which has to do with their characters and all the rights around that. So what would have happened is either Funko would have reached out to Ubisoft or vice versa. And what I think would have likely to have happened, because I’ve never dealt directly with Funko before, they would have reached out, they would have had conversations about, ‘what do we make?’ So, somewhere, they agreed that it would be to male Pops in that process, in those discussions, and I think possibly it would have been at that point, where they’re discussing what it’s going to look like, the prototypes, and things like that, that it could have been raised that ‘actually, we should have done male and female Eivor.’ But, you know, ultimately, someone somewhere signed off.
GR: With this in mind, do you think we will really get an actual Eivor Funko Pop somewhere down the road?
I think it really depends. Ubisoft and Funko might have seen how unhappy people were with the decision to have two male Eivors. I really hope that they took that [reception] on board, and you know, that we get a female Eivor sometime in the future, but I guess it’s completely up to them and in their hands as to whether we will get that. I guess, hopefully, talking positivity going forward, that if in the future, they do offer a choice of protagonists and they do the merchandise and the Funko Pops, whether that be Funko Pops or otherwise, that actually the merchandise as well has both options.
I think, as a general point, I’ve found it very hard to find merchandise with female Eivor. And, if there was merchandise for female Eivor, it was either like a special-edition-really-expensive item like a t-shirt was $100, whereas you could pick up an Assassin’s Creed Valhalla t-shirt with male Eivor for about $20. Like, that’s the disparity between it. And I think they can take that on board, you know, try and merge sales stuff a bit more diverse as well.
GR: In being more forward with the choice, being more forward with male and female Eivor, it would really just make sense for the merchandise to do so as well. Right? The whole shebang covered.
Exactly. It goes back to the point of AC sisterhood. Whereas like if you don’t listen to your player base, and if you just completely just cater to one side of it, then they might ultimately decide they are being represented properly or they won’t feel like they’re being listened to. That’s the same thing with merchandise as well, because it’s really hard. I really wanted a T-shirt of Kassandra on it, and it took me probably about a year to find. And even to this day, I’m questioning its legitimacy as to whether it’s actually a licensed product, but that just that’s the problem as well.
GR: So you know as well as I do that there’s a lot of debate going on about the future of Assassin’s Creed. A lot of fans miss the classic stealth games, some do like the more contemporary RPGs, and there was a recent report that this RPG approach had engagement with the franchise at an all-time high. Assuming that doesn’t go away, what do you think Ubisoft can do to better represent its fans with this RPG approach?
If you’re going to keep the choice element, which is what I think the question is aimed at, you could always have two different stories for each choice. So what we’ve seen to date is with Kassandra and Alexios, and the two Eivors, is that their stories are the same no matter what choice you pick. A really good example of this would be for in Odyssey, you played as Kassandra and suppose if like, one route you were playing is like the protagonist, and the other option you were Deimos, his own story. So, there are two separate stories which are tailored. If you picked the woman, she could her own story, her own arc, and you would see how she developers. You can really add nuance and tailor her story to her, and if you pick the male, the same thing as well. That way, you’re not trying to write a narrative which is attempting to fit both.
GR: Just to bring up something I see a lot within the fandom, there are those who oppose the choice aspect in all of the recent games overall because the whole idea is that you’re living through someone’s memories. So if you’re reliving these memories, it doesn’t make sense for there to be a choice. Do you think that’s something that would be really hard to reconcile?
Personally, I would love to just see a solo woman protagonist. I really would, that’s what I want to see. And, realistically, if they’re going down the RPG route, will they do that, who knows. We just don’t know. We can talk about the benefits as to focusing on a sole female protagonist, I mean, you’re going to explore a different narrative, you’re going to have a completely different experience. That story is going to be tailored to her, and she’s going to be front and center on the marketing, because she is the sole protagonist, like that’s what I would really want to see.
But then, if you’re not going to do that then, obviously, have the choice, but make that choice better. Like we discussed, having different stories and not just having the same narrative of both exploring themes for each of them. But I really want to see a solo female protagonist. And I guess that’s where a lot of the discourse in the fandom is happening. Because I think the point that the series turned RPG is the point where a lot of fans are like, “I don’t like this anymore.” AC has traditionally been one protagonist and you explore their story. I do think they can go back to that, because that is like core AC, isn’t it? But, after the reports saying their RPG mechanisms have really boosted sales, and it’s doing really well for them. I think it’s a business decision. And they might not go back to a single protagonist.
But if they do, I think that we’re well overdue a solo female protagonist, because we just haven’t had one in a main title. We had Aveline, she was initially on a handheld; we had Shao Jun, she was in a sidescroller.
GR: The whole franchise has been male-dominated from the start. With Assassin’s Creed 3 though, we had Connor who was half-Native American, and that story was really different from all the Ezios and Altairs and Arnos. Why can’t we do the same thing with other non-European characters?
Absolutely. That’s what makes those characters so memorable is because they were from such a diverse background, and you can explore so many things, and so many themes and open up new stories which haven’t been told before. And that’s the beauty with AC. And that’s why a lot of people like AC, you know, because they go through different periods of history and their protagonists are different. And I guess, if they don’t have a solo female protagonist, they’re really missing something there. Because if they focus back on that, for example, they can make a game and really explore her and some of the things that happened to her.
GR: So, with all of this between the classic-stealth game debate, with the recent Ubisoft restructuring, and with the CCO who believed “women don’t sell,” who had the power to greenlight or cancel anything, with him gone, and with this history of male European-dominated games, what do you really hope the next five or ten years of Assassin’s Creed looks like?
I mean, I really hope one day we do get a solo female protagonist. That’s what I’m really hoping for, but if they do go down the choice route of choice, I think they could market that better. I mean, we’ve gone through the ways as to how they can tell the story better, tell two different stories with nuances, but then market it better. Have both of them on the marketing or give them equal time, but make it clear that they are both there. I think the way that they have done it previously, that’s not going to cut it anymore. And, you know, they’ve acknowledged the Sisterhood, they know what our goals are, and I really hope they do listen to us. I really hope that any new marketing campaigns with future games really do give women a chance to shine. Obviously, there will be a marketing campaign around her if there is a solo female protagonists. But, if they have the choice option, again, which is more probably what they’re going to do, let her have some marketing, where she shines as well on her own right.
GR: Not erasing the other choice but giving both choices equal measure.
Yeah, exactly. It’s that balance, and I just feel like [Ubisoft] haven’t got that yet, but there is that opportunity to improve. There’s always an opportunity to improve. They just need to listen to that. Just look at Mass Effect. The recent trailer had some FemShep in it, and I mean, Mass Effect fans have always been championing her having more time in the marketing and having her front and center more often. A lot of the time, FemShep is their Shep. It’s not the other way around, and they want to be seen and heard and represented. And that’s the goal, the end of all of this is better representation.
GR: There’s a lot of options and better approaches for the future, but obviously, this isn’t a problem that Ubisoft has uniquely. In general, what kind of improvements would you like to see at AAA studios?
I would just like to see more authentic representation for women and minorities, tell more diverse stories, explore the narrative within that. Only positivity can come out of that; there would be no negativity from exploring and telling these more diverse stories. Keep in mind that your playerbase is also very diverse. Think about the people who are playing your games and who are buying your games too. Representation is just so important, and it’s different for everybody. It’s very subjective, like if I play a game and I feel seen from the character, you might not feel the same way. You don’t feel represented, but I do.
It’s an amazing chance to do something different and make people feel seen and heard. That’s the end goal.
GR: One common argument against this is that there are very popular games with female leads, like Horizon with Aloy, Lara Croft. When you see this argument, how do you think that reflects going forward with AAA studios?
You know, if you look at how many games there are with male protagonists and the number of games with a sole female protagonist, it just outweighs them. And it’s always the same games that are brought to light like Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Lara Craft, Horizon Zero Dawn, or The Last of Us. But you can almost count on your fingers as to how many of those games there are, whereas there’s hundreds of games with male protagonists. And that how’s I respond to people, ‘okay, great, but you’re telling me the same handful of games with female protagonists.’ And that’s the problem, the fact there’s only a handful is the problem. And I feel like they don’t understand, it’s like ‘you’re already represented. You’ve got these four games, well it’s more than four, but you’ve got these games and you shouldn’t be asking for more.’ I feel like that’s quite offensive. A lot of women play games. We need more representation and diversity going forward, not just saying, ‘you’ve had these, now shut up.’
It needs to be, going forward, representation, inclusion, and diversity. Something, all studios whether you’re AAA or not, you need to be thinking about.
GR: There’s this flippant switch that games were ever marketed to boys to begin with. What do you think could be done at AAA studios or otherwise to break away from this ‘video games are for boys’ mentality?
I think they probably just need to listen, and it’s as easy as that. They just need to listen to their fandoms, to people who are actively saying to them, ‘things have changed.’ I guess from their perspective they may think, ‘oh well, is it a business risk to put a sole female protagonist when I know my game with a male protagonist will sell well?’ And if that’s your fear, then look at games like The Last of Us 2, look at the games that have done well like Tomb Raider, as they’re all really good games in their own right, and they all have really amazing female leads. And they do sell well. So this argument that ‘women don’t sell,’ you need to stop that and start listening to your consumer base. What’s going to happen is they’ll go to and buy someone else’s game where they do feel represented. You might lose people from your inaction if not taking on board the feedback people are giving you.
GR: Anything you’d like to add?
This whole issue, which isn’t even an issue, representation and inclusion is so important in any industry. It’s not just the games industry. I mean, I come from a law background and we’ve got a lot of work to do as an industry. We are getting better, we’re addressing it, and I think this [idea of representation and inclusion] is just one that stretches outside the industry. You can’t just look at it in just the games industry. Changes do need to be made in the industry, it’s just important to everyone, and it’s just an issue which matters to so many people.
I know so many people who come back to my tweets and say, ‘I just want a good game and I don’t care about representation,’ but to some people, it really does matter. For all of their lives, they might have been playing something where they never feel like they are represented, and it again goes back to that point that when you do feel seen, when you do feel heard, that feeling…you can’t compare to it. You really can’t. I always use the example of seeing a Sikh man in Syndicate. I’ve never seen a video game before, one that I’ve played, where you’ve seen a Sikh man.
Yes, it was a man, but it was a man with a turban and I felt seen from that. I’ll never forget that, I’ll never forget that feeling, and if we get more people feeling that, it’s only a good thing. It would be something that would be so positive to so many publishers and developers if they get people feeling that way, feeling seen, and I guess it’s that…narrative that some people don’t care about representation, but they need to understand that people do. They can’t just ignore it. If you don’t care, fine, that’s your opinion. But other people really do care and it matters to them, so the conversation still has to be had.
[End.]
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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