Assassin's Creed Red's protagonist is an African Samurai, says insider

Assassin’s Creed fans are thriving. There is so much to look forward to as Ubisoft are truly in their era of throwing the kitchen sink at this franchise.

The release of Assassin’s Creed Mirage is right around the corner. Mark your calendars because the game is due out on 12 October. Set in ninth century Baghdad, Mirage features Valhalla’s Basim - and just as fans requested, it’ll mark a return to the franchise’s stealth-based roots. You’ll be pleased to know, it also features the smallest map in years. Thank goodness for that. Beyond that, we’ve got the free-to-play Codename Jade which is believed to be in playtesting, plus we know that fan-favourite Ezio Auditore will return in the upcoming VR game Assassin’s Creed Nexus. Perhaps the most coveted game of all though is the mysterious Codename Red.

Take a look at Assassin’s Creed Mirage in action below.

Ubisoft unveiled Codename Red at their 2022 Ubisoft Forward. Interestingly, it was absent from this year’s edition but we’re sure the devs are hard at work. The game is set in Feudal Japan and is said to be the last RPG entry in the long-running franchise, before Ubisoft return to fully embracing stealth. Ubisoft themselves described the game as a “powerful shinobi fantasy”.

Several months ago, known leaker Tom Henderson teased that Codename Red would feature two protagonists: a samurai and a shinobi. At the time, it was assumed that the samurai was female, while the shinobi was male. Henderson has now taken to Twitter to correct himself, writing, “I got them the wrong way around. It’s a male samurai and female shinobi. The male samurai is an African refugee.”

This new tidbit of information gained traction on Reddit after fan KvasirTheOld suggested that the male samurai could be Yasuke. He wrote, “Could this mean that we’ll play as Yasuke? The very first protagonist that’s a real person?” Believed to be born in Mozambique, Yasuka was a famed retainer and weapon-bearer to the Daimyo (a type of feudal lord) Oda Nobunaga.

We know that Codename Red is set in the same time period. Even if we don’t play as Yasuke, it stands to reason that the game’s character could certainly be inspired by the figure. I look forward to Ubisoft revealing more.