Recent Spate of Video Games Set in Japan Cause Concern For Cultural Sites

With games like Ghost of Tsushima, and Assassin’s Creed Shadows more recently, being set in various periods across historical Japan, the developers of the games upped the realism by including real-world locations in each of the games. While this has the added benefit of grounding the game and sharing some of Japan’s cultural heritage with the gaming world, it has apparently also caused some controversy due to incidents involving vandalism at those very same culturally significant sites across Japan. According to Automaton, the Watazumi shrine featured in Ghost of Tsushima was forced to close its doors to tourists after an “unforgivable act of disrespect” was perpetrated at the site. No additional information about the site was provided by Japanese authorities, but it is assumed that some act of vandalism took place at the religious site.

[Editor’s note: Our in-depth review of [Assassin’s Creed Shadows] is now live]

This isn’t the first time the shrine has banned visitors from its gates, but this time around, the shrine’s officials report having had to contact the police on numerous occasions relating to vandalism and verbal and physical abuse of the management staff by visitors. The day after Ubisoft launched Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the developer issued a patch removing destructible assets from religious shrines as a result of concern relating to vandalism of the religious sites. IGN reports that this concern came from none other than Japanese Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, who issued a very serious statement clarifying that “Defacing a shrine is out of the question – it is an insult to the nation itself. When the Self-Defense Forces were deployed to Samawah, Iraq, we ensured they studied Islamic customs beforehand. Respecting the culture and religion of a country is fundamental, and we must make it clear that we will not simply accept acts that disregard them.” He also suggested that these issues may require legal attention. The Assassin’s Creed Shadows update removing destructible assets from shrines also made it so that civilians in and around sites of religious significance would not bleed when attacked by the player, reducing bloodshed in the shrines.