In Bloomberg's newest scandal-covering story, it unveils that executives and employees in Ubisoft's marketing department were not only complicit in, but actively pushing the idea that female protagonists don't sell in the video games market. And thus, Aya's role in Assassin's Creed Origins was minimized so that the male protagonist Bayek could be given the spotlight.

In Assassin's Creed Origins, the player follows the Medjay Bayek in Ancient Egypt, who was the founder of the Hidden Ones, forerunners to the Brotherhood of Assassins, alongside his wife Aya. Though the strong-willed warrior is playable for several missions throughout the game, Aya is undoubtedly overshadowed by her husband Bayek. Aya's role gradually shrunk over the course of Assassin's Creed Origins's development, but Aya was originally meant to become the main protagonist, according to Bloomberg.

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The original plan was to have Bayek killed off early in the game, reported a Ubisoft developer to Bloomberg. This would give Aya the spotlight in the main role as a playable female protagonist. But the marketing department at Ubisoft, as well as Serge Hascoet, Ubisoft's former Chief Creative Officer, hounded the writers and developers to change the game's directive, ultimately forcing Aya into the backseat. And Aya's character was unfortunately not the only victim of this narrow-minded stance. Most of the games star male protagonists, and as Bloomberg's report explains, this was done intentionally.

The report shows that several more recent installments from the Assassin's Creed series were a result of the same directives from the marketing department and Hascoet, who resigned following numerous widespread reports of sexism and sexual misconduct, but was also mainly in charge of the direction of all of Ubisoft's major titles. Assassin's Creed Syndicate's Evie would also be given the axe per this idea that "women don't sell," according to Hascoet. In early scripts, Evie was given equal amounts of screentime to her twin brother Jacob, but in the end, Jacob would dominate the game.

Ubisoft allegations

As the behind-the-scenes shortages towards female protagonists are unveiled, Ubisoft has major plans and announcements happening for its upcoming installment coming later this year, Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Set in Norway, the main protagonist is the Viking Eivor, who will feature a choosable gender, a feature carried over from Assassin's Creed Odyssey, rather than making Eivor a female protagonist wholly. Odyssey had followed the same suit of Kassandra being the sole protagonist of the game, but the marketing team was, again, worried the game would not sell without a male character option.

With Valhalla upcoming in the wake of the misconduct and allegations, maybe gamers will see some change in Eivor forthcoming. Or perhaps Ubisoft will continue to follow in Hascoet's unfortunate footsteps.

Assassin's Creed Origins is available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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Source: Bloomberg