You might have seen this image floating around the Internet. It’s a screenshot of a bug from the latest Assassin’s Creed game. And it’s helped to fuel yet another aggressive spree of mockery against a game that doesn’t deserve it.
Games are difficult to make. Even simple ones. The more complex the game, the more likely you’ll end up unintentionally introducing bugs like this into it. It’s inevitable. The only thing that really matters is how good the studio is at responding to them. Thank goodness then that Ubisoft has the resources to deliver patches and updates quickly enough to where the vast majority of actual players will never see anything like this in all their time with the game.
But people end up seeing these glitches plastered on image boards and Twitter feeds and videogame news sites and, having never actually played the game themselves (or even purchased or had any plans to purchase it for that matter), believe that the screenshots accurately represent the entirety of the game. As if every NPC were walking around inside-out. In fact it’s so bad, these screenshots may be the only thing they end up ever remembering about the game at all.
Go ahead. Bring up Assassin’s Creed: Unity in conversation with someone plugged into this cultural cesspool. See what happens.
I’ve even shockingly caught a friend in the act of trying to pass off as his own an experience from a YouTube video of an unusual bug from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. After being exposed, he then went on to make up a litany of additional false accusations about how badly bugged ACIV was on release. Good luck trying to find any mention of that in any of the reviews from back then. Because there isn’t any. But don’t you see? This effect is so powerful it even retroactively affects games from way back in the past!
It’s reputation assassination. And it works.
We should never be engaged in such unjust activities.
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.
Leviticus 19:15
If Unity turns out to be a bad game, it will by no means be on account of this bug. Or however many bugs there were that had the Internet cackling in their respective dens. But what does justice matter to them? These hyenas have a far different marching order — thou shalt respect the games of the indie, and dishonor the games of the AAA.
