Street Fighter II producer hopes Assassin’s Creed Shadows proves his Genji concept was right

Veteran designer Yoshiki Okamoto says he hopes Assassin’s Creed Shadows succeeds so that it gives some validation to a game he produced in the past.

Okamoto, who worked for Capcom for nearly two decades and produced such titles as Street Fighter II and Final Fight, said on his YouTube channel that Ubisoft‘s latest game reminds him of another he produced, PS2 title Genji: Dawn of the Samurai.

When Okamoto left Capcom, he founded Game Republic, and its first game was Genji.

Genji is set in ancient Japan and features two protagonists – a fast and agile character called Yoshitsune and a slow, powerful character called Benkei.

According to Okamoto (as spotted by Automaton), Assassin’s Creed Shadows reminds him of Genji, given its ancient Japan setting and its use of two playable protagonists – speedy ninja Naoe and slow, powerful samurai Yasuke.

In his video, Okamoto said that when he saw the trailer for Shadows, it reminded him of his time at Game Republic working on Genji.

He explained that they wanted to make a game with a fast protagonist and a powerful one, but said the team couldn’t pull it off well enough.

He said he hopes Ubisoft “can fulfil the dream we couldn’t achieve”, and joked that if Shadows sells well it will prove the difference in ability between Ubisoft and him.

However, he also noted that if the game does sell well, he will take some self-satisfaction from it, because it will prove that the concept behind Genji was a sound one, even if the final result wasn’t as good as he had hoped for.

Okamoto said that nobody wants to look back on something they did and acknowledge that it was a complete mistake, so he hopes that Shadows will give him the reassurance that even though he and his team weren’t good enough to deliver with Genji, what they were trying to do was at least right.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is released on November 15 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac and Amazon Luna.

Ubisoft released a 13-minute Assassin’s Creed Shadows gameplay video last month, showing both protagonists in action.