Assassin’s Creed: Unity’s lack of female characters has triggered much debate among the gaming community, and players are now signing a petition to express their discontent over the matter.

At the time of writing the ‘Discontent at lack of representation in AC: Unity protagonists’ petition sits at 2,807 names, and was founded by UK resident Jessica Smith.

Smith writes, “This petition has been created to express the disappointment of Ubisoft fans at the lack of representation of people of colour and females in the four-protagonist line-up of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Unity.

“We believe that the Assassin’s Creed series, a franchise with infinite scope, does not reflect the needs of its demographic well enough: the lack of a female character has been referred to as “unfortunate, but…a reality of game development”, and the possibility of an ethnic minority protagonist seems to have not even been breached.

“Representation is important, and in a game which boasts 5000 NPCs, this is not good enough.”

It follows Ubisoft’s rather limp explanation as to why no female protagonists appeared in its Assassin’s Creed: Unity E3 2014 co-op footage, and indeed the game at large.

After signing the ballot, Tamara St.Jean from Calgary wrote, “The success of Aveline as both a woman and a PoC should be enough proof of your fans’ desire to see a more varied spectrum of protagonists. The fact that Ubisoft would prefer pumping out a game sooner than take the extra time they claim it would take to develop a female lead only speaks to me as sloppy and lazy.

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“Claiming work would have been doubled as the primary excuse for the exclusion of at least ONE female lead is basically telling fans “we don’t feel like putting in the effort to see you happy, we don’t want to put forth the effort to represent women or minorities because it’s easier to make white male after white male after white male”.

“This speaks apathy to the desires of fans. This speaks laziness. It’s time to clean up before fans lose faith.”

Britain’s Bern Steel adds, “I love the Assassin’s creed series, but this has just felt like a slap to the face to me. Women were a core part of the French revolution and it saddens me to see you waste opportunities to explore more of the world and be more historically accurate.”

Where do your thoughts lie on the matter? Let’s hear it below.

Via Eurogamer.