It has been a rough year. Personally it has been amazing for me but it also has been a very hard one since Assassin’s Creed Oydssey was announced and not only because of all the controversies, big changes and more that this game has experienced. What made it especially difficult for me was the community itself. I’ve been part of this community since the first Assassin’s Creed and yes, not always everything was colorful and full of rainbows and it suffered some dark and very difficult times as well. But I always considered it as a family and I still do because I “grew up” inside this community, I started my real gaming experience in social media by being part of it and thanks to it I’ve discovered many wonderful friends and talented people. So yes, this community is family for me and it saddens me so much seeing how it’s being divided and how certain actions are slowly destroying it.

Some people will probably think that I’m overreacting or that maybe I should just ignore everything but sadly I can’t do that last thing, especially after what I’ve seen since Odyssey was announced and also because I care about this community. In fact some friends and users approached to me to tell me that they no longer felt this community as a family and that’s a clear sign that things are getting actually bad. Let me just list some of the situations I’ve witnessed: I’ve seen friends and other users being harassed for simply buying one of the packs the game store offered and also were accused of “destroying the franchise” for that; on the other side I’ve seen people who have been very critical about Odyssey being accused for the same because of “their negativity” and being called different names; I’ve seen people who liked Odyssey being told “they were paid by Ubisoft” or were called the “yes men” because they dared to defend it — I’ve been a victim of this one; I’ve seen dear friends almost fighting each other because their opinions were too different and couldn’t reach a commmon point; I’ve seen devs being harassed and even being threatened because people blamed them for the “downfall” of the franchise; I’ve seen actors being harassed and insulted for simply being passionate and because some people couldn’t stand they got nominated — didn’t win — for a prize next to other actors from other games; I’ve seen people being treated differently because they didn’t share the same opinion as others or they were even told they were “bad fans”. And much more…

As you can see, all this situations involve mainly harassment, fights, insults and more… and that’s a huge problem. This franchise has been active for more than 10 years and even though it already suffered some difficult times, I think I’ve never seen something like this happening inside the community — at least not at this level. Personally all this has negatively affected me to the point that now I don’t enjoy Odyssey as much I used to even though I still love it and I’ve even been delaying the second part of my personal review of the game because I don’t have the energy with all the negativity that has been going around. Am I overreacting? Maybe but that’s how I am and I can’t change that. The only thing I can do is try to cheer myself up and work hard to try to make the community better by encouraging healthy discussions and also offering different ways for the players to express themselves with respect.