A plethora of games have been released in 2025, and some have been controversial. There has been more than one divisive controversy involving video games this year, be it a remaster of a classic game not looking good enough or a major video game having a bad launch. Here follows a list of the top most controversial games of 2025.
1. Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Assassin’s Creed Shadows took Ubisoft’s video game series to Japan. Feudal-era Japan to be exact: a time of samurais, shinobis, cherry blossoms and civil war… It was a controversial game too: some objected that Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ co-protagonist Yasuke was a samurai of African descent, as they would have preferred a Japanese lead. This is something of a moot point now, taking into account the game’s quality and success though.
Also, a bigger controversy erupted over the portrayal of Japanese shrines in the game. Specifically, some found the violence taking place in and around the shrines disturbing, and also the fact that players could smash stuff within the shrines, defacing these holy places. Even Japan’s prime minister commented on this, as taking into account the massive influx of tourists to Japan after the pandemic, some feared copycats may cause trouble in the Asian nation. It’s the old argument that video game violence leads to real world violence… Ubisoft, though, released a patch for their game which reduced violence around shrines and did not let players cause damage to these places, so this ended up being a case of too much ado about nothing then.