Ubisoft has made the decision to censor the nude statues appearing in the Assassin’s Creed Origins Discovery Tour, with the educational mode covering up the private parts of its sculptures with seashells.
The covered-up statues were spotted by Rock Paper Shotgun, with them contrasting the educational intentions of the Discovery Tour. What if players start believing that every statue in Ancient Egypt had its breasts covered by shells because of this? Ubisoft will have a lot to answer for.
Assassin’s Creed Origins was given an M rating by the ESRB, so it’s well within its rights to display nudity without running afoul of censors looking to slap a higher age rating on it. There’s also the matter of these statues actually replicating those that they were displayed during the time period the game is set in, not to mention the educational context of the mode itself.
However, with the Discovery Tour being added to Assassin’s Creed Origins post-launch, it could be a matter of Ubisoft not wanting the game to be reevaluated by the ESRB, or wanting to avoid a headache from parents who would rather their kids take part in wanton violence in their games rather than see a boob or two. Weirdly, the game’s age classification does actually include nudity, so it seems that Ubisoft was overly cautious when it came to displaying the statues in all their glory.
Assassin’s Creed Origins‘ Discovery Tour allows players to explore the game’s beautifully realized Ancient Egyptian setting without worrying about dealing with enemies or tackling objectives, with it offering a non-violent alternative to the main game.
While the addition of seashells to the statues’ private parts hardly detracts from the mode, it’s a curious addition that we really need to know more about. We’ve reached out to Ubisoft and will update this story if we hear back from them.
