Assassin’s Creed: Shadows’ dispiritingly long, non-interactive opening cutscene introduces us to an enslaved Black man, Diogo, and his ‘owner’, a Portuguese trader who has come to Japan in search of converts to his faith and fortune for his pocket. Moments later, they meet Oda Nobunaga, the feudal warlord on whom Japanese history pivots. Nobunaga is portrayed here not as the murderous sword-swirler we’ve met in videogames past, but as an astute reader of men: he spies in Diogo – whom he duly renames Yasuke – keen potential. Nobunaga permits the Portuguese access to markets in exchange for their exotic bodyguard. The slave is free to become a samurai. But at what cost?

Yasuke is a natural choice of protagonist for a series that has always sought to prise open new access points to familiar historical settings (and to videogame players, few settings are as familiar as feudal Japan). A historical figure from the Sengoku period, Yasuke is also, usefully, an outsider who mirrors western players’ own status as interlopers. And yet, before we have a moment to grow accustomed to the heft of his armour, or his winning way with women (or, if you prefer, men), we are spirited into another cipher. There we remain, in the young shinobi orphan Naoe’s tightly bound shoes for the next dozen hours, until her story and Yasuke’s meet, and we gain the ability to dual-wield protagonists.

They’re an odd couple – the gaijin slave-turnedsamurai, and the fleet-footed kid ninja – not least because Yasuke was responsible for the razing of Naoe’s village. But that is somehow forgotten as the pair bond over the depth and urgency of their respective missions: Naoe must take revenge for her past; Yasuke must atone for his. Together they form a medieval crime-fighting duo and (once you start to build and populate your own hideout estate) lead an agency of ragtag vigilantes.