Summary
- To celebrate the launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft Brazil released a brilliant Yasuke and Naoe Power Rangers parody.
- It comes complete with its own theme tune, footage of the pair suiting up and fighting bad guys in a quarry, and even hints of a Megazord fight.
Video game ads in the UK are boring. They usually follow a pretty bog-standard recipe: cinematic footage played to a brooding narrator hinting at the story with vague buzzwords like “corruption” and “brutality”, before a release date awkwardly shuffles onto the final slide. Then there’s a brief pause to let you soak in just how much you’re going to forget this ad in a few minutes.
Not Ubisoft Brazil. Their Assassin’s Creed Shadows ad is an all-time great, positioning Yasuke and Naoe as the leads in a fictional Power Rangers-style Tokusatsu show. They don’t slide on their armour all stoic and dramatic-like; they jump into a crowd of enemies, brandish their weapons, and, in a flurry of cheap practical effects — which is a compliment — their armour suddenly appears.
Yasuke daylights as a teacher, whereas Naoe appears to be a painter. Or maybe a librarian.
You’ve got all the Power Rangers hallmarks, like the two sheathing their swords as they walk away from an explosion, completely unnecessary backflips, quarries — so many quarries — a catchy metal theme tune (just swap “Go Go Power Rangers!” for “Strike as one!”) and even the beginnings of a huge Megazord fight. If you’re not sold on Shadows yet, I’ll let Ubisoft Brazil do the talking.
It’s Not The First Time Power Rangers And Assassin’s Creed Have (Kind Of) Crossed Over
Remember Desmond? That really underrated modern-day character who tied together the story of Assassins and Templars perfectly? Arguably the main character of the series. He was played by none other than Nolan North, and Nolan North has been in everything. If you want to tenuously connect two franchises for an article (ahem), he’s your guy. Anyway, unrelated to that tangent — did you know Assassin’s Creed and Power Rangers already shared a link?
Nolan North, again Desmond, played Goldar and the Red Overdrive Ranger in Power Ranger: Super Legends, an action-adventure PS2/PC game released for the series’ 15th anniversary in 2007. It featured characters from across the show’s over-decade-long history, stretching from Operation Overdrive back to Mighty Morphin (though it missed out the incredible Dino Thunder and Mystic Force).
It wasn’t the best received, launching to an aggregate score of just 44, but at least Shadows is faring better, eh? Now about that Yasuke and Naoe Sentai show…
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
- Released
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March 20, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
- Developer(s)
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Ubisoft Quebec