Ubisoft Steals BLM Icon for Tom Clancy's Elite Squad

Ubisoft did another bad thing over the weekend, but fortunately it’s not the kind of bad thing that involves drugging and choking employees. It’s the good ol’ fashioned bad of a company being thoughtless with the iconography of their game series.

Over the weekend, Ubisoft released Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad, an iOS and Android game where you control a squad of Ubisoft’s most iconic military dudes and dudettes to take down an organization called UMBRA, a global terrorist network trying to take over the world. Despite UMBRA’s ambitions, there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about the story, but some people did notice something both interesting and problematic: see if you can spy it yourself.



Well, the article's cover photo probably spoiled it for you, but in case you missed it: while the video narration says “Protesters claim to promote an egalitarian utopia to gain popular support; while behind the scenes UMBRA organizes deadly terrorist attacks to generate even more chaos and weaken governments”, we see a whole lot of black, square fists appear on the screen, which is the iconic symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement.

That is… certainly a strong implication. And it’s the kind of thing I have a hard time believing was an accident. I’d genuinely believe that there was some bitter employee at Ubisoft who orchestrated this whole thing, and nobody else really caught on. Not that I have any evidence of this.

In any case, Ubisoft almost immediately apologized and vowed to change it as soon as possible.

“Imagery that appeared in the opening video sequence of Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad featuring a ‘raised fist’ was insensitive and harmful in both its inclusion and how it was portrayed. We have listened to and appreciate the players and the broader community who have pointed it out and we apologize.”

Cool. Now fire Yves Guillemot.

Not for this specifically, but he should still be fired.