Is there any hard evidence that the reason so many people skipped out on Shadows because of "wokeness?" This site - and indeed, people who complain online in general - are a small and not entirely representative sample of the entire market. Just because people were complaining online doesn't mean it was a widespread issue that actually led to meaningfully lower sales.
I'd say the bigger issue is that it's just a bad game. It's got nice graphics for sure, and every once in a while I still jump in to wander around a bit, explore a castle and take out some guards, but pretty quickly I'm reminded how boring it gets. The story, characters, even world, are all dull, boring, empty, and repetitive, and get tiring very quickly.
I don't mean to be pedantic, but I don't think graphics programmers adding new features to their engine is "going out of their way" - it's literally their job. And they did a good job. But it doesn't change the fact that it was all attached to a game that overall just isn't very good. I don't mean to hate on anyone's opinions either - to you and everyone who like it, that's great. But I don't think many people will agree that it's overall better than any other AC game. I don't like Valhalla much either, never finished it, but I'd say it has much better story and characters, and the world is a lot easier and more interesting to explore. Shadows might be more realistic, but it's a pain in the ass to navigate, you can't get through half of the map because of the mountains and vegetation, and much of it you can't climb either. Valhalla's combat is pretty bad, but honestly Shadows isn't any better. Really the only thing going for it gameplay-wise is the stealth, which is definitely improved. But that can't hold up the whole game, especially when most of the rest of it isn't even "just as good", it's actually worse.
That's why I'm so excited for Black Flag. I get all the nice graphical improvements, but in a game I know is actually good.
