Reports in the media revealed that there was controversy around the main character of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, with it being claimed that there was only supposed to be one main character, which was a woman.
The claim was posted on Twitter by Assassin's Creed fan, Seiiki Dell'Aria, and comes from discussions with former Valhalla creative director, Ashraf Ismail, and an alleged victim of his, with Ismail having been accused of sexual harassment.
"I was approached by one of Ash's victims who showed me bits of conversations and confirmed something that isn't quite out, but that won't surprise anyone," said Dell'Aria.
"Just like for Syndicate, Origins and Odyssey, it was the devs wish that Valhalla featured a female protagonist. Exclusively.
"Execs blocked them from doing that and forced the team to include a male version of Eivor, because a woman alone wouldn't have sold, insisting that the marketing campaign should have focused on male Eivor. Which it did, we've seen Female Eivor only long after ACV's reveal."
The posts have drawn a response from the Valhalla narrative director, Derby McDevitt, who wrote the following on Reddit:
"I will say this once: this is not wholly accurate.
"And I will repeat what I have always said. ACVs story was conceived from the beginning with both female and male in mind. When you play the game you will understand that there is no way the male could have been added at the last minute, or whatever version of this story you have heard.
"Obviously there is more nuance to all this, but to go deeper would spoil lots of the mysteries at the heart of the game. But understand this, that we started ACV knowing full well that Ubi wanted to give players the ability to select characters, and we worked hard to make sure that it honoured our lore."
