Pride month is officially here – I’ll give you a minute to put up your rainbow curtains – and while I haven’t been shopping yet, the story on social media seems to be that it’s mostly subdued this year. Aside from a couple of sports teams (including the Yankees) painting their logos in rainbow colors and PBS releasing a Sesame Street message with multi-colored Muppets joining hands in solidarity (different-colored fur being the recognized symbol for the LGBTETC group among the felt community), there isn’t much going on. I’ve even seen posts comparing department store displays, with last year’s ostentatious presentations giving way to… nothing. But one company (so far) has gone the extra mile and not only ignored pride month but replaced it: Ubisoft. On their Rainbow Six Siege X account, Ubisoft posted a message declaring – or maybe simply recognizing; it’s hard to keep up with these new designations – June as “Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month,” encouraging guys to look out for each other or, if they have issues, seek help – the latter sentiment being implied with the suggestion that men “take off the mask.”
It’s okay to take off the mask.
Strength and vulnerability are not mutually exclusive.
June is Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month. We’d like to encourage you to reach out to your friends; ask them how they’re doing. Pick up a game together. Look out for one another.
You… pic.twitter.com/2l1c9filuC
— Rainbow Six Siege (@Rainbow6Game) June 1, 2025
It’s kind of nice, not only that a company is bothering to recognize an issue like this but that it’s coming from Ubisoft, the studio behind Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a game about samurai in feudal Japan that has a black guy as the main character and a “non-binary” love interest for him. It’s also run by a man who encouraged gamers to rat each other out for criticizing Ubisoft employees and pledged to “modernize” some older games via remakes. They’re the last people you’d expect not only to ignore pride month (so far) but to highlight an issue related to men – not that mental health issues are only relegated to men (must… resist… urge… to… make… women… joke…) but that they’re specifically discussing it as it affects men. But if you ignore their history and reputation, it makes sense; Rainbow Six is a male-oriented franchise with its focus on anti-terrorist teams going into action to save civilization from those who would destroy it. (I’m mostly basing this on Tom Clancy’s original novel and the first game, which was a direct adaptation of the book; I trust it hasn’t changed too much since then.) This is catering to your audience, recognizing them over people who, by and large, are not interested in your product, and that’s smart business, even if it’s frowned upon by today’s intelligentsia and the self-important crybabies who think everything has to be about them.
Why the change? Many are attributing it to the general shift in corporate culture vis-à-vis pride month, with President Trump’s election as the trigger for it. While I don’t want to take away from the President’s role in cultural shifts, I believe this started before he took office again; last year, there was a massive pushback against the pride month onslaught, and it got places like Target (which had some really reprehensible clothes) to change their practices. But in Ubisoft’s case, I don’t think that was the ultimate reason either, though it could be a factor. This past September, as they announced that Assassin’s Creed Shadows was being delayed and were reeling from the failure of Star Wars Outlaws (which had a woman wearing Han Solo’s outfit and wielding his blaster as the main character), Ubisoft issued a statement saying that they were launching an internal investigation to make sure no one in the company was pushing “any specific agenda,” with the promise that Ubisoft was “an entertainment-first company” and that they were taking a “player-first” approach to their business. I don’t know about entertainment, but focusing on men’s mental health seems like they’re acknowledging their players. That initiative was the result of losing so much money on Star Wars Outlaws and the bad prospects for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but whatever the case, it’s a good thing for gamers that Ubisoft has finally recognized that it needs them and that it had better stop insulting them and shoving divisive politics in their faces. In that way, it is like Target and other companies that are moving away from pride celebrations and simply selling their products to their customers; their wallets got lighter, so they pivoted. I wonder if more companies will follow suit, and it’ll be interesting to see if this shift manifests in any other surprising ways. Who knows, maybe they’ll start saying “Merry Christmas” this year.
Let us know what you think of Ubisoft acknowledging men’s mental health in the comments!
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Yeah, I was shocked. I wouldn’t have expected this at any time of the year, but especially during Rainbowpalooza month. If a company like Ubisoft did something as drastic as this, you can tell corporations are starting to get scared of pissing off normal people. They just pushed too far, and people have had enough.
So out of character for social norms that I gotta admire this. Do anything for western people, especially western men, has become almost unheard of. This is counter-trend trading and I do like it. I’m reading books right now on bowhunters and rock singers and it makes me realize that the male stories are just not out there. Just this gesture alone surprises me because we are so used to seeing men belittled for not being enough, while replacing them with illiterates who can’t even speak the language and every other institution is promoting paying other peoples, while blaming and mocking the men here for it. It’s one reason I went from defending corporations to not being able to do so and don’t see myself ever doing that again, shilling for corrupt CEO grandstanders. Been on the right my whole life, and they totally betrayed men. Shout out to Ubisoft for this gesture to the brotherhood and the fraternal order. We’ve really never got to experience it for ourselves. Became an illusion. Too bad it may be too late for them, after the woke racial pandering.