Some Assassin's Creed players encountered in-game advertisements for Ubisoft's Black Friday sales while playing older Assassin's Creed games earlier this week, but Ubisoft claims this wasn't intentional.
Reddit user triddell24 posted a video of the advert, which was shared by Fab on X/Twitter, below. It shows the player attempting to open the map in Assassin's Creed Odyssey before the screen fills with an for Assassin's Creed Mirage, which is 20% off in the Black Friday sales.
"Take advantage of 20% off on the latest game in the series," it reads, giving the player the option to either close the advert or "buy now", which presumably opens a link to the console's store.
Il semble qu'Ubisoft expérimente la publicité en jeu chez certains utilisateurs (Xbox et PS).
— Fab ✨ (@Fab_XS_) November 23, 2023
Vous êtes au milieu de votre jeu, accédez à la pause ou à la Map et vous avez pendant 3sec. une pub pour un autre jeu qui s'affiche. Suffisant pour désinstaller ? ? pic.twitter.com/m5S4rEXas5
Ubisoft has denied this was an intentional ploy to sell copies of Assassin's Creed Mirage, however, saying instead users were served these ads accidentally as "the result of a technical error".
"We have been made aware that some players encountered pop-up ads while playing certain Assassin’s Creed titles yesterday," a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN. "This was the result of a technical error that we addressed as soon as we learned of the issue." The developer didn't explain how the technical error occurred.
Assassin's Creed Mirage launched October 5 as a smaller-scale entry that returns players to the series' roots through slower-paced, stealth-based gameplay, veering away from the role-playing game foundations of Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla (and potentially the next game, Assassin's Creed Red, which recently spouted a fresh leak).
Its map isn't anywhere near the size of those of its predecessors for one, and it only takes around 20 to 30 hours to complete compared to the several dozens of hours of previous games.
In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Assassin’s Creed Mirage's back-to-basics approach is a successful first step in returning to the stealthy style that launched this series."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
