A clip from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has sparked outrage as it features an advertisement for Assassin’s Creed Mirage popping up during gameplay.
Reddit user triddell24 posted the clip on Nov. 22, with the ad appearing when they tried to open the map. It’s not exactly subtle, with the game coming to a halt to display a Black Friday promotion for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which is currently 20 percent off, as well as a prompt to purchase it.
While it’s easily dismissed with the press of a button, it’s no less obtrusive and, unsurprisingly, has upset a lot of fans. In-game ads aren’t exactly popular to begin with, but their presence in free-to-play games is at least justifiable since it’s a source of revenue. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a full-price game that typically costs upwards of $60.
The original clip occurred on the Xbox version of the game, but there are claims of the same thing happening on PlayStation too as well as in Assassin’s Creed Origins, so publisher Ubisoft is clearly the one responsible.
Regardless, the Reddit thread is filled with comments about either uninstalling Odyssey or swearing off buying it and any other Ubisoft games. “Boycotting all Ubisoft games until I can guarantee that no ads will pop up in the middle of my game. That is absolutely unacceptable. We have already paid them to “rent” their product and now they are grifting extra funds by throwing ads up,” Saul_Go0dmann said.
“Wow, I was considering getting this game at a discount. But now my new rate for purchasing this game is “$0.00,” ChinkyD added.
Ubisoft isn’t the only one guilty of this. In 2020, EA Sports UFC 4 received ads shortly after its launch that would appear during gameplay (as demonstrated in a Reddit post from that year), though this sparked such a backlash that EA soon removed them. People don’t like being advertised to, especially when they’ve paid money for a product. The last thing they want is to then be recommended into spending more money on something else.
In a statement to The Verge, Ubisoft spokesperson Fabien Darrigues explained that these pop-up ads are not intentional and are the result of a technical error that has already been dealt with. So, hopefully, this means you don’t have to worry about seeing any pop-ups the next time you play an Assassin’s Creed game.
(This article was updated at 8:47 Nov. 24 to add Ubisoft’s statement.)
