Ubisoft is scrambling to address Assassin's Creed players' frustrations after pop-up adverts for Assassin's Creed Mirage appeared in-game for many console players. The incident, which players have criticised for being overly intrusive given the game's triple-A status, has left Ubisoft blaming a "technical error" for the issue.
Throughout the week, players of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey on console have been subject to a slew of in-game adverts in the run-up to Black Friday, promoting an offer for the recently released Assassin's Creed: Mirage. The adverts would appear sometimes when users opened their maps or menus, filling the screen completely when they did so.
Several users on Reddit highlighted that they too had encountered the issues, and many expressed their derision towards Ubisoft, decrying the ploy as "unacceptable" and "shameless". In response to the uproar, Ubisoft said that the adverts have since been disabled, before claiming that the adverts were down to a "technical issue" whilst speaking to The Verge. No details on how the technical error was caused were given.
The offending advert showed a Black Friday deal, offering 20% off the new Assassin's Creed: Mirage in the Ubisoft store. Seeing the series return to its more linear roots, Mirage recently became Ubisoft's biggest PS5 and Xbox Series X|S release to date, although we weren't blown away when we played it.
Previously, in-game adverts have been no stranger to the Assassin's Creed series, particularly in recent entries. Nowadays, players are used to being shown small adverts in the corner of menu screens, offering microtransactions for skins and equipment.
As egregious as this is for a single-player game (that may have cost the player upwards of £50), players have begrudgingly settled on the fact that this is a feature here to stay in Assassin's Creed. However, the potential introduction of in-game advertising that can disrupt a playing session is a step too far.
With the universal reaction of players condemning the feature, it's clear that should any developer intentionally add in-game advertising to such an extent, the community will certainly make their thoughts known.