Even with a commendable effort and a positively received title like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, it seems like Ubisoft just can’t help itself when it comes to the infamous world of controversy. The company is no stranger to controversial situations and has often found itself in the middle of various scenarios in which the gaming community does not like some of its practices.
Well, the latest situation involving Ubisoft that has divided fans has to do with Assassin’s Creed Mirage, because for some reason, quite a few people kept seeing random pop-up advertisements for the game while playing old titles.
Fortunately, it has not taken Ubisoft too long to address the controversial Assassin’s Creed Mirage ad scenario since the company has explained why the game’s advertisements kept coming on people’s screens out of nowhere.
Ubisoft Responds to the Assassin’s Creed Mirage Ads Situation
With Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Ubisoft was applauded for going back to the roots of what made the franchise so unique and entertaining in the first place, but the company apparently went one step further with being classic, all the way to yet another controversy, which it has quickly explained.
The main problem this time was that even while playing older titles, players were coming across random pop-up ads for the latest Assassin’s Creed instalment, but according to the developer and publisher, the advertisements were never meant to be there and they were completely unintentional. The ads specifically targeted the iconic Black Friday sale that takes the world by storm every year, during which Assassin’s Creed Mirage is available to purchase for much cheaper than usual.
For those somehow unfamiliar with why Assassin’s Creed Mirage was actually well received initially, it was because of the return of the series’ focus to the signature parkour and stealth elements that made older entries in the franchise, like Assassin’s Creed 2 featuring the beloved Ezio, so great.
It started to feel like Ubisoft was extremely confused about the direction in which it should have taken the newer games in the Assassin’s Creed series, leading to bloated role-playing aspects in titles like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. In fact, it was Odyssey players who reported the frustrating in-game advertisements for Assassin’s Creed Mirage that were popping up the moment they tried to access the map.
And that is not even the most unexpected part since Odyssey can still be considered a bit newer, but the Assassin’s Creed Mirage pop-up ads have also been witnessed by the player base of Assassin’s Creed Origins, which was released six years ago in 2017 and has not even received any updates for more than two years. It may have been unintentional, but it came across as a forced and intrusive marketing tactic by Ubisoft, and gamers did not exactly appreciate it.
It would have made just a little more sense to run the Assassin’s Creed Mirage ads in the game that came before it, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but the advertisements have not been reported by the latter’s players.
The Assassin’s Creed Mirage Ads Were a “Technical Error”
Ubisoft took to the official AC account on X to say that it has “been made aware that some players encountered a pop-up message in-game while playing certain Assassin’s Creed titles,” stating that the controversial Assassin’s Creed Mirage ads were “the result of a technical error.”
The developer and publisher tried reassuring the fans that the issue “has now been fixed.” Ubisoft’s explanation continued by claiming that:
Our intention was to display a promotion for Assassin’s Creed Mirage as part of the franchise news in the main menu of other Assassin’s Creed games. Unfortunately, this technical error caused the promotion to appear in one of our in-game menus instead.
Ubisoft apparently really cares about “the best player experience possible,” because of which it removed the “disruptive pop-ups” as soon as it found out about the problem. The company is looking into what caused the random Assassin’s Creed Mirage ads to show up.
As believable as all that sounds, not many people were exactly convinced by Ubisoft’s explanation, with one user stating that the publisher’s data probably indicates that “players will not tolerate this,” so it decided to back down.
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