Assassin's Creed publisher under fire for forcing adverts into older games

File this one under 'eww'. Players of older Assassin's Creed games have made a discovery that has the developer and publisher, Ubisoft, in hot water.

Posting the discovery to Reddit, the player shows them happily playing Assassin's Creed. However, when they bring up the map, they are greeted with a giant advert for Assassin's Creed Mirage and its Black Friday deal. Which is a bit gross.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is the latest title in the popular franchise

Don't get me wrong, Assassin's Creed Mirage is a brilliant game and deserves more players, but shoehorning in an advert is definitely the wrong thing to do. Adverts in games already feel out of place, but they're understandable in some titles. Sports games, for example, could be seen to emulate the real world, given the sponsorship deals and signs within stadiums and racetracks.

However, forcing them into a story-based game in the hope that someone might take advantage of a sale is not a good move. Especially when many title screens of games are already linking to storefronts in the hope players buy in-game currency, DLCs or adjacent games.

The Reddit comments alone suggest that Ubisoft swiftly backtrack on this idea; "Yeah, this kind of s**t should be considered unacceptable." One player confirms that this is from Ubisoft and not Microsoft stating "I got same screen on PS5 last night."

Sadly, the comments in the thread show that this sort of move is expected from Ubisoft who seem to continually step out of line or put their foot in it, "Of course it's Ubisoft. The same people who added grind to their games and then DLC to lessen said grind."

There has been no comment from Ubisoft on this yet, but given the blowback from fans, it wouldn't be surprising to see the adverts quietly pulled. That's the hope, anyway.