Some gamers playing older Assassin’s Creed games on their consoles were reportedly met with full-screen ads for the latest entry to the series while trying to access the in-game menus. Ubisoft has referred to this as a “technical error” and has since patched the games to fix it.
The issue was brought to the fore by Rock Paper Shotgun, which claimed that console players of older Assassin’s Creed games like Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla were witnessing Black Friday ad pop-ups for Assassin’s Creed Mirage while trying to access in-game menus.
A video posted to Reddit by user ‘triddell24’ shows the full-screen ad referring to a 20 percent off Black Friday offer on Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Players could either dismiss the ad or click on the Buy Now button.
On X, Ubisoft wrote, “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.”
A similar incident has taken place before as well. In 2019, ads popped up for an Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC while gamers were busy playing other Assassin’s Creed games. Ubisoft’s response at that time was the same, with the incident being attributed to a glitch.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage was launched in October this year with gameplay features reminiscent of the first few games from the series. Set in 9th-century Baghdad, the story follows a street thief named Basim Ibn Ishaq, who joins the Hidden Ones to fight for peace and liberty.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is available now for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The game is also scheduled to hit iOS devices next year.