Highlights

  • An intrusive ad for Assassin's Creed Mirage appeared in Odyssey, popping up when its players attempt to open the game's map.
  • Ubisoft has been employing such in-game ads in Assassin's Creed entries since Origins.
  • The ad will presumably be removed no later than November 29, when the Black Friday 2023 deal on Mirage that it's advertising is set to end.

Ubisoft has started pushing a fairly aggressive ad for Assassin's Creed Mirage in at least one of its older franchise entries, as revealed by a newly emerged video showing Odyssey surfacing one such promo after the player attempts to open its map. Since Assassin's Creed Odyssey was last updated in late 2021, it would appear that the ad wasn't baked into the game, and could consequently be circumvented.

While in-game advertisements have long been prevalent in the gaming space, most publishers remain content with limiting ads to free-to-play games. Ubisoft is somewhat of an outlier in this respect, at least when it comes to promoting its own products. Namely, in-game ads have commonly appeared in all the mainline Assassin's Creed installments since Origins.

Assassin's Creed Codename Red September 2022 teaser logo upscaled
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Assassin's Creed Mirage Black Friday Ad Sighted in Odyssey

This aggressive marketing strategy continues to this day, as evidenced by some newly surfaced Assassin's Creed Odyssey footage shared by Reddit user triddell24. The 10-second clip shows the player attempting to open the in-game map, only to be greeted with a full-screen ad for a 20% discount on Mirage that launched as part of Ubisoft's Black Friday 2023 video game deals. While the footage itself was posted to the r/XboxOne subreddit, its author appears to be an Xbox Series X user. Reddit user CryostaticLT reported that they also encountered the same ad while playing the PS5 version of Odyssey on November 22.

Playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey Offline Should Circumvent the Mirage Ad

Ubisoft historically pushed out platform-agnostic in-game promos, with that track record being consistent with these newly emerged player claims from both PlayStation and Xbox users. But since Odyssey hasn't received an update in two years, it stands to reason that this particular ad is reliant on an internet connection. As such, it should be possible to avoid it by playing the game offline.

Although the three RPG installments in the Assassin's Creed franchise have perpetually featured in-game advertisements for other series entries and DLC, this particular Mirage promo still hasn't been sighted beyond Odyssey. Game ZXC was unable to find any such in-game ads in the latest PC version of Valhalla, except for a single Ubisoft Store link featured in its main menu on November 23, which directed users to the game's own armor DLC instead of Assassin's Creed Mirage.

As for the newly spotted Odyssey advertisement for Mirage, dozens of fans reacting to its sighting on Reddit labeled it as everything from intrusive to a reason for permanently uninstalling the game. The Ubisoft Store page for Mirage reveals that its Black Friday sale ends on November 29, so this controversial Assassin's Creed ad will presumably be removed from Odyssey no later than then.