A new in-game ad for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s second big expansion wouldn’t be so annoying if it didn’t appear repeatedly every time I paused checked my map or tried to access my inventory. While we’ve found a fix, the whole thing feels like marketing run amok.
I first encountered this ad while doing the free prologue quest leading up to the start of the new downloadable expansion. The advertisement told me to “Play the Fate of Atlantis Episode 1 now!”
I thought little of it until it started to show up any time I entered the menu. Want to check my quest log to see where to go next? Advertisement. Need to mark a location on my map? Boom, there it was. Changing gear? “Play the Fate of Atlantis Episode 1 now!”
The advertisement has two options to select. Both of them are marked “close,” so you’d think they would do the same thing. Wrong. If I pressed the circle button on my Playstation 4 I could close it.
If I pressed the X button, I was taken to the PSN store to purchase the new downloadable content. The catch was that I had the new episode installed and the advertisement showed up even while I explored the new zone.
Glitched or not, the ad is intrusive and feels manipulative. It’s the sort of thing I might see in a sketchy browser game online or a microtransaction-driven mobile game.
Kotaku has contacted Ubisoft to ask about the advertisement and whether or not it is a glitch. My boss Stephen Totilo and I tested various scenarios to see when the ad would show. It showed both when I had Fate of Atlantis downloaded and while it was not installed on our office Playstation 4. We did not get to test this on Xbox or PC.
The good news is that there seems to be a simple fix to getting rid of this: you simply need to close you application and start it up again. The advertisement should stop showing up every time you pause. We can’t say for sure if this works if you don’t own the DLC but will update if we get clarification on that.
Annoying ad aside, I’m enjoying Fate of Atlantis. It offers a whole new area to explore, is packed with tough enemies, and has major connections to Assassins’ Creed’s trippy lore. This advertisement is not the end of the world, but it’s frustrating and the confusing close/close options feel a bit underhanded.
If it shows up for you, try restarting your game. If it keeps showing, let us know in the comments. Fate of Atlantis seems promising so far, but has left a sour taste in my mouth.
Comments
11 responses to “A New Annoying Ad Keeps Popping Up In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”
Oh the irony!
Make sure though you check out cosplayers selfie tips.
one is a paid product selling another product, the other is a free website using ads to make sure their team of journalists get a salary for the time they spent at work…
That being said, I think Kotaku is one of the places (given how much time I spend reading it) that I’d pay for a premium no ad version…
Yeah, no. The way some places run their advertising is inexcusable, paid content or not.
Kotaku is absolutely in the inexcusable category, and they really have no leg to stand on when complaining about others advertising anything, ever.
Kotaku has a big problem with ads, sometimes I need to turn on Ad Blocker to see how many ads and it has reached up to 24 at one point.
Come on guys…
While we’re at it, Gizmodo could use a comment section.
I had that problem a while back, but recently have had no ads at all, yet I see people such as your self saying you’re seeing a heap… This leads me to believe that it might have something to do with cookies, and clearing them out may change things. No idea tho.
Might try that.
Things that kills me is if I choose to go back there’s no article, just the ads and a banner saying “check out these ads before you go” or something.
Hello pot! Have you met kettle?
Sorry for double post ????
Not the first time Odyssey has done this. The last time only lasted a week or so, so here’s hoping.
52 ads on each Kotaku Article when using mobile… Fifty two.