Ubisoft announced a slew of Assassin’s Creed titles for the upcoming years. One of which is Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which drew some controversy due to prematurely listed ratings.
After its reveal, a listing on Xbox’s store gave everyone a surprise when it was rated by the ESRB as “AO”, which is generally reserved for titles that contain heavy pornographic content. As the apparent reasoning for this was for “real gambling”.
Loot boxes have garnered a lot of controversy over the years. Their inclusion in many games have led many to label the concept as gambling and encouraging of predatory behavior by gaming companies. Which has led to the passing of laws in countries banning it, regardless of those laws actual effect.
Due to this confusion, Ubisoft had to respond on the matter regarding Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Ubisoft noted the rating is a mistake, and that they are still pending a proper rating from the ESRB.
“Following the announcement of Assassin’s Creed Mirage during Ubisoft Forward, some store pages mistakenly displayed the game for pre-orders with an Adults Only ESRB rating,” Ubisoft said (via PCGamesN). “While Assassin’s Creed Mirage is still pending rating, Ubisoft wants to reassure players that no real gambling or loot boxes are present in the game.”
So it appears that no loot boxes will be present in their upcoming mainline title for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and that therefore the game won’t ship with an AO rating.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set to launch sometime in 2023 across Windows PC (via the Epic Games Store, the Ubisoft Store, and Amazon Luna), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.