Summary
One day after rumors began swirling thatAssassin’s Creed Mirage, the 2023 budget-and-user-friendly title,would be receiving a DLC expansion that would be funded in part by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Ubisoft issued a comment.
In a statement shared with Eurogamer, aUbisoftspokesperson did not outright deny the claims that were made, nor did they seemingly offer any more detail. Rather, the company had this to say:
“We’ll decline to comment,” the representative said. “We are focused on finishing Assassin’s Creed Shadows and excited for players to get to play it on 20th March.”
How We Got Here
On Sunday, a French newspaper, Les Echos, reported that Savvy Games, the video game investment arm of Saudi Arabia’s PIF, had agreed to fund a DLC expansion for Mirage. According to the report,the group’s leadership allegedly met with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot during which some sort of agreement was made and a decision to move forward with DLC was executed.
Saudi’s Interest In Gaming Has Been Noted
As TheGamer has reported on in the past, Saudi Arabia has made several significant moves when it comes to investing in video games. Among notable investmentsinclude an 8.58 percent stake in Nintendo,8.97 percent in Koei Tecmo,$3 billion invested in Activision, EA and Take-Two, plus$1 billion each in Capcom and Nexon, as wellas Embracer Groupto go along withcomplete ownership of SNK.
Equally noted have been Ubisoft’s ongoing struggles.On Monday, Ubisoft Leamington was shut down and 185 employees across the board were laid off. Before that,live-service title XDefiant was shut down, with its developer as well, along with Ubisoft offices in San Francisco and Osaka. InOctober, a buyout was rumored between the company and Tencent, thoughin early January, those plans were reportedly put on hold.
All of that is to say, that without clear confirmation one way or the other from Ubisoft, it’s hard to see what the endgame is. Saudi Arabia’s interest in gaming is ever present, and Ubisoft has been experiencing hardships. A partnership doesn’t seem as far-fetched, though only time will tell what does end up happening.
