Ubisoft workers have raised considerations across the firm’s partnership with Saudi Arabia to create new Assassin’s Creed Mirage DLC, a recent report has revealed.
The upcoming content material was first reported on again in January by a French monetary newspaper, Les Echoes, which acknowledged that the DLC had obtained funding from Saudi Arabia’s controversial Public Funding Fund (PIF). Ubisoft did not respond to me when requested for touch upon that report on the time.
Months later, Ubisoft quietly introduced the DLC itself in late August, in a social media put up despatched out early one Saturday morning. The transient reveal confirmed that the add-on would see Mirage hero Basim visiting AlUla, an historic website that is now certainly one of Saudi Arabia’s cultural highlights.
In an inner Q&A shared with Ubisoft employees and printed by GameFile, an worker requested if administration believed partnering with Saudi Arabia, particularly following the killing and dismemberment of Washington Publish journalist Jamal Khashoggi, would tarnish the corporate’s picture.
Administration responded by addressing the truth that Guillemot had just lately visited Saudi Arabia as a part of a delegation alongside French president Emmanual Macron, however dismissed this as a “traditional diplomatic instrument for increasing France’s affect and attain world wide” that will assist disseminate the nation’s values.
As for the origins of the DLC, the administration response to the question merely acknowledged Ubisoft did “not touch upon rumors.”
Assassin’s Creed Mirage gamers, we’ve got a shock coming your means later this 12 months!
đ New story chapter & missions set in ninth century AlUla
đŽ Gameplay enhancements for the bottom recreation and the brand new location
đ All for freeKeep tuned! pic.twitter.com/8CjB3MRvfR
â Assassin’s Creed (@assassinscreed) August 23, 2025
Ubisoft administration additionally tried to attract a distinction between the nation’s chief and chairman of the PIF, Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and the PIF itself. “The latter’s cash isn’t MBS’s, and speaking with companions who don’t share our democratic values ââdoesn’t imply abandoning them,” the corporate’s response reads.
GameFile experiences that Guillemot visited Saudi Arabia once more final month to talk on the New International Sport Convention and announce Mirage’s AlUla DLC on the occasion (one thing which additionally explains the weird timing of the information being made public on the identical time, albeit with no point out of Guillemot’s speech).
“We’re working with AlUla, which is a UNESCO website, which isn’t identified but very a lot,” Guillemote stated, saying the DLC on the Saudi occasion. “However we’re creating content material that shall be given for free to gamers that play Mirage, and they’ll have the ability to go in that website.
“As you possibly can see, they are going to have the ability to play there, to have a narrative on this setting. I’m positive they are going to love this area, simply additionally as a result of it has been achieved with specialists [of] archaeology, actually those who know what occurred then and why it was so necessary.”
IGN just lately requested Ubisoft for extra element on the matter and was informed that, as with each Assassin’s Creed recreation, it had artistic management on the proposed content material. This title replace to Murdererâs Creed Mirage was “made doable due to the help of native and worldwide organisations,” Ubisoft added, “by way of entry to specialists, historians and assets to make sure the creation of an genuine and correct setting.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You may attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social