Ubisoft’s anticipated action adventure Assassin’s Creed throwback, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, could be rated an unprecedented Adults Only by the ESRB, due to the inclusion of “real gambling”. The US ratings board classifies this as “betting or wagering real cash or currency”. This differs from “simulated gambling”, which is described as gambling “without betting or wagering real cash or currency”.
The rating first appeared on the Xbox Store, where we initially assumed it must be a mistake. However, eagle-eyed fans on ResetEra noticed that Ubisoft’s livestream yesterday was also marked as AO by the ESRB. Assuming all of this is accurate, it means there could be a way to gamble with real money within Mirage, although obviously we’ll check with the French publisher’s representatives and try to find out exactly what is going on here. Currently, there’s no rating listed on the PS Store.
Mirage is set in Baghdad, so it wouldn’t be unusual for there to be some kind of in-universe minigames, potentially inspired by historical wagers or gambling games. But you’d expect something like that to fall under the boundaries of “simulated gambling”, so we’re not entirely sure what’s going on here. The Xbox Store does also mention “in-game purchases”, but that’s par for the course these days, isn’t it? The number of AO-rated video games is vanishingly small, so it’ll be interesting to see if this is a mix-up or if Ubisoft really work turning up the temperature a notch.
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