Did you know that microtransactions make games more fun? That might seem like a dubious statement, but it was one Ubisoft was more than happy to put its name to last year. However, it appears the company might have learned a lesson from the pushback it subsequently endured across the internet: as complaints around the newly released Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced’s microtransactions make headlines, it’s been noticed Ubisoft’s widely mocked “more fun” sentiment is conspicuously absent from its latest financial report.
Black Flag Resynced came under fire last week after players discovered the £49.99 single-player game (£59.99 if you’ve opted for the Deluxe Edition) launched with around £75 of microtransactions. Some of these fall into the cosmetics camp, while others are gameplay focused, providing time-saving shortcuts for busy types willing to fork over an extra bit of cash.
Ubisoft has been doing this kind of thing for years, of course, but the company was widely pillaried last July when it told investors these kinds of microtransactions helped make its games “more fun”. Specifically, it argued its monetisation approach to premium games “makes the player experience more fun by allowing them to personalise their avatars or progress more quickly.” While investors were reaching climax over that questionable proclamation, internet eyes were rolled.
Perhaps to save itself from another bout of slightly incredulous mockery, no such sentiment (as noted by Stephen Totilo’s Game File) has appeared in Ubisoft’s 356-page Universal Registration Document 2025-26. It’s a pretty conspicuous omission too, given the Group Business Model and Strategy section is near-identical to last year’s. Only, now, one paragraph stops short: “At Ubisoft, the golden rule when developing premium games is to allow players to enjoy the game in full without having to spend more,” the company writes. The subsequent “more fun” line is nowhere to be found.
Ubisoft’s response to player criticism around Black Flag Resynced last week also stopped short of arguing microtransactions are great, actually. “Thank you for caring this much about [the game],” it said. “We want to be clear on one point: the standard edition is the full, complete experience. Every mission, every island, the full story and the complete world are all there, with nothing held back. The additional packs are entirely optional extras for players who want them, never a requirement to enjoy or complete the game.”
Elsewhere in Ubisoft’s financial report, the company has reiterated previous statements that it’s continuing to accelerate investments in Teammates, its “first playable Generative AI experience”, which it announced as an AI “experiment” back in 2025. It also repeated the investor-giddying assertion its “teams are making tangible progress organically on AI applications that can help manage the growing complexity of modern game development pipelines”. These, it added, range from “more intelligent bots supporting our [quality control] teams, to smarter NPCs and game worlds that can adapt to player behaviour and react more dynamically in real time.”
As for Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, it’s doing good numbers for Ubisoft: the company touted 2m sales for its remake of the 2013 original over the weekend. Eurogamer’s Dom Peppiat wasn’t quite so enthusiastic in their Black Flag Resynced review, however, calling it a “perfectly fine way of experiencing this tale”, even if some of the new additions and changes (hello microtransactions) “are not universally positive”.
