Ubisoft Threatened to Sue Its Own Star, Then Made It a Promo

Last May, a fan met Assassin's Creed: Black Flag voice actor Matt Ryan at the Nightmare Weekend convention and recorded him asking if they'd beaten the game, followed by a knowing "Well you might have to beat it again." A month later, another fan brought it up, and Ryan revealed he hadn't known he was being recorded. He also alleged that "the company threatened to sue me."

Fast forward to today, and the official Ubi-AssassinsCreed account on Reddit has posted a short video recreating that exact moment. Ryan signs something, asks "Have you beat the game?" and delivers the same line, except this time he holds up the release date for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced before adding: "You're gonna have to beat it again."

The corporate whiplash here is absurd. Ubisoft allegedly threatened legal action against the star of its own game for a casual comment at a fan convention, then circled back a year later to package that same slip-up as cute marketing content. I struggle to think of another publisher that has pivoted this hard from cease-and-desist energy to "hey, remember that funny thing?" in twelve months flat.

To Ubisoft's credit, the company has at least leaned into the joke consistently. When a fresh leak surfaced earlier this year, the official account responded with the San Andreas "Ah, shit, here we go again" meme. When the game was finally announced, they called it their "worst-kept secret." But there's a difference between laughing off leaks and allegedly threatening to sue the guy who voices your protagonist, then asking him to re-enact the incident for a promo reel.

Black Flag Resynced launches in July with reworked combat, revamped tailing missions, and roughly six hours of new content, according to details shared by game director Richard Knight. The remake is also available to wishlist on Steam.