Assassin’s Creed: Unity DLC bundled free with… shaving gel

Ubisoft has brokered a new deal to extend the brand reach of its lucrative Assassin’s Creed franchise… to the bathroom.

The Facebook page of Edge shaving gel, which is made by the folk who make Energizer batteries, pictures three limited edition cans. Each carries some Assassin’s Creed decoration and includes a code to unlock one of three pieces of DLC for the game – a sword, some armour or a hood.

Ubisoft has since the debut of the first Assassin’s Creed in 2007 done an almost unparalleled job of steering the brand from plucky newcomer to triple-A behemoth in just seven years, producing six main games (with two more to come this month) and over ten spin-off titles.

While of course part of this success is down to the mostly brilliant games themselves, it is also down to the way in which Ubisoft has succeeded in making the brand a mainstream proposition – and deals such as the Edge gel promotion are part of that.

There’s a balance, however, and mainstream reach can often come at the price of agitating the core market.

A recent NeoGaf thread entitled ‘Post a single image that you feel perfectly sums up the modern games industry’ saw brand promotion feature heavily, as well as the modern trend of segmenting content behind a wide assortment of premium promotions and an ever increasing number of SKUs.

Ubisoft featured prominently in the thread, with users drawing attention to, among other things, Ubisoft’s nine separate Watch Dogs SKUs (and Season Pass) and another recent Assassin’s Creed pre-order promotion.