Assassin’s Creed developers Ubisoft quietly introduced Story Creator Mode for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey during E3 last month. While the new game mode largely went unnoticed, it has been used to allow some players to exploit Story Creator Mode as an XP farming tool. Today, Ubisoft announced an end to the practice.
On Ubisoft’s official forums, the team released a public statement forbidding the practice of XP farming for Story Creator Mode. The new terms of use for Odyssey will bar players from misusing the game mode and will sanction players who abuse the system, e.g., with suspensions and bans. Ubisoft also announced they were developing new mechanics to prevent XP farming quests from being published in the game.
While Ubisoft bans the practice of XP farming in Story Creator, they still sell XP boosters on their official in-game store. Effectively, the developer’s position has become: XP boosing is okay when you buy it from us, but not when you try to do it on your own.
“These exploits risk jeopardizing the overall quality, integrity, and purpose of Story Creator Mode,” Ubisoft said in their official statement. “We are working on fixes and adjustments to reduce the impact of such farming quests on the player experience.”
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was first released last year in October for Windows PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. (As well as for the Nintendo Switch, but only in Japan.) The latest update, the Story Creator Mode, was released almost as an afterthought from Ubisoft, who introduced it during their pre-show conference last month at E3. But the update has a lot to offer beyond the potential for XP farming.
The Story Creator Mode is pretty extensive. It allows players to design quests featuring any characters from within the game and to write their own dialogues for the questlines. So the possibilities for new gameplay are practically limitless. Those quests can then be shared with the greater Odyssey community.
How will Odyssey‘s players react to the new rules? It’s up to the fans to decide if XP boosters are fair for developers to offer up as microtransaction content while simultaneously disallowing gamers to develop their own questlines to boost the leveling of their characters.
A better question might be this: how will Ubisoft’s decision affect the game itself? Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey players will have to wait to see how Ubisoft decides to define XP farming and how restrictive the new rules will be on creating quests in Story Creator Mode.
