Ubisoft: My Life As A NPC
Ubisoft needed to generate massive social media engagement for the launch of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. DDB Paris was tasked with reaching a marketing-averse gaming audience tired of traditional cinematic trailers. The goal was to showcase the unprecedented scale and detail of the game's Ancient Greek world while building a more authentic, humorous connection with the community.
Creative Idea
Mistreated background characters hijacked social media to complain about players using modern influencer tropes.
To launch Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Ubisoft gave a voice to the game's mistreated NPCs by letting them take over social media. By adopting influencer tropes to complain about players, the campaign turned background characters into relatable, hilarious brand ambassadors.
Giving the Most Mistreated Characters a Voice
From Background Assets to Social Influencers
To bridge the gap between Ancient Greece and 2018 social media, DDB Paris and Makemepulse developed a custom, lightweight motion capture and face-tracking rig. This technical innovation allowed the team to map real human expressions onto 3D game assets in real-time. By recording actors mimicking the "selfie" style of Instagram influencers, the production team enabled NPCs to perform modern behaviors like face swaps, memes, and boomerangs while maintaining the high visual fidelity of the game engine.
Breaking Records with NPC Rants
The campaign achieved an all-time high engagement rate of +138%, becoming Ubisoft’s best-performing social activation at the time. The agency produced 22 unique clips specifically for Facebook and Instagram Stories, where characters like a Shepherd, a Courtesan, and a Spartan soldier complained about their "work-life balance." One standout asset featured a full-length NPC rap video where a character settled scores with players for constant looting and accidental killings.
Meta Humor and Hidden Grievances
The creative team leaned into long-running jokes within the gaming community to ensure authenticity. One NPC went viral for complaining about being constantly mistaken for a trash can by players looking for loot, while a Spartan soldier ranted about the physical toll of never being allowed to remove his heavy helmet. By acknowledging the "suffering" of these characters, the brand successfully parodied influencer culture to connect with a marketing-averse audience. Chief Creative Officer Alexander Kalchev noted that while Ubisoft historically celebrates lead heroes, it was time these "barely acknowledged characters" got the recognition they deserved.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
A massive, detailed open world filled with thousands of unique, interactive background characters.
Category
Gaming marketing usually focuses exclusively on the hero, the action, and the epic storyline.
Customer
Players love the game's scale but often treat the world as a consequence-free playground for chaos.
Culture
The rise of influencer culture and the NPC meme provided a perfect lens to humanize virtual victims.
Company
A massive, detailed open world filled with thousands of unique, interactive background characters.
Category
Gaming marketing usually focuses exclusively on the hero, the action, and the epic storyline.
Strategy:
Humanize the background elements of a product to demonstrate the depth and realism of the entire experience.
Customer
Players love the game's scale but often treat the world as a consequence-free playground for chaos.
Culture
The rise of influencer culture and the NPC meme provided a perfect lens to humanize virtual victims.
Strategy:
Humanize the background elements of a product to demonstrate the depth and realism of the entire experience.
Results
The campaign achieved the best reach ever for Ubisoft on social media, including 3.71 million on Facebook and 2.5 million on Instagram. It also reached an all-time high engagement rate of +116%. The video showcases positive sentiment through various user comments like 'This is fuck*** brilliant' and 'Didn't know that a NPC could be that funny!'
3.71M
Facebook reach
2.5M
Instagram reach
+116%
engagement rate increase
Strategy Technique
Create a Parallel World
By treating the game world as a real place with labor issues and social media, Ubisoft made the virtual environment feel more immersive and alive than a standard trailer.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Spotlight the Overlooked
It shifts the focus from the heroic protagonist to the background characters who are usually ignored. By humanizing these NPCs, it highlights the game's immense detail and living world.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
The campaign excels by humanizing background game assets through witty copywriting and a clever use of modern social media formats to expand the game's lore.
The scripts for the NPCs are genuinely funny, using meta-humor about gaming tropes (pixels, indie games, player behavior) to create relatable characters.
The seamless integration of game characters into social media environments using filters and vertical video feels authentic to the platforms used.
The synergy between the humorous writing and the digital execution on social platforms turned background characters into legitimate brand influencers.
