Hello, I play AC Valhalla on PS4 Pro.
Every time I launch the game, before main menu appears, there is a long screen with "checking for add-ons" lettering. Every time. I measured it today and it takes 70 seconds.
Even without this nuisance, the loading times of this game are very long and it takes four and a half (!) minutes to load the game (from launching the game till the moment I can actually control the character). This "checking for add-ons" thing only makes this process longer than necessary.
So I have questions:

1. Why it's taking so long?
2. Why do you have to "check for add-ons" every time in the first place? I mean, how often there is a new add-on? There were only three major ones since the game's release. Is it necessary to bother players with it every time they launch the game? Why not "check" for it like once a month or make an option to turn it off?

Thank you for your explanation.

@GreyDadel 70 seconds is short compared with previous points in time - but yeah, I wonder about that sometimes, what IS it doing?!

@Ubi-oof It doesn't actually sound to me that there is a problem, not exactly; the game just works like that for whatever reason. It's slower than that on my Xbox One X. The question's been raised before, more than once I think.

I totally agree with you. When I start up the game, I mash my keyboard to get the loading to start, then I leave to get food, drink, or do some chores. Sometimes I get distracted and never end up playing at all.

A much more knowledgeable player than me once explained that every time they add new stuff to the store, that its also an "add-on". So the load time is infinitesimally inflated every time they make a new flaming sword or wyvern. They could probably optimize it, but I'm sure its more of a priority to push out new unicorns.

@lemmie88

What? It checks whether we own each and every thing in the shop? Is that what whoever it was suggested? That is crazy if so.

@SpirantCrayon22
Yes, it checks for helix store items. I don't know how it works, but it was implied that its not necessarily the number of items that's problematic, but that its inefficient about consolidating them into fewer chunks to check.

What I can't fathom about the whole system is why the player is forced to press a key before the 'checking for add-ons' even starts - why is this not happening in the background while the rest of the loading/splash screens etc go on? As a piece of UI design, it seems a bizarrely backward 'feature', making the player do more waiting when pretty much every other game just loads straight to the main menu (or, if prompted to 'press any key', does at least then take you immediately to the main menu instead of enforcing another lengthy wait). I am inclined to believe there must actually be a good reason for it, devs generally not being sadists, but for the life of me I can't think what that would be.

@the_Kettle I removed all the splash screens from the folders of my game, because in AC Valhalla, Ubisoft made them unskippable, which is really bad joke. But hey, i'm on PC.

As for the "Checking for addons" thing, the question was clearly placed @Ubi-oof @Ubi-MrM @Ubi-TheBerry and that is why the "checking for addons" thing must be there in the first place, when other games that has some addons/DLCs does not check for addons like that on the startup? So, please, stop avoiding the question and answer it with honesty.