It’s been reported that a variety of video games are planning to weave stay at home messages into their titles to try and compel players to not break curfew rules.

The ‘stay home, save lives’ mantra is part of a joint effort with the UK government to ram home the crucial message – even to those who are, lets face it, less likely than some to break the rules in the first place!

Candy Crush Saga, DiRT Rally and Farm Heroes Saga are the first to confirm they’ll be displaying the messages. It’s not clear exactly what form these ads will take in scores of wildly different titles, however we do know that DiRT Rally will feature banners on the sides of roads as you play.

Toby Evan-Jones, vice president of business development at Codemasters, said: “We came to realise that technology within our games, which enables the remote updating of banners within the virtual environment, could be repurposed to assist with the coronavirus communication effort.”

According to the UK’s culture department 37 million people play games, and with over 2000 games companies in the country there’s a lot of potential ads that will be popping up very soon to remind you of the rules.

The UK’s Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden remarked: “I’m delighted to see the UK’s brilliant video games industry stepping up to strongly reinforce this message to gamers across the UK.”

Let’s just hope developers don’t get lazy and throw annoying pop up ads at us while we’re raiding…