Ubisoft announced they will be removing the sales of certain game titles and shutting down the online services for them.
It seems to be a sad day for fans of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. This morning, on July 11, social media users quickly pointed to how Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD will be removed from Steam later this year. Both Steam and Ubisoft have confirmed the game would be entirely delisted from the online store as of September 1— meaning it would not be available to purchase or play after this date.
The news gets even more dreary as other Ubisoft games are on the chopping block. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Splinter Cell Blacklist are two big titles from the developers that were also flagged to be delisted on September 1. The developer also explained that players will be unable to link their Ubisoft accounts in-game or online with the listed games.
Ubisoft issued a more detailed statement to GamesRadar+, “We don’t take the decision to retire services for older Ubisoft games lightly, and our teams are currently assessing all available options for players who will be impacted when these games’ online services are decommissioned on September 1st, 2022.”
Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic and Space Junkies are two examples of games already delisted on Steam. If players were to search for the game, the notice would read, “At the request of the publisher, Space Junkies/Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic is no longer available for sale on Steam.”
“We are also working with our partners to update this information across all storefronts, so players will be fully informed about the removal of online services at the point of purchase as well as via our support article where we shared the news,” the representative at Ubisoft explained.
This could be problematic for players who recently purchased the game on PC since the installation and access to DLC for Liberation HD would be unavailable. Ubisoft has not mentioned anything about issuing refunds for their customers. Most importantly, this would set a new precedent for the Steam platform known for offering refunds when games are proven to fail the expectations of customers.
If companies could revoke access to players’ games at any time, it could spell a scary future for online services and cloud gaming platforms. While this would not affect physical copies, any DLC that would be accessed digitally would be rendered useless. It is a strange decision made since Liberation HD was put on sale for the Steam summer sale.
It could be possible that the company is clearing out their servers to support future games, but nothing is certain to reason this is happening yet. While there has not been a full release from Ubisoft, here is a collective list of the games being affected on Steam:
- Anno 2070: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features
- Assassin’s Creed 2: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features
- Assassin’s Creed 3 (Remaster not affected): multiplayer, linking accounts, online features, DLC access
- Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features, DLC access
- Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features, DLC access
- Assassin’s Creed Revelations: multiplayer, online features
- Driver San Francisco: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features, DLC access
- Far Cry 3 (Remaster not affected): multiplayer, linking accounts, online features, DLC access
- Ghost Recon Future Soldier: multiplayer, to play single-player campaign you’ll need to put the console in offline mode
- Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features, DLC access
- Rayman Legends: linking accounts, online features
- Silent Hunter 5: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features
- Space Junkies: entire game
- Splinter Cell: Blacklist: multiplayer, linking accounts, online features
- ZombiU: linking accounts, online features
