If your game library is full of Ubisoft titles, you may want to reevaluate which of them you’ll actually be able to play come September 1st. That’s because the studio is ending various forms of multiplayer support on 15 of its long-running titles.
“Closing the online services for some older games allows us to focus our resources on delivering great experiences for players who are playing newer or more popular titles,” the studio said.
Some of the titles slated for multiplayer decommissioning are Far Cry 3, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Assassin’s Creed 2 and 3, and Ghost Recon Future Soldier, although we note some of the games on the list have already lost multiplayer facets long before now (Ubisoft has a tendency to republish the list in bulk and remove functionality in stages, so these announcements get confusing in a hurry). Either way, this move will end remaining multiplayer support on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.
Worth noting is that not all of the games are going quietly; the devs at Ubisoft Mainz who built Anno 2070 are apparently trying to ensure it keeps running in spite of the closure. “[A]fter an initial investigation, we have decided to dedicate some of our development resources to work on upgrading Anno 2070’s aged online services infrastructure to a new system, so that these features can continue to be used past the mentioned date,” the team writes. “However, we cannot yet guarantee that we’ll be able to successfully upgrade/replace the old services as we’d like to. Please note that until September 1st, the current online services will still be fully available. We will provide more detailed updates on the future of Anno 2070 in the coming weeks and months.”
While one Twitter user warns players not to buy these games, which are apparently still inexplicably for sale:
so Ubisoft is just shutting down their old games
they're still for sale
they're singleplay games
but after Sept 1st you can't play them
you can't launch them, you can't do anything
why would anyone every buy a Ubisoft or AAA game ever again if this can happen
— Windows 98 Tech Support (@Win98Tech) July 10, 2022
