In a nutshell: Ubisoft will decommission the servers of 15 games in the next two months, including some of the most popular entries in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Most of these titles are about a decade old, so there are likely not that many people still playing the multiplayer components. However, users also won't be able to download DLCs they previously bought for these games.
Ubisoft has announced that it plans to decommission the online services for 15 games on September 1. Users won't be able to play the multiplayer and co-op modes in these games anymore, linking accounts and online features will stop working, and worst of all, players will outright lose access to DLC they bought.
Here's the full list of affected games:
- Anno 2070
- Assassin's Creed 2
- Assassin's Creed 3
- Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
- Assassin's Creed Liberation HD
- Assassin's Creed Revelations
- Driver San Francisco
- Far Cry 3
- Ghost Recon Future Soldier
- Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
- Rayman Legends
- Silent Hunter 5
- Space Junkies
- Splinter Cell: Blacklist
- ZombiU
The online components of these games will stop working on PC, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and Xbox 360. The remastered editions of both Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 will continue to work just as before, although you'll have to purchase them if you only own the original versions.
While most of these titles are about a decade old, Space Junkies is a notable outlier, as it launched three years ago. It's a multiplayer-only VR game, and for some reason, Ubisoft is still selling it (for as much as $20) without even mentioning that it will become completely unplayable in two months.
It isn't the first time Ubisoft has done this, either.
Earlier this year, it disabled online functionality and unlockable content, such as maps and skins, in other 90+ games. It will be interesting to see if the company's titles containing NFT-based items will suffer a similar fate. These kinds of practices explain why Ubisoft is one of the most hated brands in the gaming industry.