Ubisoft Assures Users That Decommissioned Games Will Remain Playable Offline
Last week, Ubisoft announced its plans to decommission online functionalities for some of its older games in September. More recent announcements, however, have raised concerns on whether players will still be able to access their games after the fact, particularly Assassins Creed: Liberation HD, Silent Hunter 5, and Space Junkies.
Notices on the game’s respective Steam pages apparently stated that: “[…] This title will not be accessible following September 1st, 2022.” In comparison, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Splinter Cell Blacklist, two other games that were having their online features removed, came with a notice that read: “The deluxe edition and DLC for this title will not be accessible following September 1st, 2022.”
Ubisoft, however, was quick to address the issue and assure players that they’ll still be able to play, access, or re-download the affected games and the said notices have been changed to reflect this. “DLC for this product and online elements and features will become unavailable, as of Sept 1st, 2022. The base game will continue to be playable,” reads the new notice. Here’s the French publisher’s official statement to IGN:
“As stated in our support article, only DLCs and online features will be affected by the upcoming decommissioning. Current owners of those games will still be able to access, play or redownload them. Our teams are working with our partners to update this information across all storefronts and are also assessing all available options for players who will be impacted when these games’ online services are decommissioned on September 1st, 2022. It has always been our intention to do everything in our power to allow those legacy titles to remain available in the best possible conditions for players, and this is what we are working towards.”
The community’s concerns aren’t entirely without basis as Ubisoft apparently isn’t above permanently removing access from purchased games. The publisher had reportedly deleted an inactive users account last year even when it had hundreds of dollars of purchased games. Sony’s recent removal of purchased movies from PlayStation Store user libraries in Germany and Austria has only served to heighten concerns about the perceived expiration date for purchased digital content.
