Older Ubisoft games: Online services for Anno 2070 and 14 other game titles will be terminated

Ubisoft announces that it will stop the online services of a total of 15 mostly older games as of September 1, 2022. In most cases, this will mean an optional multiplayer mode and a few other online features, but some titles will no longer be able to be installed or played from that point on.

The focus is on more profitable games

The publisher justifies the move with a focus on newer games: Ubisoft wants to “concentrate its resources on this” [sic], to provide great experiences for players playing newer or more popular titles”. Apparently, there is no economic benefit to be seen in the continued existence of the online functionalities for the 15 games. Affected are, for example, the development strategy game Anno 2070 (test), which took place in the future for the first time in 2011, and Assassin’s Creed 2, which was released in 2009 and is remembered by many fans of the series as an excellent game. The full list of all affected titles is as follows:

• year 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
• distant cry 3
• Ghost Recon Future Soldier
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Rayman Legends
• Silent fighter 5
• space junkies
• Splinter Cell: Blacklist
• ZombieU

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD, and Driver San Francisco (test) should no longer be available to install from September. The same goes for Assassin’s Creed 3 (test) and Far Cry 3 (test), but Ubisoft is offering both titles in a remastered version unaffected by the changes. The arcade shooter Space Junkies, which wasn’t released until March 2019, becomes completely unplayable – it’s a pure multiplayer title. An overview of platform-dependent restrictions is provided in Ubisoft’s Official Announcement.

Anno 2070 will receive a compensation update

In the case of Anno 2070, the responsible developers of Ubisoft Blue Byte Mainz would at least like to use an update to mitigate some of the negative impacts, as Anno Union is communicated. It must be ensured that at least some of the “functions can continue to be used after the specified date”. The studio has not yet said what that will be – the developer cannot guarantee that all online services can be replaced. In the coming weeks and months, Blue Byte wants to be more specific about this.

After an initial investigation, we decided to use some of our developer resources to upgrade Anno 2070’s legacy Online Services infrastructure to a new system so that these features can be used beyond the stated date. However, we cannot currently guarantee that we will be able to successfully upgrade or replace all legacy services. […]

We’ll keep you updated on the future of Anno 2070 in the coming weeks and months. Ubisoft Blue Byte Mainz

Mark Goodman

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