Ubisoft has published a new support document that can confirm the publisher will be shutting down the multiplayer and online services for 15 of its older games on September 1, 2022. The titles that Ubisoft will be pulling the plug on include Assassin’s Creed II, Far Cry 3, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, the most recent mainline game in the stealth franchise that released in 2013 and starred a younger Sam Fisher. Players will no longer be able to play multiplayer, use their online features, link them to their Ubisoft accounts, and/or install and access their DLC this coming September. This marks the second round of server closures from Ubisoft this year, with the company having shut down online services for over 90 games in April. That list included classics such as Rainbow Six Vegas and Beyond Good and Evil.
Decommissioning of online services (September 2022)
- 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
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. To help us achieve this, a number of older titles will be added to our list of decommissioned online services on 1 September 2022. [Above] you will find a detailed breakdown for the effects of this new round of decommissions per platform.
Source: Ubisoft
Not being able to access DLCs however is an issue. They never told you that you are only leasing them and not actually buying them.
As far as publishers go, I think I've spent the most time playing ubisoft games. Rainbow 6, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Far Cry, unfortunately the current state is pretty bad for all of these franchises.
Rainbow 6 didn't have a decent entry since Vegas 2, they tried to turn Ghost Recon into a looter shooter, then an NFT game. And I think they are learning the wrong lessons from both of those failures. Splinter Cell didn't have an entry since 2013. Far Cry games are lacklustre reskins of previous ones since Far Cry 3. And Assassin's Creed has also embraced the quantity over quality approach. Still I never learn, except may be for Far Cry if they announced a new game in any of these franchises I'd be looking forward to it.
Now of course in practice ubisoft will crap all over your rights and they are betting that there will be no class action for 10+ year old games.
You still own that, for all that its worth after they shut off the servers, along with any physical packaging or media it may have happened to be distributed on.
But they never sold you the server, or guaranteed access to their servers, or made the claim that the license would do anything other than work with their specific server. In fact, I would be willing to bet the EULA even expressly forbids you from using your license to access any servers ~other than~ the official ones, that are now being shut down.
Permanent license only being valid while the publisher feels like it is like a lifetime warranty that only lasts while the device is working.
You can still use the DLC.. the servers are just down, so .. good luck
You never licensed or bought the servers, but you licensed a product that requires a server, for whatever reason, to function.
That is my point.
Now, why single player games ~require~ a server has been a point of contention for some time - and rightly so - just for instances like this. This was exactly what opponents of persistent online connections and/or accessible only via a digital storefront feared could happen.
But Ubisoft never did anything they didn't tell you they were going to do - it was transparent the entire way. You bought a license to some software. In the case of DLC, it requires the base game to function, and for multiplayer games it requires an online server to function, and it's only obtainable via their authorized download servers.
They never promised anything else, and people bought it anyway. Hope they enjoyed it while they could.
Absolutely everything was better in online gaming when you were FORCED to use a community server because there wasn't al alternative.
Since those days ended, it is barely worth playing multiplayer games at all. The experience just sucks. I'd rather just play my single player games.