Concern was raised this weekend that people who had purchased Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD on Steam would be denied access to the game, after it was noted that the game’s Steam list said that “this title will not be accessible after September 1, 2022 “.
However, Ubisoft has confirmed to Polygon that game owners will still be able to access their offline components for a player after that date. Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD, which was first released in 2014, is part of a list of old games that Ubisoft recently said it would no longer support online as of September 1st.
“As stated in our support article, only DLC and online features will be affected by the next download. Current owners of these games will still be able to access, play, or re-download them. “Ubisoft told Polygon in an updated statement.
“Our teams are working with our partners to update this information on all storefronts and are also evaluating all available options for players who will be affected when the online services for these games stop working on 1 September 2022. It has always been our intention to do that, everything in our power to allow these inherited titles to be available in the best possible conditions for players, and that is why we are working. “
Ubisoft routinely removes online support for old games from its catalog. In most cases, this means that multiplayer and online game features will be turned off, while campaigns and other single-player features will be available.
Other games affected by the current round of connectors include Driver San Francisco, Ghost Recon Future Soldier, Rayman Legends, Anno 2070 and the original versions of Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed 2. Remasters of these latest games will still be supported. Assassin’s Creed Liberation, originally a 2012 PlayStation Vita release, is still available for purchase as part of the 2019 Assassin’s Creed 3 Remastered package.
Among the Ubisoft teams trying to keep their games alive beyond this expiration date are the developers of Anno 2070 at Ubisoft Mainz, who said, “After some initial research, we’ve decided to dedicate some of our development resources to work on the online upgrade of Anno 2070. service infrastructure to a new system, so that these features can continue to be used beyond the said date.However, we still can not guarantee that we will be able to successfully update / replace old services as we would like “.
Less Lucky is the 2019 Space Junkies virtual reality game, which, as a multiplayer title, is being completely turned off. “You won’t be able to play the game from now on,” Ubisoft said.
Online games are expensive to maintain; Server space and bandwidth are not free, and this is before you consider customer support, community management, bug fixes, and game updates that ensure a good experience for users. players. It is a sad fact of life that these games cannot be played forever.
However, single-player games and other offline content are another issue, and digital media skeptics have long warned that an abyss is opening up between what users think of as property when they buy. a title in an online store and the slender rights it buys really gives them.
This was highlighted recently when Sony announced that, due to the expiration of a license agreement, people in Germany and Austria who had purchased hundreds of Canal Plus movies and TV shows at the PlayStation Store would have access to these movies completely. Affected titles include John Wick, Paddington and The Hunger Games.
Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD, for now, has happily saved this fate.