UPDATE 17.45 UK: Ubisoft says Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD owners will be able to play and re-download the game after its servers shut down on September 1.
A new statement relayed to Eurogamer this evening contradicts a message that appeared on the game’s store page earlier today. This will now be changed.
Here’s Ubisoft’s statement in full:
“As mentioned in our support article, the upcoming cancellation will only affect DLCs and online features. Current owners of those games will still be able to access, play, or reload them. Our teams are working with our partners to update this information worldwide. All storefronts and also evaluates all available options for players who will be affected when the online services of these games are canceled on September 1, 2022.
“It has always been our intention to do everything we can to allow these legacy titles to remain in the best possible conditions for players, and we are working towards that.”
ORIGINAL STORY 10.15 UK:Ubisoft has warned that Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD will “not be available” from September 1.
The game can no longer be purchased “by publisher’s request”, a warning notice about this in the game Steam page states.
Silent hunter 5Ubisoft’s underwater combat sim has the same warning messages.
And curiously, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands There is a similar notification, although only for the game’s Deluxe Edition and DLC.
Ubisoft’s move to make this game option and DLC unavailable follows a previous announcement. Ubisoft has shut down a number of online services for older games.
This announcement went down well with fans and indeed with one Ubisoft development studio. Anno 2070 developer Ubisoft Mainz has since said it has been trying to patch its game so it remained playable after its servers were shut down.
Another Ubisoft game that will be unavailable after September 1st Space Junkies, this is one of the headers set to disable their online servers. As an online-only game, this makes at least one sense.
But what about Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD? Eurogamer has reached out to Ubisoft for comment and received the following statement regarding the publisher’s earlier statement regarding the shutdown of servers.
A Ubisoft spokesperson said: “We are not taking the decision to discontinue services for legacy Ubisoft games lightly, and our teams are currently evaluating all available options for players who will be affected when online services for these games are decommissioned on September 1, 2022.” he told us.
“We are also working with our partners to update this information across all storefronts, so players will be fully informed at the point of purchase through the removal of online services, as well as through our support article where we share the news.”
We hope to hear more about Liberation HD in particular and will update when we do.