Ubisoft delays server shutdowns, prevents purchased DLC from going away

Last month, Ubisoft announced the latest in a long line of online server shutdowns for its games, including a few that would make previously purchased single-player DLC for some of its legacy games inaccessible. Yesterday, Ubisoft backtracked on that announcement a bit with an update that would mitigate the shutdown's impact. Significantly, previously purchased PC DLC for four impacted titles—Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed III, Far Cry 3, and Splinter Cell Blacklist— will now be available to download and keep permanently. Players will have to activate that DLC on their UPlay accounts before the newly delayed server shutdown date of October 1, however, to maintain access and the ability to redownload the content past that date. The online multiplayer portions of those games (and others) will still be shut down after October 1 (except for VR title Space Junkies, which saw its online servers shut down today). Ubisoft says this is a decision "we do not take lightly, but it is also a necessity as the technology that drove those services becomes obsolete. We want our players to enjoy optimal gameplay experiences without things breaking, potentially subjecting players to crashes and security breaches." The developers behind city-builder Anno 2070 weren't willing to let outdated servers impact their game, though. After the planned shutdown for the game's server was announced in July, Ubisoft Mainz responded by "dedicat[ing] some of our development resources to work on upgrading Anno 2070’s aged online services infrastructure to a new system." On Wednesday, the team confirmed that the effort was successful and that a new, 64-bit version of the game coming in the next week "will allow [players] to continue to play the game past September 1 and hopefully for many more years to come." It will include full access to multiplayer functions and previous single-player progression, but the developers do warn that "we unfortunately can’t guarantee that old mods etc. are still working in this new version of Anno 2070." "Tech obsolescence within the infrastructure of some of our legacy games is something we are keenly aware of, and our focus on remasters—such as Assassin's Creed III Remastered and the Anno History Collection—is a key part of our preservation efforts," Ubisoft wrote. "Our teams at Ubisoft are continuing to work hard to deliver the best experiences for players and want to thank you for dedicated support of our games both old and new."