Oh no. I hope no one was in the middle of an online co-op playthrough of Splinter Cell: Conviction, because you’re not going to be finishing that any time soon if so.
As reported by GameSpot, Ubisoft have shut down the online features for a whopping 90 older games, across multiple platforms. For some titles, this shutdown has occurred a full month sooner than was originally reported, with seemingly no explanation as to why.
A number of older Assassin's Creed titles have been affected by this, making it a sad day for a series with such a great history - take a look at its evolution below.
Late last month, it was announced that Assassin’s Creed 2, Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands were just a few titles set to have their online services terminated on 22 May. A total of eight games were listed at the time, with Ubisoft explaining that: “Shutting the services for some older games with smaller online audiences is a necessary part of [delivering the best online services for customers], since it allows our IT and service staff to better focus on delivering great online experiences to the vast majority of customers who are playing newer, more popular titles.”
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However, lo and behold, all eight of those, and dozens more (including multiple Splinter Cell and Just Dance titles), populate a list of games which had their online services terminated as of 22 April. It’s worth noting that not every game has been shut down on every platform, though - Assassin’s Creed 2’s online services, for example, are only listed to have been terminated on PC, Mac, iOS and OnLive, so presumably console players can hang onto them for a little longer.
In a post listing all the games affected (which you can check here), it was clarified that all in-game news and player statistics have been disabled, but offline features will remain available. Unlockable content (ULC) like skins and maps will no longer be able to be unlocked, and on PC, any ULC you’d already redeemed will also become unavailable (console players will keep their access, unless they delete their save files where they unlocked it).
Most of these games are pretty old, so it’s not too surprising that they’d lose support like this eventually, but it’s still pretty sad to see it happen. Hold onto your classic titles closely tonight, friends.
Featured Image Credit: Microsoft Game Studios, UbisoftTopics: Ubisoft, Assassins Creed, Splinter Cell