
Ubisoft announced last week that it is pulling the plug on online support (opens in new tab) for many of its older games, including Assassin’s Creed, Driver San Francisco, Far Cry 3 and many more. But Ubisoft Mainz, the studio behind city-sim strategy game Anno 2070 (opens in new tab) — which is also on the list of games losing online support — isn’t letting it go without a fight.
The studio said, “After an initial investigation, we have decided to dedicate some of our development resources to working on upgrading the Anno 2070’s older online services infrastructure to a newer system, so that these features can be used.” be continued before the date mentioned.” An update (opens in new tab) posted shortly after Ubisoft’s shutdown was announced. “However, we cannot yet guarantee that we will be able to successfully upgrade/replace older services as we wish.”
No promises, then, but it’s a shot, and maybe a good one: if Batman: Arkham Origins (opens in new tab) players can restore that game’s online functionality years after it was shut down by Warner, So of course the studio that actually makes the Eno 2070 can figure out how to keep the wheels turning in the two months before the services actually take off.
Anno 2070 has been around for over a decade now, and some might say that’s enough time for fans to earn their fill. But strategy games tend to have long tails and dedicated fans, and some players are pushing back: some reactions to the Ubisoft Mainz post still reminisced about playing Anno 2070 from their original disc-based copies, while others wrote , “Before anyone says that 10 years is a long time, it honestly isn’t.”
Mainly, there’s also a call for review-bombing on Steam – there’s definitely a visible backlash (opens in new tab), but the raw numbers are so small (10 negative reviews since July 2), really. Counts as “bombing”.
For now, Ubisoft Mainz reminds players that Anno 2070’s online functionality will continue to work as normal until September 1. More details on what’s happening with the game will be provided “in the coming weeks and months.”
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