All gamers rejoice: Ubisoft Connect will apparently no longer be a necessity for games on Steam, as the company behind it is now testing a new service tool that’d carry all the functionality of Connect but without the hassle of having to actually, you know, launch the launcher.
This was first spotted by a Reddit user, who posted an Ubisoft Steam community blog for an unknown game, where the company announced the introduction of “Ubisoft Connect Services” that’d phase out the launcher completely from Valve’s platform while retaining everything it had, like “cross-progression, cross-play, player safety, challenges and rewards, among others.”
Why are we quoting a Reddit post instead of the actual Ubisoft blog, you might be asking? Well, Ubisoft seems to have purged the post altogether, and while I’ve managed to find an HTML of it preserved at this link, the link to the post itself leads to a 404 error. It might be that Ubisoft posted the announcement prematurely or attached it to the wrong game or blog. That’s still unconfirmed, but it is nevertheless good news for any Steam users playing Ubisoft’s games.
What’s further unclear is whether this will retroactively apply to Ubisoft games released before Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, since the blog outlines that Ubisoft Connect Services will be implemented starting with that title.
At any rate, though, I hope this trend continues and finally ends up removing or integrating all third-party launchers on Steam. The biggest one yet remaining is Rockstar Games Social Club, which is necessary to play the publisher’s games, most of which are the biggest games ever released.
