You won’t be able to redownload Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD from September

Historical spin-off port Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD could well end up totally unplayable for people who own it. At the start of July, the publisher shared 15 getting-on-a-bit games they intended to shut down online services for, including access to bought DLC. Now, Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD, Space Junkies and Silent Hunter 5 have already been delisted from Steam at Ubisoft’s request, and won’t be accessible from September 1st.

The three games have a note stating “this title will not be accessible following September 1st, 2022” on their store pages. That implies that they won’t be available to redownload even for those who’ve purchased them. Not a great look, Ubisoft. The Steam reviews are now, predictably, mostly negative. “So I basically bought a digital paperweight. Thanks Ubi,” one irritated reviewer said.

“We don’t take the decision to retire services for older Ubisoft games lightly, and our teams are currently assessing all available options for players who will be impacted when these games’ online services are decommissioned on September 1st, 2022,” an Ubisoft representative told VG247.

That doesn’t explain why the store listings on Steam say wome of the games won’t be accessible from the start of September though. Unlike Space Junkies, Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD, released in 2014 in PC, is a substantially single-player game. There are still other ways to play Liberation on PC – as part of 2019’s Assassin’s Creed III Remastered package, for example – but that’s not much solece to people who’ve already bought the earlier HD port.

I’ve contacted Ubisoft for more clarification about these delistings, so I’ll let you know if I hear back from them.