Ubisoft Ending Online Services For Three Xbox 360 Titles Early Next Year

Assassin's Creed & Splinter Cell listed

by Liam Doolan Mon 30th Oct 2023

Ubisoft has today announced it will be decommissioning some "additional online services" for older games and three Xbox 360 titles are listed.

These games include Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed Liberation HD and Splinter Cell: Conviction. The online services tied to these games will terminate on 25th January 2024.

"Decommissioning such services for older games is not something we take lightly, but is a necessity as the technology that drove those services has grown obsolete."

Ubisoft has reiterated how purchased games will still be playable after this date, it's just certain online functionalities that are affected. Here's the full list, including games on other platforms that will also be impacted:

Assassin's Creed II - Xbox 360
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - MAC
Assassin's Creed Liberation HD - PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Assassin's Creed Revelations - PC
Ghost Recon Future Soldier - PC
Heroes of Might and Magic VI - PC
NCIS - PC
R.U.S.E - PC
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Xbox 360
Trials Evolution - PC

According to website True Achievements, there may be one co-op Splinter Cell: Conviction achievement worth checking out before the end date.

If there are any updates, we'll let you know. How do you feel about this? Tell us in the comments.

[source news.ubisoft.com]

Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. He's also got a soft spot for Sonic the Hedgehog.

1
NeoRatt
Mon 30th Oct 2023

Companies keep talking about game preservation then they go and shutdown servers. So hypocritical.

2
OldGamer999
Mon 30th Oct 2023

I guess severs cost money and time maintaining things. If the games are bringing in no money then I guess it’s shutdown time.
I mean we are taking Xbox 360 generation.

3
Commander91_YT
Mon 30th Oct 2023

Never really cared for Assassin's Creed multiplayer mode they were interesting fun little past time but they were never good in longevity but shutting down the server for splinter cell conviction on Xbox 360? That is a step Ubisoft has gone too far even today people still play conviction since Ubisoft refuse to make a new splinter cell game I guess maintaining active servers cost money and yet these publishers talk about they care about game preservation haha yeah right that is a boatload of lies

4
themightyant
Mon 30th Oct 2023

@NeoRatt It's a tough balance. The reality is when they look at the player counts for some of these, especially online modes to single player games, they might be in the single or double digits. Should they keep investing in servers for all games forever if that is the sort of player count?

5
shoeses
Mon 30th Oct 2023

@themightyant Could they not downgrade the server sizes somehow, reducing cost & keeping the servers up?

6
NeoRatt
Mon 30th Oct 2023

@themightyant
A Windows server in the data center cloud costs about $3,000 USD to run per year. Serving up the game may cost around $100,000 per year with small player counts.

I am sure after making $100's of millions on these games they could've set aside some of that profit on an ongoing basis to keep servers up.

7
smoreon
Tue 31st Oct 2023

I can understand shutting down the servers for a 15-year-old game that people have mostly stopped playing.

The bigger, and much less excusable, issue is when games effectively become inaccessible, like if:

The single-player is locked behind unnecessary server checks
A now-defunct online store was the only way to buy the game

Though I can also see it being frustrating (to a lesser extent) if there's no option for local multiplayer, or if the company is really aggressive towards people who are trying to recreate the servers.

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