Ubisoft’s new games stopped appearing on Steam two years ago when the production company decided to sell its digital developments for PC exclusively on Uplay and the Epic Games Store. Now, evidence from Ubisoft Connect show that Ubisoft is preparing a return to the Valve platform.
We players do not like “exclusivities” very little. that for commercial or other reasons restrict the number of options when buying games or any electronic product. This strategy does not usually always work for the company that starts it.
While alternatives to Steam do exist and some are as good as GOG or Humble Bundle, considering that Steam is still the large video game distribution platform By number of users and revenue, Ubisoft’s strategy may not have been a good deal.
Will Ubisoft games return to Steam?
Ubisoft has some content available on Steam, including once-big titles like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Trials Rising, Far Cry New Dawn, and The Crew 2, and more. But the last game added to the platform was Space Junkies in March 2019.
Since then, the distributor has released many others including triple-A such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6 or The Division 2, which have been left out. Everything indicates that the situation is going to change. SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik has found that the latest Steam update added the Ubisoft Connect PC client to the default package. If you update Steam you should already see it there. Neither Valve nor Ubisoft have commented, but if Djundik’s claims are valid, an official announcement should come soon.
The reason for the return of Ubisoft games to Steam is still unclear, but chances are high that it is linked to the Steam Deck launch, scheduled for February 2022. Shortly after the announcement of the handheld console, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated that if the gaming machine got big enough, Ubisoft would re-sell its games on Steam.
Although the console is not yet available, the large number of pre-orders Valve has received so far could be enough to justify the return of Ubisoft. “For the interest I love you andres…”. And it is that Ubisoft has in its portfolio upcoming releases of titles as important as Tom Clancy, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Beyond Good and Evil 2 and others. Titles that they shouldn’t be outside the big digital distribution platform. Neither of its alternatives.
