Might And Magic Heroes VI Crashes And Burns, Ubi Fixing

Oh gosh, delivering bad news is always so difficult. I never know how to soften the blow. Good news first? No, no, that never works. Oh, I know: everything that's ever mattered to you will be gone one day and also Might and Magic Heroes VI has been nigh-unplayable for more than 24 hours. Phew, much better. The rather disturbingly lengthy period of downtime (especially given that the base game's been out for ages) seems to have kicked off around the recent release of the turn-based strategy's new Shades of Darkness expansion. Players have been reporting mountains of issues ever since.

Problems include missing content, broken install files, invalid keys, freezes, crashes, and more. Some players have attempted reinstalls, but many are still stuck. Initially, Ubisoft chalked up the downtime to patch-related server maintenance, but that ended many hours ago. Most recently, a Ubi rep offered the following:

"Steam users: If you can see Shades of Darkness in your list then your Version is up to date. There is no need to try and uninstall, reinstall or update until further notice. Lack of Content: For those of you who are unable to access your Content (have greyed out boxes), you will be getting your Content soon. We apologize and thank you for your patience as we correct this issue."

"We will be updating you as soon as new information develops."

As of now, the complaint thread continues to grow, which doesn't bode well for the situation. Ubi's updates, meanwhile, have been sparse - and thus far have not entirely reflected reality, it would seem. At this point, it's tough to say what exactly the real underlying cause of all this is, but here's hoping it's nothing more than an ugly memory very, very soon. Also, come on publishers: better communication! The first official response apparently took hours, and in this day and age, that just won't do.