Ubisoft ending online services for Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and more
As they do every so often, Ubisoft have announced they're ending online support for another round of games this year. The latest games condemned to lose online services include Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. This is on top of the server shutdowns Ubi announced earlier this year, which included Far Cry 2 and Anno 1404. It especially stinks because Vegas 2 multiplayer has been broken for months, so players can't even give it a proper send-off.
Ubisoft recently updated their kill list to announce they're ending online services for Rainbow Six Vegas, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier from the vague effective date of "2021". That means no online multiplayer or other features which rely on Ubi servers, though the rest should be fine.
The company tend to announce server shutdowns months in advance but while these games were only added to that list this month (an archived page shows they weren't there on March 30th, at least), another list says they have already shut down. On a practical level, some of these have been unplayable online for months anyway.
Many Vegas 2 players have complained about multiplayer being broken since December, leading some to assume Ubisoft had intentionally taken the servers down. However, an Ubi rep responded on the Steam forums in March that servers were actually still online and they had "no announced plans for the near future for this to change." They asked players to submit reports to help diagnose why they couldn't play. Less than six weeks later, and with no warning, Ubi list it as officially closed. Mysteries.
Ghost Recon: Future soldier was in a similar situation. In February, at least, players reported on Steam that was multiplayer not working. An Ubisoft rep said the servers had not been closed, and in March another said they were investigating. Then come April 5th, an Ubi rep said they'd closed the servers. Again, no warning.
I'm not sure what's going on. Did Ubisoft close the servers without giving advance warning? Are they meant to actually still be up for now, but they're bugged? Did they have technical issues frustrating enough that Ubisoft threw in the towel and have now declared them closed? Whatever the situation is, Ubisoft communicated it poorly. I've reached out to Ubi, and will let you know what I hear back.
The other impending shutdowns, announced a few weeks back, are: Anno 1404, Assassin's Creed 2, Far Cry 2, Might & Magic: Clash Of Heroes, Might & Magic X: Legacy Prince Of Persia: Forgotten Sands, Splinter Cell Conviction, The Settlers 7. They're all losing online services on June 1st.
"We are constantly assessing what's needed to deliver the best possible online services for Ubisoft's customers," Ubisoft explain. "Shutting the services for some older games with smaller online audiences is a necessary part of this process, since it allows our IT and service staff to better focus on delivering great online experiences to the vast majority of customers who are playing newer, more popular titles."
I see the logic, but it still feels well grim even if few people are still playing. While players often find workarounds using virtual LANs and other technical trickery, Ubisoft never offer advice for this. And again, I get why they wouldn't want to end up having to support third-party software, but I feel they should do more than just just turn off the lights. Though I know they'd never release tools to let fans host their own replacements. Ugh.
While R6 Vegas 2 is now 12 years old, it's good enough that only a year ago we said it was still one of the best co-op games. Welp.