Ubisoft Decommissioning Servers Won't Remove Bought Games

Update 7/11/22: Clarified that online components and full DLC will be affected by this decommissioning.

This morning, Ubisoft announced that it is going to cut support to servers for a number of their older games. While this is normal for companies to do with older games, as network and bandwidth do cost money, a message appeared under Assassin's Creed Liberation HD on Steam that concerned many:

Immediately this did trigger a huge backlash which flooded the reviews section of the Liberation HD Steam page. From their wording, it absolutely sounds like they are taking away the entire ability to play the game. While this is a horrible practice, it is unfortunately well-within the rights of the company to do so. Thankfully, the game will still remain playable to those who have purchased it. In a statement Ubisoft provided to Polygon, Ubisoft reassured those who had purchased the game that it will remain playable and only Online components and DLC will be affected by this shutdown:

“As stated in our support article, only DLCs and online features will be affected by the upcoming decommissioning. Current owners of those games will still be able to access, play or redownload them,” Ubisoft told Polygon in an updated statement.

“Our teams are working with our partners to update this information across all storefronts and are also assessing all available options for players who will be impacted when these games’ online services are decommissioned on September 1st, 2022. It has always been our intention to do everything in our power to allow those legacy titles to remain available in the best possible conditions for players, and this is what we are working towards.”

At the time of this writing, the message has been updated on the Liberation HD Steam Store page as well:

I am thankful that this was clarified and nobody will be losing access to their game entirely. While I probably won't play the game again, the practice of taking away games from those who did purchase them is not one that should be acceptable. Ubisoft has made a lot of questionable choices in recent years (like their weird insistence on NFTs) so I am at least a little happy they aren't taking away games from people who paid for them. The other games affected by this, but will still be playable offline, are the following:

Assassin's Creed 3
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Driver San Francisco
Far Cry 3
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Silent Hunter 5