Ubisoft saves “Anno 2070” from online shutdown

The online features of the development strategy game “Anno 2070” will not be switched off in September: the step announced in the summer could be prevented, according to Ubisoft Mainz, formerly known as Blue Byte. A new update should ensure that “Anno 2070” remains playable “hopefully for many more years”, writes the studio.

The French publisher Ubisoft, to which the Mainz studio belongs, announced the end of online services for “Anno 2070” in July. The building strategy game was on a list of titles whose online services were due to be shut down in September. In “Anno 2070” that would have meant, among other things, the end of the multiplayer mode.

Ubisoft Mainz with a special mission

The fact that this could be prevented is apparently due to the commitment of Ubisoft Mainz, formerly Blue Byte: They had already promised fans in the summer that they still wanted to save the multiplayer component of “Anno 2070”. A small team should be made available to “upgrade the online service infrastructure of the building strategy game to a new system,” the studio wrote at the time.

Now there is more information about what Ubisoft’s rescue team meant by that: Among other things, the game was ported to 64-bit infrastructure. This should bring additional advantages such as better performance, because more than 4 GB of RAM can now be used. The new online services should also make matchmaking work better, writes Ubisoft Mainz in the blog entry.

For the update, “Anno 2070” will go into maintenance mode on September 6th at 6am to migrate to the new version. According to the developers, this maintenance work can take up to 24 hours. Ubisoft expects “Anno 2070” to be playable again on September 7th.

Grace period for other games

In addition to “Anno 2070”, Ubisoft’s shutdown list included other titles and DLCs, including several “Assassin’s Creed” games and “Far Cry 3”. Contrary to plan, Ubisoft will not switch off the multiplayer components of these other titles until September 1st, but only on October 1st.

Anno 2070 went on sale in 2011 and, like most of the games that Ubisoft now wants to separate from the online service, is more than ten years old. “2070” was the first offshoot of the popular strategy game series that is scheduled for the future. There are three different civilizations: the eco-friendly ecos, the industrial tycoons, and the investigative techs. After “Anno 2070”, Ubisoft went even further into the future with “Anno 2205”, before the studio returned to a historical setting with “Anno 1800”.

(then)