Hitman (2016) was later criticized to be always-online to be able to save in certain areas of levels in the game. Square Enix clarified that there would be no fix for it as the game was "a constantly, evolving, living world of assassination that will grow alongside the community with frequent content updates in between the launch of each location. This live content includes new contracts, escalation contracts, elusive targets, and even additional challenges", and while it is possible to play the game offline, two separate save states for both offline and online have been made. However, the game was later patched to make sure that all locations and levels could be fully played in offline mode, with the disadvantage being that leaderboards would not be accessible, regular updates would not be installed, live events would not be available for playing, and some areas could not be used as a starting point during missions.
Earlier this week, in an effort to support the reconstruction of Notre Dame, Ubisoft announced that it would not only be donating 500,000 Euros to the cause, but would also make Assassin's Creed Unity free for one week. It turns out, a lot of people wanted to get their hands on Unity, even all these years later. As a result, Ubisoft needs to take the game's servers offline in order to increase capacity.
In most instances, the shutting down of servers won't affect your single-player campaigns, but you may have to play in "offline" mode to get them to work properly. In other instances, you may find yourself unable to pick up any DLC, so if you fancy some additional content but haven't gotten around to buying it yet, be quick; DLC won't be available once the servers go offline. Connection to your Ubisoft account - and any goodies you unlock with it - will also stop, too.
Long term, I consider this a bad sign. No game, especially a physically purchased copy should have to phone home first to a server before it will allow you to play a game that you intend to play offline. This is compounded by Ubisoft's rather sluggish response to correcting the problem.
Playing offline worked, though Murphy is with me today. Was a half hour into my session when the electric went out (very windy here today). Sigh..... (luckily I'd recently hit an autosave point....). I suspect Ubi will eventually get their act together with their servers, but I strongly dislike having the game call home before letting me play as a form of DRM, especially since server issues seem to be endemic for them.
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