Since early 2019, Ubisoft has made a point of moving its PC releases away from Steam and toward the Epic Games Store and its own Ubisoft connect platform. That years-long experiment now seems to be ending, as Ubisoft has confirmed at least three recent PC releases will be getting Steam versions in the near future.
A page for 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was officially added to Steam Monday, listing a December 6 launch date on the platform. Ubisoft has also told Eurogamer that 2019’s Anno 1800 and Roller Champions will be coming to Steam, confirming earlier rumors to that effect.
The coming Steam versions are Ubisoft’s first non-DLC releases on the platform since 2019, when Trials Rising and Starlink: Battle for Atlas launched on Steam. Since then, releases from Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs Legion to Immortals: Fenyx Rising and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint have all been unavailable on Valve’s industry-dominating PC storefront.
“We’re constantly evaluating how to bring our games to different audiences wherever they are, while providing a consistent player ecosystem through Ubisoft Connect,” a Ubisoft spokesperson said in a statement provided to the press.
That statement is a major reversal from 2019, though, when Ubisoft Vice President for Partnerships and Revenue Chris Early told The New York Times that Steam’s business model—and its 30 percent commissions—were “unrealistic” and didn’t “reflect where the world is today in terms of game distribution.”
Steam’s prodigal publishers
Ubisoft’s return to Steam comes after Activision Blizzard ended a similar years-long Steam absence for the ultra-popular Call of Duty franchise. This year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the first series game to appear on Steam since 2017’s Call of Duty WW2, with intervening releases available only on Activision Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher.
In 2019, EA also ended a years-long effort to avoid Steam releases in favor of its own Origin storefront. That’s when Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order became the publisher’s first Steam release since 2012.
While Ubisoft eschewed Steam releases voluntarily, Epic continues to pay huge amounts of money for specific high-profile games to launch as timed exclusives on the Epic Games Store. That includes a $146 million up-front payment against royalties on Borderlands 3, whose exclusive launch on the Epic Games Store in 2019 attracted 750,000 new users to Epic’s platform, according to company documents revealed during the Epic vs. Apple trial. When Borderlands 3 came to Steam months later, though, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said sales on Valve’s platform “exceeded our expectations.”