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This is almost definitely because Ubisoft shipped this with some SecuROM-alike DRM and doesn’t want to keep paying pennies for activation servers. If we’re lucky, they probably even opted out of offline machine keys (because “piracy”) so that the game will stop running because reactivation will fail.

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They don't even need to keep paying for those activation services if they don't want to. Not when other nice people have already created a version of the game that does not rely on those services which Ubisoft could simply distribute https://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/ubisoft-uses-reloaded-c...

Some devs eventually patch games to (intentionally) remove DRM, like removing Denuvo ~6 months after release because they intended to just curb release day piracy.

But now I wonder if devs would breach copyright/contract by distributing a cracked version, i.e. one that still "has" the DRM but also contains a logical workaround or something, essentially disclosing how to bypass it. (Even if the crack was already available on pirate sites)

Hmm, I have AC: Black Flag and I thought it worked fine offline. I will have to check now, because that game isn't much newer than this.

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