Ubisoft has said that Ghost Recon Breakpoint will not be available on Steam when it launches in October. Instead, it will be available only on Ubisoft’s own Uplay client and the Epic Games Store.

Ubisoft confirmed the situation to PCGamesN. For Ubisoft PC fans, this won’t come as a huge surprise; the company’s last two games, Anno 1800 and The Division 2, have both been absent from Steam. While their presence on Uplay means they’re not exactly Epic Games Store exclusives, the EGS is the only non-Ubisoft client where the game can be played.

Anno 1800 and The Division 2 were both available at pre-release on Steam, and so a small portion of of those games' player base use Valve’s client. However, this is because during the pre-order period for those games, Ubisoft had not arranged their new partnership with Epic, and so had been selling them on Steam. With the Epic partnership now solidified, it means that Ghost Recon Breakpoint will only be available on the Epic Games Store.

Of course, owning a Ubisoft game on anything that isn’t Uplay means adding an additional step to the process of launching the game, since Ubisoft games on Steam and Epic Games Store require users to launch Uplay before it can be played. As such the Epic Games Store situation doesn't make the process any more complicated, although many players will miss the collection of user features that only Steam provides at this time.

When The Division 2's Epic Store situation was first announced, Ubisoft said that "additional select titles" will come to the Epic Games Store over the next year. It is not yet clear if that means every Ubisoft game will be on the Epic Games Store, or just a selection of their upcoming 2019 games.

For more on Ghost Recon Breakpoint, check out our preview that analyses the similarities and differences between it and Ghost Recon Wildlands. You can also watch the trailer teasing the game’s endgame raid.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter.