Always online is something that is very controversial as far as DRM goes, with perhaps the most famous backlash for it being the Xbox One reveal a few years back. After disasters like SimCity, the industry backed away from it some for single-player games, but it appears that following in the steps of 2016's HITMAN (which recently removed some of this), that Ubisoft's upcoming game For Honor will be always online.

The story began when some updated box art was spotted on Amazon, leading people to ask Ubisoft about the situation and in particular about the 'internet connection required' bit. Eventually, Ubisoft responded to Powerupgaming and a user on Neogaf with the following statement:

“Ubisoft can confirm that For Honor is an always online experience. Some elements of progression, which is hosted online, are shared across story and multiplayer modes. Players will need to be connected to the internet at all times to play For Honor.”

This news comes as something of a shock, as previously Ubisoft had stated that the game would have an offline singleplayer campaign. Most notably, excluding any interviews or such here, the uPlay and Steam store pages for For Honor, which both have the following statement on it at the time of writing:

CONQUER FOES ALONE OR WITH FRIENDS - Engaging single-player, offline campaign and thrilling multiplayer.

There doesn't seem to be any ambiguity there that Ubisoft has been selling pre-order copies of the game with the promise of offline play. This isn't the only time Ubisoft has changed their mind on a previously touted For Honor feature either; Split Screen multiplayer had been once called super-required feature until suddenly it wasn't and was excised from the game. This choice was apparently made so that they could focus further on refining and polishing the online co-op instead of splitting the team's co-op time between online and splitscreen.

We have reached out to Ubisoft for further details on this change and why it has occurred and will update if we learn more.

Update: The original article accidentally called SimCity (2015) Sim City 4. Our apologies for this - it has been corrected.