We've known for sometime that Ubisoft's plans to curb piracy on the PC will include a required internet connection to play the publisher's games, including the upcoming release of Assassin's Creed II. But we didn't know it was this unsavory.


We've known that there is no "off-line" option, as clearly specified in Ubisoft's online services Q&A and that, should your internet connection be interrupted at any time while playing, it's unplayable until that connection is restored. But PC Gamer's hands-on experience with Assassin's Creed II and Settlers VII sounds worse than we'd expected.


"If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game," PC Gamer's Tom Francis writes. "All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected."

And if you have a rock solid, up 24/7 connection? There's still potential bad news, as "any time Ubisoft's 'Master servers' are down for any reason, everyone playing a current Ubisoft game is kicked out of it and loses their progress."

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To be clear, that's PC Gamer's experience with the PC version of Assassin's Creed II, not ours. We've reached out to Ubisoft reps to get comment on the report. They initially directed us to the online services Q&A linked earlier and promised a forthcoming statement. We'll update when that happens.

Constant net connection required to play Assassin's Creed 2 on PC [PC Gamer]