Ubisoft returns to Steam with Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

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Ubisoft is the latest publisher to return to leading PC games marketplace Steam after a period of focusing on other stores.

As spotted by Eurogamer, the company has created a Steam page for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, the 2020 entry in Ubisoft's flagship series. It will release on December 6.

Other titles confirmed to be heading to Steam include Anno 1800 and Roller Champions, although neither have release dates at the time of writing.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla will be the first Ubisoft title to release on Steam since Starlink: Battle for Atlas in April 2019. The publisher has still been releasing updates and DLC for titles such as For Honor and Rocksmith.

For new releases, the company focused on its own UPlay store as well as landing partnerships with Steam's then-new rival Epic Games Store, starting with Tom Clancy's The Division 2.

Later that year, Ubisoft's vice president for partnership and revenue said the decision was made due to Valve's "unrealistic" revenue share which "doesn't reflect where the world is today in terms of game distribution."

Like many stores, Valve takes a 30% cut of all purchases made, whereas Epic only takes 12%.

Steam has not changed its revenue share in the years since. When asked why the publisher is now returning to that marketplace, a Ubisoft spokesperon told GamesIndustry.biz: "We’re constantly evaluating how to bring our games to different audiences wherever they are, while providing a consistent player ecosystem through Ubisoft Connect."

Ubisoft is not the only major publisher returning to Steam after focusing on other stores.

Electronic Arts limited the number of games it released on Steam while it tried to drive more players to its own EA Origin storefront. But after releasing 2019's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on Steam at the same time as other platforms, it then republished a wave of titles, including entries from the Dragon Age and Need for Speed series.

Similarly, Activision Blizzard stopped publishing Call of Duty games on Steam after 2017's WWII, instead bringing the series exclusively to its own Battle.net platform. That ended this year when Modern Warfare 2 launched simultaneously on Steam in October.