Ubisoft is testing the removal of its launcher on Steam

A regular patch note, dated September 8, no big announcement attached. But the content is worth noticing: Ubisoft is testing a way to play its games on Steam without opening the separate Ubisoft Connect launcher.

The test case is Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Before this, playing meant opening Steam, waiting for the Ubisoft Connect window to load, logging in there separately, and only then launching the actual game. Ubisoft is now trying to hide that whole sequence from the player.

The tech is called Ubisoft Connect Services. It runs in the background and takes over what the launcher used to handle: save progress, cross-play between platforms, the challenges and rewards system, player protection against cheaters. You click “Play” in Steam, and the game launches no additional windows.

One thing worth being clear about: Ubisoft Connect isn't going away as a system. What disappears is the need to see it pop up separately every time. The data and the features stay. What changes is how many clicks stand between you and the game.

Ubisoft is calling this a "first version" and says it plans to keep working on it. Right now this is an experiment on a single game, not a finished solution for the whole Ubisoft library on Steam. How fast it spreads to other titles is anyone's guess Ubisoft hasn't given a timeline.

For players who've complained for years about juggling two launchers, this is a small but genuinely welcome change. The real question is whether "first version" turns into a second one. Tests like this sometimes just quietly disappear before they ever scale up. We’d also like to remind you that Ubisoft may release a remake of the original Assassin’s Creed.