Watch Dogs Legion Aiming to Return to Steam

For those not following recent news, Ubisoft games were making a return to Steam after a brief hiatus, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was one of the first to return to Steam, and rightfully so. Ubisoft has made some clear winners, and they’ve patched up any holes with Valve to ensure that their games can both be present and run smoothly on Steam’s platform. Now, other Ubisoft games are looking to follow suit, and some signs are pointing to Watch Dogs Legion being the next one to come to Steam.

Ubisoft’s past decision to keep their games exclusively on their internal store was interesting in the sense that they were sacrificing additional sales, publicity, the number of concurrent users and more, just to maintain exclusivity. But when quarterly reports come around and revenue numbers are disclosed, sometimes the initial decisions aren’t always the best path to take, and Ubisoft realized that. They realized how powerful a presence on Steam truly is, despite Valve taking a cut of each sale of Ubisoft products.

Ubisoft, along with other publishers and developers, are slowly making their way back on to Steam, which has several benefits for both sides. For Valve, their game library increases drastically, which is great news for Steam users and gamers globally, and they also get additional revenue from sales. For the developers and publishers, they get a spotlight on their products that they wouldn’t otherwise get from keeping their releases internal, and despite giving a portion of each sale to Valve, the number of units sold are significantly higher and the publicity gained from having their products on Steam far outweighs any other pros of internal exclusivity.

The snowball effect is pretty evident immediately, too. With Assassin’s Creed Valhalla returning to Steam, other Ubisoft games that joined the platform are seeing increased statistics as well. With the addition of Watch Dogs Legion pending, it’s likely to experience the same trend, thanks to other Ubisoft products becoming more popular on Steam. Users that play Ubisoft’s top releases are then introduced to other Ubisoft games, and the result makes the addition of these games on Steam profitable for both Ubisoft and Valve.

Watch Dogs Legion will now be available to a significantly larger user base now, despite facing some minor criticisms initially. Additionally, on Steam there will be three different editions available:

• Standard Edition: Full Game (cheapest version)
• Gold Edition: Includes Season Pass
• Ultimate Edition: Everything Included

The game was released during the pandemic in 2020 and focuses on a dystopian backdrop in London. While the game is not an overwhelming hit like some others on Steam, it’s going to get increased sales and gameplay, as a beneficiary from Ubisoft’s move back to Steam. It also gives gamers an opportunity to become more familiar with other Ubisoft releases outside of their staple ones like the Assassin’s Creed series.