However, the publisher has reversed its decision on the latter. In a recent statement to IGN, it said, “As stated in our support article, only DLCs and online features will be affected by the upcoming decommissioning. Current owners of those games will still be able to access, play or redownload them. Our teams are working with our partners to update this information across all storefronts and are also assessing all available options for players who will be impacted when these games’ online services are decommissioned on September 1st, 2022.

“It has always been our intention to do everything in our power to allow those legacy titles to remain available in the best possible conditions for players, and this is what we are working towards.” Whether DLC remaining purchasable is part of that plan remains to be seen.

In the meantime, other titles that are being affected include Anno 2070, Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassin’s Creed 3 (though the remastered version is safe), and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Though it seems DLC that one paid for will remain accessible, multiplayer is still being disabled. So if you were a fan of the multiplayer in Far Cry 3 (the original 2012 release) or Ghost Recon Future Soldier on PS3 and Xbox 360, you’ll be out of luck.

Who knows? Perhaps this could also change down the line. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Though Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Wildlands wasn’t the most faithful stealthy title in the franchise at launch, it still packed tons of open world content. The developer has been consistently updating it since then, providing Special Operations with new PvE missions and crossovers to existing Tom Clancy titles. With Special Operation 3, it seems that Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is next.

The newest teaser for the Special Operation sees Nomad being briefed on his next mission. The Wildlands icon then morphs into the Ghost Recon: Future Solider icon. A full reveal trailer and briefing is promised for December 10th, with the Special Operation going live on December 11th.

Along with a new PvE mission, Special Operation 3 will introduce some new PvP maps and Ghost War classes. Year 2 Pass holders will gain access to the Special Operation early. Everyone else will have to wait until December 18th to play the new content. What kind of new mechanics could this crossover bring? We can’t wait to find out.

Microsoft’s quest to have just about every major Xbox 360 game be playable on the Xbox One continues; the newest batch of Xbox 360 games playable on the Xbox One via its backward compatibility feature has been announced, and it is headlined by Hideo Kojima’s PSP masterpiece, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Peace Walker ended up being remastered for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC last generation, and it is the Xbox version that will be available on Xbox One, as you might imagine.

That apart, this batch also includes Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which is far less beloved than Peace Walker, but an admirable game that deserves your time and attention in its own right. Finally, Axel & Pixel, a 2009 point and click adventure game, is the last of the bunch for this batch.

So that’s a good selection of games right there- if you haven’t already, I can’t urge you enough to play through Peace Walker. It is, without a doubt, one of the best games in the Metal Gear franchise, and is ultimately the true forebear for Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain.

Ubisoft has been pushing its games to get adapted into proper movies recently. After confirmed news that Michael Fassbender will be in the Assassin’s Creed movie and that Tom Hardy will be in the Splinter Cell movie, reports are now emerging that Ubisoft is also working on a Ghost Recon motion picture.

According to a report in the LA Times, Ubisoft Motion Pictures’ chief executive Jean-Julien Baronnet is working around with the idea. He is, according to the report, “putting together a pitch for a movie based on the Ghost Recon games about a special operations military squad.”

It would be interesting if it did happen, because Ghost Recon games are never about their stories or their characters or backstories or storytelling. So having a Ghost Recon movie would be an intriguing project.

To give you a taste of what it would be like, you can check out the 25-minute live action short film released by Ubisoft earlier in 2012 to promote the release of Future Soldier.

What do you think? Would a Ghost Recon movie be interesting? Let us know in your comments below.

[Polygon]

It looks like a sequel to Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier might be in the works at Ubisoft, and apparently, the team at Ubisoft Kiev, who handled the PC port of the first game, is also going to be working closely with the main development team.

A keen eyed fan has spotted the words ‘GRFS: Next’ in a slide from Ubisoft Kiev’s annual meeting, in a phrase that says “‘GRFS: Next’ team wants to work with us.”

The ‘tough conditions’ under which the PC port of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was handled has also been mentioned, as can be seen in the slide above. The PC version of the game received quite a lot of controversial attention, getting announced, then cancelled, then announced again.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier released earlier this year to decent critical and impressive commercial success. But how likely is it that Ubisoft could be working on Ghost Recon: Future Soldier 2?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

[Ubisoft forums (VG247)]

What new features await grizzled veterans in this new DLC? Well, Khyber Strike will feature:
– Three new multiplayer maps: Switchback, Palace and Transit
– One new multiplayer game mode: “Takeover”, where you score points for your team by eliminating enemies. Defending objectives and score multipliers add to the points, with the highest scoring team winning.
– One Guerrilla Mode map “Village” (4 players online / 2 players in local split screen)
– New Achievements
– Level cap increase of +10

Sound good enough to venture back into the warzone, especially with Medal of Honor: Warfighter and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 around the corner? If so, look out for the Khyber Strike DLC to be available for 800 Microsoft points and £7.99 on PSN.

Calling something Arctic Strike, for a start, conjures up two thoughts: firstly, whoever chose the name has no concept of weather, as only one of the four maps, the non-competitive multiplayer one, contains even the faintest suggestion of ‘the arctic’. Second, there’s good money on the name of choice originally being Northern Strike, only for someone to discover Battlefield 2142 already had one of the same name, Arctic shoehorned in as it was late on a Friday and someone wanted a drink.

First off, there’s Skyline, which contains no snow, fall, drift, flurry, piste or even the humble iglo. Instead, Skyline is set atop a roof, feeling like Future Soldier’s Cargo meets Modern Warfare 2’s Highrise, with combat on two levels and several segments of open gunplay. Chokepoints are well positioning, funnelling combat into certain areas but it never really evolves beyond being a fairly bland, lifeless map, lacking the craft and care of any of the core levels.

Riot, as the name implies, also doesn’t contain any ice, sleet, slush or blizzard and is rather a large, rioting city set in Russia, or whatever those pesky Ravens have named it. The whole thing is disorientating given the very repetitive, dull nature of every street corner and even though allegedly set in the US, it simply feels like a US city, not to mention the myriad of texture pop-in issues.

The only map which exudes any real character is Evicted, a Soviet-era village chock full of precisely the sort of bland, faceless facade buildings of that era should have -even though this is ‘future’ solider, set vaguely in the future, and this sort of 70’s USSR settlement would be long since destroyed. It’s scattered with delightful touches, a space-race playground in bright red stands in stark contrast to the swathes of gray, and the Stalineque statue in the middle of the square.

What doesn’t gel quite so well is somewhat gratuitous use of graffiti which fails to add character or serve any purpose whatsoever. Somewhere like this, a place steeped in history and politics may well have lots of anti-establishment or anti-capitalist sentiment but opting for the same copypasta ‘tagz’ ad infinitum seems lazy.

As well as the hastily named multiplayer maps, Arctic Strike also features a level cap increase, appealing to anybody still playing the game but few others. A new guerilla map features, for once, some snow! It’s basically that bit in the single player with the dog-like mech, only without the mech, so what’s the point in that then? There’s also six new weapons and new game mode Stockade, which is just for Search and Destroy only without the objective or sense of purpose, you get one life, die and are sent to the stockade.

Arctic Strike barely seems to be trying at all, offering little in terms of new, exciting content and will only disappoint given the solid, consistent nature of virtually every map from the core game. Not to mention a rather irritating marketing bugger-up in not naming it simply Russian Strike or Soviet Sludge, or just an audible sigh. At 800 MS, this isn’t really worth anybody’s time, other than the hardcore, yet easily impressed.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

The upcoming DLC promises an “homage to Ghost Recon fans with its large maps, challenging situations and non-linear paths”. There will be 3 new campaign missions in total, which adds up to 4 hours of firefight. There’s also a new co-op mode referred to as Guerrilla, amongst other features

The Raven Strike DLC will be available September 11th on the Xbox Live Marketplace and September 12th for PSN.

Raven Strike contains larger maps, complex missions and an increased level of difficulty, according to Ubisoft. The contents of the DLC are listed below and it will be available on September 11th for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Ubisoft are working on more DLC packages so players who play the game regularly have more content to play with later. The DLC will cost 1200 MSP which is quite hefty but considering it adds more campaign missions, I think it’s a fair price.

The game was released few months ago and was met with a favourable critical response and also topped the UK charts regularly.

Here are the contents:

3 new missions in Campaign Mode

•  Secure Dawn: a foggy marsh in Kazakhstan where the Ghosts will not be allowed access to advanced technology (no optical camouflage, drone or sensor grenade)
• Cold Walker: a train depot on the Russian countryside
• Argent Thunder: a nighttime urban setting in Moscow

1 new map in Guerrilla Mode

• Sawmill: face 50 waves of enemies on a foggy Russian countryside

We have this week’s UK charts for you and it’s not surprising that Lego Batman 2 has taken the pole position again, followed by London 2012: The official videogame of the Olympics – which btw is a pretty decent game as you can see from our review over here.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future soldier comes at no. 3, followed by The Amazing Spider-Man, which is the Activision movie tie-in game that has performed decently so far, and you can check out the review for that as well over here.

Here’s the analysis by UKIE:

‘Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes’ (-10%) holds on to No1 for a heroic five weeks in a row, which is more consecutive weeks at the top than any other title so far this year. The Olympics is a week away and in preparation sales of Sega’s official London 2012 game rise by 5%, keeping it ahead of ‘Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’ (+40%) which jumps 2 places to No3, boosted by a price drop. Activision’s two Top 10 titles ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ (-28%) and ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ (-4%) take the next two slots at No’s 4 and 5 respectively.

In a quiet week, there is only one Top 40 new entry, Square-Enix/Nintendo’s ‘Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance’ new at No6. It’s the second biggest 3DS launch so far in 2012 (behind ‘Resident Evil: Revelations). Perhaps boosted by the cinema release of the new film, ‘Batman: Arkham City’ (+37%) climbs back into the Top 10 at No7 ahead of Sega’s second Olympic hopeful ‘Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games’ (+13%) which jumps 2 places to No8. The Top 10 is rounded off by previous All Formats No1s ‘Max Payne 3’ (+23%) at No9 and ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ (-15%) at No10.

You can check out the full top 40 list below.

1. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes – Warner Bros. Interactive
2. London 2012: The Official Video Game – Sega
3. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier – Ubisoft
4. The Amazing Spider-man – Activision Blizzard
5. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Activision Blizzard
6. Kingdom Hearts 3d: Dream Drop Distance – Nintendo
7. Batman: Arkham City – Warner Bros. Interactive
8. Mario & Sonic London 2012 Olympic Games – Sega
9. Max Payne 3 – Take 2
10. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Bethesda Softworks
11. Dead Island Goty Edition – Koch Media
12. FIFA 12 – Electronic Arts
13. Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure – Activision Blizzard
14. Sniper Elite V2 – 505 Games / Mastertronic
15. Spec Ops: The Line – Take 2
16. FIFA Street – Electronic Arts
17. Call Of Duty: Black Ops – Activision Blizzard
18. Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean – Disney Interactive Studios
19. Tiger Woods Pga Tour 13 – Electronic Arts
20. Saints Row: The Third – Thq
21. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – Ubisoft
22. Moshi Monsters: Moshling Zoo – Mind Candy
23. Battlefield 3 – Electronic Arts
24. Mario Kart 7 – Nintendo
25. Dirt Showdown – Codemasters
26. Rayman Origins – Ubisoft
27. WWE ’12 – Thq
28. Super Mario 3D Land – Nintendo
29. Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – Warner Bros. Interactive
30. The Sims 3 – Electronic Arts
31. Mass Effect 3 – Electronic Arts
32. [Prototype 2] – Activision Blizzard
33. Diablo III – Activision Blizzard
34. Skate 3 – Electronic Arts
35. Need For Speed: The Run – Electronic Arts
36. Grand Theft Auto Episodes – Liberty City – Take 2
37. UFC Undisputed 3 – Thq
38. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary – Microsoft
39. Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning – Electronic Arts
40. Football Manager 2012 – Sega