Ubisoft officially revealed The Crew Motorfest yesterday, but the game’s first trailer only features the logos of Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games Store, implying that Ubisoft’s upcoming racing title won’t be available on Steam at launch.
Since Epic Games Store announced that it would grab only a 12% cut from the game sales, Ubisoft was one of the first big publishers to skip Steam and release all of its PC titles via the Epic Games Store, as well as its own platform, Ubisoft Connect. But later in 2022, the publisher revealed that it would start to release some of the older titles on Steam, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs Legion, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, and more.
With that decision, fans were hopeful that Ubisoft was going to break the Epic Games Store exclusivity eventually, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for now. The recently launched trailer from The Crew Motorfest lacks a Steam badge in the end, which is a strong hint that it won’t launch on Steam at launch.
In other Ubisoft news, it was recently revealed that numerous titles from the publisher have not been meeting expectations. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot recently shared an internal statement and mildly blamed the developers for the company’s disappointing financial performance in the last quarter. This resulted in a huge backlash from developers, who threatened the headquarters with a strike against the company late last month.
Following such a poor performance, Ubisoft decided to cancel three unannounced projects, including an arena team battle experience known as Project Q. Moreover, the publisher delayed the release of Skull and Bones once again to give developers more time to improve the overall experience.
Aside from the delays and cancelations, Ubisoft has a bunch of announced titles with no proper release dates, such as Beyond Good and Evil 2, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Splinter Cell Remake, and a confirmed Star Wars project led by Massive Entertainment. The company’s release schedule for 2023 is already populated by Skull and Bones, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, The Crew Motorfest, and The Division Heartland. There are also a number of mobile titles in development such as Rainbow Six Mobile and The Division Resurgence.
