Watch Dogs 2's “seamless multiplayer” mode won’t be available when it launches today, Ubisoft said in a statement this morning. As it turns out, it’s broken.
We’ve been playing Watch Dogs 2 for the past few days, and one thing we noticed was that this multiplayer feature—which allowed players to cross into other players’ games—was very unstable, leading to framerate drops and crashes. Over the weekend, Ubisoft removed multiplayer from review copies of the game until they could fix it. Turns out that won’t be until after launch.
Here’s Ubisoft:
Watch Dogs 2 Seamless Multiplayer Statement
During the pre-launch phase of Watch Dogs 2, we were disappointed to discover an issue tied to the seamless multiplayer feature that caused the game to lag and crash periodically. In order to eliminate that issue at launch and for players to enjoy a smooth game play experience, we have decided to wait to launch the seamless multiplayer feature so it would not impact the core gameplay experience.
To be clear, players can fully enjoy the entire single-player experience without any concerns. Additionally, co-op is still fully functional by inviting friends through the game menu. However, the Bounty-Hunter mode and other activities that would occur with other outside players who enter your game will be unavailable until the issue is resolved. We truly appreciate the patience of our player community.
It will likely shock you—shock you!—to hear that an AAA video game is not working properly on launch day.