Ubisoft Connect's New Chat Service Releasing This Week
Ever since Ubisoft rebranded Uplay into Ubisoft Connect last year, players have commented on the new client's lack of basic features from Uplay, as well as some design changes. Ubisoft is making an effort to bring back features left behind with a recent announcement specifically letting people know the ability to send messages to friends will come back on May 31.
The Ubisoft Connect rebranding brought with it a complete design overhaul, and as a result removed or obfuscated some important features. Following the update, many players found it a confusing process to re-learn how to invite a friend to a party in games such as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, for example.
An Ubisoft community manager cited a ground-up service restructuring as the reason for chat being removed, and the feature coming back now should make Ubisoft Connect a more fully functional program. The new chat function does not appear to differ much in design from the old chat, so players will have little to re-learn. The new chat service will also be bringing back group chats, so all the major features from Uplay will be present in Ubisoft Connect chat. Ubisoft Connect itself appears to be an effort to distance Ubisoft's current launcher from its previous Uplay branding, especially combined with news of Ubisoft Plus receiving a name change.
Ubisoft may want to distance itself from the Uplay brand as Uplay became a point of frustration for many players over the years, with many games requiring the launcher to run even when they were purchased through other major distribution services such as Steam. The layering of launchers provides a singular friend system across all Ubisoft games, but more often than not, Ubisoft Connect is still cumbersome to those who purchase their games on Steam.
Ubisoft's development teams have been working on introducing positive changes to the company's services and games over the past year, including a UI overhaul for Ubisoft Plus. The reintroduction of the chat function is the latest in Ubisoft's attempts to maintain Ubisoft Connect as a useful service, and counter its history of being an extra step to launch a game.
The upcoming update to Ubisoft Connect's chat system will no doubt be a positive change for gamers looking for an easy way to request friends' aid in popular Ubisoft online games like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. As a chat function is standard in many game launchers, including the service Connect succeeded, players should make heavy use of the feature when it launches tomorrow.
Source: Ubisoft Forums
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