Ubisoft confirmed today that thanks to Valve’s Steam platform, the publisher’s upcoming strategy game R.U.S.E. will be playable offline, thereby sidestepping Ubisoft’s oft criticized DRM protection. “When R.U.S.E. is released in September,” Ubisoft senior community developer Aymeric Evennou posted on the game’s official forums, “it will benefit from Valve’s Steamworks API to offer the best community experience to players. Consequently, a Steam account and Internet connection will be required to activate the game, as per Steam policy. For this reason, R.U.S.E. will not use the Ubisoft protection. Single player can be played offline.” Ubisoft has been dealing with the fallout of its decision to introduce PC security protections that require a constant internet connect to play offline since the release of Assassin’s Creed II back in March. Shortly thereafter, Ubisoft’s servers were hacked, preventing some ACII players from being able to play the game. It will be interesting to see whether Ubisoft will run into the same problem it had with ACII and Silent Hunter 5 when it tries to release R.U.S.E. on Steam in the UK. I guess we’ll find out for sure when the game releases next month. I’m waiting to hear back from Ubisoft about it, so stay tuned. Should the need arise, feel free to E-Mail me your suggestions, tips, and/or personal philosophies, or follow me on Twitter. More...