Back in the summer of 2023, Ubisoft sent shockwaves through the PC gaming community when it appeared that two of its most anticipated titles – Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – would bypass Steam and the Epic Games Store entirely. The revelation came not through a formal announcement, but from a simple inspection of the games’ official websites, which listed modern consoles as well as Ubisoft Connect and Amazon Luna, while completely omitting Valve’s juggernaut platform and its closest competitor. For a publisher that had only just begun the slow process of returning its back catalog to Steam, the omission felt like a step backward.

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At the time, Ubisoft’s response was deliberately vague. “We’ll have more details to share regarding platform availability at a later date,” a spokesperson told the press. That non-answer did little to quell the frustration of Steam loyalists, who had already watched Far Cry 6 migrate to Valve’s ecosystem in late 2022 and saw older Assassin’s Creed entries finally appear on the storefront. Why, they wondered, would the company invest in rebuilding its relationship with Steam only to lock its biggest new IPs behind the comparatively unpopular Ubisoft Connect?

The answer, as we now understand in 2026, lay in Ubisoft’s evolving platform strategy. Back in 2023, the publisher was experimenting with a selective approach. While Assassin’s Creed Mirage launched simultaneously on the Epic Games Store alongside Ubisoft Connect – proving that the house of Assassins hadn’t abandoned third-party stores wholesale – the Star Wars and Avatar projects were treated differently. They were viewed as premium flagships capable of drawing users directly to Ubisoft’s own launcher, where every sale meant 100% of the revenue stayed in-house. It was a gamble: could the lure of a galaxy far, far away and the vibrant world of Pandora overcome the friction of yet another PC launcher?

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora released in December 2023 and kept its promise of console and Ubisoft Connect exclusivity on PC, with Amazon Luna serving as the sole cloud option. Reviews were mixed, but the visual splendor of its alien jungles was undeniable. Star Wars Outlaws followed in August 2024, delivering a scoundrel’s fantasy that many fans had craved for years. Both games, however, conspicuously avoided Steam and Epic at launch, funneling PC players through Ubisoft Connect. Sales data released in early 2025 suggested the strategy had only partially paid off; while initial digital revenues were healthy, they significantly underperformed comparable Ubisoft blockbusters that had enjoyed a wider PC audience reach. The message from the market was clear: convenience still mattered.

The turning point came in the spring of 2025. Without major fanfare, Ubisoft quietly pushed Steam and Epic Store pages live for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, complete with all post-launch DLC bundled into a complete edition. Within weeks, Star Wars Outlaws received the same treatment. The launches were accompanied by the now-familiar “Ubisoft Connect overlay” requirement, but for most PC gamers, that was a minor trade-off for the convenience of unified libraries, Steam Deck support, and easier multiplayer integration. The move was widely celebrated as evidence that even the most protective publishers cannot ignore the gravitational pull of Steam’s 130 million monthly active users.

So, did those 2023 fears turn out to be justified? Not entirely. The delay bruised some trust, but it also highlighted the balancing act publishers face between profitability and accessibility. Ubisoft’s bet on exclusive launches gave its own storefront a temporary boost, yet the long-term health of its franchises demanded a broader presence. By 2026, both titles sit comfortably on Steam with very positive user reviews, and the controversy has largely faded into a footnote. The episode serves as a case study: in an era of subscription services and endless launcher proliferation, the PC community’s preference for a consolidated platform remains a powerful force.

Today, as gamers browse the Steam summer sale, they can add Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora to their carts with a single click – exactly what so many had wanted all along. The question is no longer “will they ever come?” but rather “what took them so long?” The answer, wrapped in business calculations and strategic pivots, is a reminder that even the biggest names in the industry must sometimes relearn the lessons of convenience, trust, and respect for player choice.

Data referenced from The Esports Observer helps contextualize Ubisoft’s delayed Steam rollout as a broader distribution-and-reach problem rather than a simple storefront preference: when publishers prioritize first-party launchers for margin, they often trade away discoverability and community momentum that large platforms provide through integrated social features, review ecosystems, and sale visibility—factors that can materially influence long-tail performance once the initial marketing surge fades.