As reported by VGC, Microsoft updated its support website to reveal it has placed a temporary block on Windows 11 for users with those games installed.

“After installing Windows 11, version 24H2, you might encounter issues with some Ubisoft games,” Microsoft said. "These games might become unresponsive while starting, loading or during active gameplay.

"In some cases, users might receive a black screen. The affected games are Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

  • dustyData@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    This why kernel level anticheat is the stupidiest idea. It’s already hard enough to have the developers coordinate on a mission critical component of the OS. Now imagine dozens of profit hungry, lowest effort publishing companies all meddling and putting their greasy hands into that code at the same time. No, thank you.

    • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Yeah, but I’m loving shoving this in the face of everyone who gave us shit when we told them the Windows 11 TPM requirement was for OS level DRM.

      Enjoy your shit sandwich, haters.

        • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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          23 hours ago

          My assumption is it’s the OS level DRM that’s doing this, which is the feature that caused the TPM requirement for Windows 11.

          But if you have an article with enough details that we don’t have to lean on assumptions, shoot me the link.

      • Mistic@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        I believe Ubisoft considers these games as “life service,” despite them effectively being single-player.

        Kernel-level anticheats are specifically anti cheat. Although, if you take cheats to kernel level, they become anti-cheat in name only. For all the normal players out there, it is practically malware. No software ever should have permissions to track everything you do, see everything you have, and brick your OS just because.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          With the caveat that there’s a lot of space in which users can do things that even kernel level anti-cheat can’t detect. Like it can’t see what’s going on inside plugged in hardware to know if an attached video capture device and the mouse and keyboard is actually all connected to an embedded system that analyses the video stream and adjusts the actual user input to automatically fire if it detects an enemy that would be hit or to nudge the looking direction a bit so that firing would hit.

          I’ve also seen reports of exploits that use the presence of cheat detection combined with other exploits to install cheats on target systems to get their target banned from the game entirely. Which both forces them to deal with a situation they never intended to in the first place (they never tried to cheat), it also gives plausible deniability to actual cheaters who get caught.

          One of those cases happened during a live tournament. Dude is playing and all of a sudden can see enemy locations through walls. He knew what was up and left the game to avoid being banned, which makes the tournament itself a bit of a joke.

          • Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            7 days ago

            There’s also the reverse effect where kernel level anticheats provide the illusion of no cheaters so people can cheat more openly without being reported or kicked from the lobby/server like the old days.

      • Sabata@ani.social
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        7 days ago

        Its anti “going around our profit structure”. Got to make sure they can’t bypass paying for skins in a single player game.

  • Maestro@fedia.io
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    7 days ago

    Curious as to why this happens. My bet is on Ubisoft tampering in windows kernel space. Probably some copy protection or anti-cheat BS

    • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I’d be real interested to see if the problem continues, once someone disables the TPM piece of Win 11.

    • RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com
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      7 days ago

      Yeah, probably. I’m ready to bash Microsoft, but when the opponent is Ubisoft I’m holding my horses. Ubisoft is cancer.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Most of it gets cracked anyways though, but I guess lol shit reason for them but only explanation.

          • yamanii@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Only the ones that come with some ultimate edition, the store exclusive ones never do.

          • syreus@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            They only need to make sure it’s difficult enough the average user can’t be bothered to figure out the workaround. I’m sure without looking they made a considerate sum from the neglected children market.

      • Brumefey@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        You know the cosmetics things that you could unlock using cheat codes 20 years ago in single player games ? You now have to pay for it. And they bloat your OS kernel to ensure that you don’t get those valuables skins without actually paying for it.

          • Brumefey@sh.itjust.works
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            6 days ago

            And a lot of the items were introduced on the initiative of developers without any coordination with Marketing team

      • Bilb!@lem.monster
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        7 days ago

        I was curious too, and… Avatar appears to have a co-op mode. Not really high stakes for cheating.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Yeah, developers like to rely on undocumented or quirky behavior.

      But then, Microsoft also likes to change code that may or may not behave like the documentation says it should.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        7 days ago

        Microsoft does a piss poor job of documenting things, so a certain level of reliance on undocumented behavior is hard to avoid.

        That’s no excuse for games hacking the kernel, though.

    • auzy@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      So?

      This is likely a patch which blocks certain kernel hooks

      It’s actually good for both Linux and Windows gaming ultimately because maybe Ubisoft will stop doing stupid anti piracy or anti cheating things that can break your system

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Donuts has a total of 300 comments, to your 1.50k. Compared to you he’s online for an hour a week.

        • snooggums@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Comment ratio is not an indication of whether someone is online, just whether they feel the need to comment a lot. I tend to spend the same amount of time reading whether I’m commenting or not.

          Lurkers can be terminally online.

          • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            If someone is going to try to make fun of another person for being “terminally online” it does matter.

      • .Donuts@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Seeing the same news posted two days later is considered terminally online?

        How can we have a discussion about news if we pretend whatever we discussed yesterday doesn’t exist anymore?

        If there was a new development I wouldn’t speak up. But this is just a different outlet posting the same news story, only two days later compared to the rest.

          • .Donuts@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            I agree, but why does that mean we need to regurgitate the same news stories every few days?

            • snooggums@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              Is it the same user posting both?

              If not, they most likely missed the first one. I doubt most people check whether something that looks new to them has already been posted.

              • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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                7 days ago

                Do you want people to post the same news story every week in case you happened to miss it?

                • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                  7 days ago

                  I don’t care if different people do or don’t post it multiple times across multiple days. I already get to see some cross community duplication, so someone posting because they are late to the game gets lost in the noise.

                  It isn’t like a discussion can only happen one time and if people miss it then they are out of luck. If someone posts late and nobody wants to engage the repost will fade off into obscurity.

  • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    If it’s related to anticheat, I wonder how they do it on consoles.

    Probably, it’s not needed because consoles are more locked down I guess…