Ubisoft reaffirms support for Roller Champions game after rumours of its cancellation

Ubisoft has rejected rumours about Roller Champions’ cancellation and has reaffirmed its continuing support for the game.

UPDATE 7/26: Ubisoft released a tweet explaining that Roller Champions would not be cancelled, but would be entering into an indefinite extension of Season One to work on the game. Additional seasons are planned, but “before we release new content, we’ve got to do right by our players.”

Original reporting follows.

Ubisoft, a game developer and publisher well known for massive games like Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, recently announced end-of-life details for a number of older titles as well as freshly released ones.

Roller Champions, a free-to-play sports game that had players racing around an arena and hip-checking opponents, is one of the titles already rumoured to be nearing the end of its service.

Jeff Grubb, a journalist and personality over at Giant Bomb, reportedly spoke with a source at Ubisoft who claimed that “Roller Champions is going to be cancelled after Season 3.” This comes only a few months after previous Ubisoft’s last free-to-play project, Hyper Scape, shut down due to failed expectations from players and developers.

Free-to-play game Roller Champions is reportedly being cancelled after its third season. Picture: Ubisoft

While Hyper Scape had a longer shelf life — launching in 2020 and ending service in 2022 — games like Hyper Scape and Roller Champions typically last much, much longer. Many free-to-play titles can enjoy a lifespan of a minimum of 5 years with the right support in place. Hyper Scape lasted 2 years, and Roller Champions is only two months old as of this writing.

In addition, Ubisoft announced that it was cancelling two new entries in upcoming popular franchises — Ghost Recon Frontline and Splinter Cell VR. Announced during the Ubisoft shareholder meeting held last week, the announcements were made alongside the cancellation of two more unannounced projects.

Ghost Recon Frontline is among the projects cancelled by Ubisoft last week. Picture: Ubisoft

Earlier this month, Ubisoft also announced it would be shutting down the servers for several older titles in its library, including fan-favourite games such as Assassin’s Creed 2, 3 and Brotherhood, Far Cry 3, and ZombiU. The entire list of games affected can be found here, and some of them will even make it impossible to access DLC released for the game, such as the Assassin’s Creed games.

This has, naturally, upset a lot of fans who paid money for those products. In addition to many quote-tweets decrying the changes, many simply posted pictures of pirates from popular shows, hinting at “the pirate’s life” of pirating abandoned games. With so many cancellations, it is not clear what Ubisoft’s plan to support upcoming projects, such as the next Assassin’s Creed, which is reportedly set in Baghdad, will be.

Original reporting by The Gamer.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.