Ubisoft just can’t seem to catch a break. After wrecking its reputation with gamers through heavy-handed historical revisionism in Assassin’s Creed Shadows and doubling down on DEI and ESG-driven design choices that alienate its audience, the company now finds itself in trouble yet again—but this time, it’s not even their fault.
The latest Windows 11 update, version 24H2, has caused compatibility issues with several Ubisoft games, Microsoft has confirmed. Affected titles include multiple Assassin’s Creed entries, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Both Microsoft and Ubisoft are working on a fix, and in the meantime, Microsoft has paused the rollout of the update for devices with these games installed.
For those who value control over their personal machines and approach system updates with caution, the idea of a Windows update disrupting essential software is unfortunately all too familiar. Microsoft’s push to treat Windows as a modular service has fast-tracked the obsolescence of earlier versions, leaving many users wary of upgrading to Windows 11 due to concerns about gaming performance, compatibility, and privacy.
According to Steam’s hardware survey, Windows 11 now leads as the most-used operating system at 48.8%, followed closely by Windows 10 at 47.46%. However, Windows 10 is expected to decline rapidly over the years as hardware compatibility erodes with future CPU and GPU generations, just as Valve ended support for Windows 7.
Microsoft’s history with problematic updates only adds to the skepticism, with infamous examples like Windows 10 version 1809 deleting user files, version 1903 causing high CPU usage due to Cortana bugs, and version 1909 breaking File Explorer.
Every major update seems to introduce new issues, prompting some users to turn to custom Windows distributions like Ghost Spectre, which strip out telemetry and minimize system overhead, or LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) builds for greater stability and performance.
Windows 11, from the outset, has faced backlash for its design and performance issues. Changes like the centered taskbar and rounded UI elements alienated users accustomed to the old layout, embodying the sentiment that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
For gamers, the experience has been especially rough, with the operating system plagued by compatibility problems and resource inefficiency since its beta days.
Windows 11’s official release was riddled with compatibility issues, particularly with AMD Ryzen processors. This is ironic, considering it was the first operating system explicitly designed to support Intel’s hybrid architecture CPUs, which feature a mix of performance and efficiency cores which have increased latency.
Despite these intentions, CPU scheduling on Windows 11 has been problematic from day one.
The track record of updates hasn’t been much better. The February 2022 Cumulative Update sent Windows Defender into overdrive, causing crashes in the taskbar and Start menu. The May 2022 update broke .NET Framework-based applications, while the September 2022 update reduced SSD speeds. Then came the October 2022 22H2 update, which introduced stuttering on high refresh rate displays and issues with NVIDIA GPUs.
By March 2023, File Explorer suffered from high CPU usage due to a search indexing bug. Not to be outdone, the May 2023 update broke VPN functionality and caused Windows Hello biometric authentication to fail sporadically.
Most recently, the latest “bug” in Windows 11 once again caused performance drops for AMD Ryzen processors, this time tied to admin account privileges. It’s another reminder that while Windows updates occasionally bring critical fixes, they’re a thousand times more likely to introduce frustrating and disruptive bugs.
It’s hardly shocking that yet another Windows 11 update has managed to break something. This time, the culprit is Windows 11, version 24H2 the third major update for the OS, which began its phased rollout in October. The latest casualty? Ubisoft games, further cementing the publisher’s reputation as a punching bag for gamers.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue in a support post detailing known problems with the 24H2 update. According to the post, the Windows 11 2024 update is causing certain Ubisoft titles to become unresponsive, adding to the ever-growing list of headaches tied to Windows updates.
Ubisoft has released a temporary workaround for Star Wars Outlaws to assist players who have already installed the problematic Windows 11 update. However, the company acknowledges that this fix is not foolproof, and issues will persist until Microsoft delivers a proper solution.
In response, Microsoft has implemented a compatibility block for devices with affected Ubisoft games installed. “These devices will not be offered the option to install Windows 11, version 24H2 via the Windows Update release channel,” Microsoft confirmed.
Additionally, Microsoft has advised users against manually upgrading to version 24H2 using tools like the Windows 11 Installation Assistant or the Media Creation Tool until the problem has been fully resolved.
