R.U.S.E. ditches Ubisoft's embattled DRM

Ubisoft's forthcoming real-time strategy game R.U.S.E. won't use Ubsisoft's contentious perpetual digital rights management system, the publisher announced today. In a post on the Steam forums, Ubisoft declared that the delayed R.U.S.E. will use Valve's Steamworks API instead of the French publisher's proprietary system.

According to Ubisoft, this move was made so as to "offer the best community experience to players." Per Valve's policy, gamers who play R.U.S.E. on Steam will need to activate their game via Internet connection. However, after the initial establishment, gamers won't need an Internet connection to play offline.

The subject of great controversy, Ubisoft's Online Services Platform system requires gamers to be constantly connected to the Internet during their entire play session. It was established after rampant piracy plagued the original Assassin's Creed PC. The enabled-Internet requirement is necessary across all game modes, including single-player and multiplayer options. If players lose their connections during a session, the game will pause and resume once the Internet is restored.

Following the launch of the greatly anticipated Assassin's Creed II for PC, many gamers suffered through DRM technical difficulties that made the single-player game impossible to access for an unspecified number of users. Ubisoft responded by citing "exceptional demand" as the root of the snafu, later noting that the servers were crippled by denial-of-service attacks by disgruntled gamers.

R.U.S.E. was delayed without explanation in January and then again in April citing a need for more time to properly incorporate feedback earned from the game's beta. The World War II RTS is currently slated to arrive on September 7. For more on the game, check out GameSpot's hands-on preview.