The Epic Games Store has landed it’s first major 3rd-party publisher deal. Today Ubisoft and Epic announced a partnership that will bring Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 to the Epic Games store ahead of the game’s private beta.
Now available for pre-order on EpicGames.com, players can select from the Standard, Gold, or Ultimate editions of the game. All of these guarantee private beta access if pre-ordered. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will also be available from the Ubisoft store, and can currently be pre-ordered from that venue as well.
“We entrust Epic to deliver a smooth journey for our fans, from preordering the game and enjoying our Beta to the launch of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 on March 15,” said Chris Early, Vice President of Partnerships. “Epic continues to disrupt the videogame industry, and their third party digital distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support.”
Ubisoft and Epic also announced that they will be partnering on multiple upcoming releases throughout 2019, which will be announced as the year progresses. They will also be working to integrate elements of Ubisoft’s UPlay service with the Epic Games store. At present, games purchased through Steam also feature UPlay integration, so this is hardly an unprecedented move. What is interesting is that The Division 2 is not anywhere to be found on the Steam store at this time. The upcoming Far Cry 5 spinoff, Far Cry New Dawn is still on the Steam store, however, that may be because that game predates today’s partnership announcement. As the year progresses, it will be worth watching to see whether Ubisoft’s new releases start showing up on the Steam store, or are now going to exclusively use the Epic Games Store as their 3rd-party home on PCs.
