Microsoft have blocked their own Windows 11 update after it started breaking Ubisoft games
Microsoft have “applied a compatibility hold” to – i.e., blocked the installation of – a new Windows 11 update that’s causing havoc with certain Ubisoft games. Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora are among the weirdly publisher-specific victims of Windows 11 version 24H2, which by Microsoft’s admission (well spotted, Bleeping Computer) is causing crashes and crap performance in the affected games. Even after, in Outlaws’ case, Ubisoft responded to the complaints with their own patch.
“Ubisoft and Microsoft are working on a resolution and will provide more information when it is available,” says an issue log on Windows’ support site. In the meantime, you won’t be able to install version 24H2 if the OS detects that you have one of the affected games installed, which will surely be devastating news if the only thing you love more than clearing outposts is the prospect of 24H2’s slight taskbar redesign.
Here’s the full list of games that are having issues:
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Assassin’s Creed Origins
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Star Wars Outlaws
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Assassin’s Creed Mirage, you lucky boy. It’s not clear why such a specific subset of games have fallen afoul of this update, though I’d reluctantly have to bet on it being an utterly boring and benign technical reason, rather than something funny like an MS engineer just being really fucking sick of open worlds.
When a game does start chugging or black-screening, Microsoft aren’t offering any other workarounds beyond using Task Manager to force-close it, so if you were unfortunate enough to install the suspect software, your best options are either to roll back to an older version or wait out for a more permanent fix. Or just play something else, for which I can think of around 100 different recommendations.
