Ubisoft's NFT Strategy Game Champions Tactics Shuts Down October 30

Ubisoft is pulling the plug on Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, its blockchain-based tactics game, with servers going dark on October 30. The studio announced the shutdown on the game's official website and Discord this week.

Champions Tactics launched in 2024 — well past the NFT hype peak — and let players mint and trade their battle units on the Oasys blockchain for cash or the OAS cryptocurrency. The writing was on the wall back in May, when Ubisoft quietly stripped out the Web3 functionality after unspecified changes to the Oasys blockchain infrastructure gutted the game's core premise. A separate free-to-play version, Champions Tactics Reforged, launched on Steam without the NFT mechanics, but mixed reviews suggest it never found a real audience either.

Ubisoft has been pushing NFTs into its games for years despite near-universal backlash from players — attempts to bolt blockchain features onto Assassin's Creed and other titles went over about as well as you'd expect. Champions Tactics was the studio's most committed bet on the technology, built from the ground up around blockchain trading rather than grafted onto an existing game. It didn't matter.

Ubisoft is now nudging Champions Tactics players toward Might and Magic Fates — a collectible card game with Hearthstone-style gameplay that launched in early access in February and still includes a marketplace for buying and selling cards with cash or crypto. High-ranked Champions Tactics players are being offered exclusive in-game rewards to make the switch. Based on the mood in the Champions Tactics Discord, few are optimistic that Fates will fare any better.