R.U.S.E. Is Back on Steam After 10 Years in License Limbo
R.U.S.E. got an 84% from PC Gamer in 2010. Then Ubisoft's publishing deal expired, the game disappeared from Steam around 2015, and that was that. One of the better WW2 RTS games of that era just... gone. For over a decade. This is one of those license-limbo situations that makes owning digital games feel like renting them.
It's back now. Eugen Systems relaunched it on Steam more than ten years after the takedown, and this time they're listed as both developer and publisher. Ubisoft is out of the picture entirely.
What the Re-Release Actually Includes
All previously released DLC is bundled in. Steam Deck support is there. If you already owned it before the takedown, you get everything for free. That's a genuinely good move and probably explains the overwhelmingly positive user reviews since relaunch, 197 positive and 2 negative at the time of writing.
Price is $30 USD. For a 15-year-old RTS with all its DLC included, that's not outrageous. Not a steal either, but reasonable.
The Save File Situation
One thing to know before you dive in: old saves and replays aren't accessible by default. The reason is crash prevention, which is fair enough. If you want to get at them, there's a Compatibility Branch you can switch to in the Steam properties. It's not gone, just tucked away. Worth knowing before you go looking for a campaign you left half-finished.
Why This Matters
WW2 RTS is a crowded genre. Always has been. What made R.U.S.E. stand out in 2010 was the intelligence and deception layer built into the strategy. You weren't just managing units. You were managing what your opponent thought you were doing. That's not a mechanic you see everywhere.
The fact that it scored 84% in 2010 and is pulling overwhelmingly positive reviews now, from people who presumably played it fifteen years ago and are coming back to it, says something. Games that hold up tend to hold up.
Eugen Systems betting on their own catalog instead of letting it rot in license purgatory is good for everyone who plays RTS games. More publishers should do it. Most don't.
Should You Play It
If you like WW2 RTS games and you haven't played R.U.S.E., yes. It's one of the better ones from that era and it's back on a platform you can actually buy it on. If you already own it from before the delisting, everything's there waiting for you at no extra cost.
If you bounced off slower, more methodical strategy games before, this won't change that.
Source: Pcgamer