Ubisoft's always-connected DRM is, to say the least, greatly unpopular in the gaming community, and it seems that disdain has made an impression. The publisher has decided to exclude its DRM from the upcoming real time strategy game R.U.S.E., favoring Steam instead. Although it's been known for a while that R.U.S.E. would use Steam in some capacity, it wasn't clear whether the title would ship with Ubisoft's own DRM.
"When R.U.S.E. is released in September, it will benefit from Valve's Steamworks API to offer the best community experience to players," Ubisoft said. A Steam account and Internet connection are still required to activate the game, but at least gamers won't have to be online to enjoy the single player campaign. We assume the game will also use things like Steam achievements, but that much hasn't been detailed yet.
Before you get your hopes up, Ubisoft made sure to note that its DRM will still be used most of its in-house PC games. R.U.S.E. is a WWII-era RTS being developed by Eugen Systems and is due next month on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.