After removing the chat service from the game launcher and reworking it to "match the rest of the Ubisoft Connect experience," Ubisoft has announced the return of this feature. Starting today, chat will once again be available in Ubisoft Connect (formerly Uplay and Ubisoft Club), at least in the desktop app. Meanwhile, chat will return to the Connect overlay in the "coming weeks."

Ubisoft believes that the new chat service will be faster, more stable and reliable, and provide players with a "safe and friendly environment." In the unlikely event that you find yourself talking to a jerk or worse, you can block or report them.

As a result of the new system, existing chats will start "mostly fresh" and only certain active group chats will retain message history. From now on, group chats will also be limited to 24 members.

Ubisoft states that this restructuring of the chat service will "quickly implement new quality of life features, additional anti-toxicity measures, and facilitate future implementation on non-PC platforms." In other words, it is essentially the first step in a new cross-platform chat service, consistent with Connect's cross-play support.