The Sky Breaker must be owned and installed in order to play?

[KnackeredOldGit]

Just tried to continue a saved game and got this message: "The Sky Breaker must be owned and installed in order to play." I'm playing the base game, not the DLC (don't have it) and saved during a normal base game mission. Anyone else encounter this bug and anyone know how to fix it? I'm only a few days into it but don't want to have to start a new game again.

Update. Raised a ticket with Ubisoft. Standard holding response, no date for a fix. Pushed back, same thing. Gave up on trying to run the game, requested a refund from Steam. Steam policy is that if you've played over 2 hours, you don't get a refund. Their policy doesn't cover extortion by the game developer. Contacted Ubi asking for either a fix or a refund. Their policy is that you don't get a refund if you've player over 2 hours. So basically, if you don't spot this critical bug that locks you out of the game within the first 2 hours of play, you're stuck with a very expensive icon in your Steam list that you can't use. Be warned - DO NOT BUY THIS GAME.

[IchigoMait]

It's a known bug sadly. So yeah, basically you have to have expansion dlc to play the main game.

[iTRiP101]

Yeah, I can confirm, had this too... I really enjoyed the game so far... thought I was going too 100% clear the pollution before I ended my play and then this error comes up, I didn't even realise that this could happen until it did after I restarted my pc and the game after having finished the main story mission, witch did give some sort of warning, cause you get that simple clue that you won't be able to do anything ells til you complete mercer's base, I was actually planing to buy the dlc next month, because I thought the game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is simply putt awesome to play (I did have to put a trainer to use & I had a few crashes [live kernel 141] bad programming if you ask me, witch could be fixed easy by the dev's... but I'm not screwing around with all kinds of fixes the internet spews out... I'm just going to make a purchase of the dlc and hopefully I can continue my NA'VI quest, In my opinion the dev's can get my money... because it really is a brilliant game to play!

[KnackeredOldGit]

Thanks folks. No point in paying more when they won't allow me to use what I've already paid for. I've tried raising through Ubisoft and just get a standard automated response, so they're clearly not interested in a fix. I'll go for the refund route.

[Shotoku]

What is going on at Ubi ??? Was going to buy...now think its a hard pass.

[DrBonifarz]

I had this issue once, too. Luckily, my habit of making savegame backups allowed me to proceed without the DLC. I thought it might help others to see this info in my review and a short steam guide. I truly hope Ubi will provide a fix for those players stuck without a backup.

[Heisi]

The same bug happened to me a couple of days ago, already filed a support ticket with Ubisoft Connect and answered the 4 questions they now include in their automated response (ticket 21606514).

Players have been affected by this bug since the release of the DLC, it's been over a month already !!!

This is just unacceptable, customers paid for a product and are now locked out of it unless they pay an extra fee (DLC).

Of course Ubisoft is in no hurry to fix this bug because I can only guess a good amount of affected customers just buy the DLC and be done with it. Very shady practices indeed.

I repeat this bug has been around for over a month, are you serious ???

The reasonable thing to do if Ubisoft really cares about its customers is to offer a free DLC coupon on the Ubisoft Connect app for the affected customers that opened a ticket and provided proof of the issue.
That is what a responsible company would do !

[KnackeredOldGit]

Originally posted by Heisi:

The same bug happened to me a couple of days ago, already filed a support ticket with Ubisoft Connect and answered the 4 questions they now include in their automated response (ticket 21606514).

Players have been affected by this bug since the release of the DLC, it's been over a month already !!!

This is just unacceptable, customers paid for a product and are now locked out of it unless they pay an extra fee (DLC).

Of course Ubisoft is in no hurry to fix this bug because I can only guess a good amount of affected customers just buy the DLC and be done with it. Very shady practices indeed.

I repeat this bug has been around for over a month, are you serious ???

The reasonable thing to do if Ubisoft really cares about its customers is to offer a free DLC coupon on the Ubisoft Connect app for the affected customers that opened a ticket and provided proof of the issue.
That is what a responsible company would do !

Quite agree and I pushed that approach as well. They refused a refund and refused to say when a fix was going to be delivered. So, I said that since they've programmed the game to not run without the DLC, they should give me the DLC as compensation. Strangely, they refused that as well. Maybe they should be a bit clearer and rename the company to Ubi-con rather than Ubi-soft.

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

That’s ridiculous it’s still borked. I doubt it’s an intentional scam to force people to buy the DLC and is just a result of lack of care/attention to the game’s technical state but it’s unacceptable that it’s not fixed and has been known about for a full month. I love your username, by the way. British slang is so funny sounding (as an American).

[karaissi]

This also just happened to me. So frustrating and even though I had previously already been considering buying the Season Pass when it next goes on sale, now I might not buy it just out of spite.

[Peacemonger]

Bug still present, I am currently locked out of my own game. Why even buy Ubisoft games at this point. What a farce.

[Peacemonger]

Bump for this game breaking bug, which has gone unfixed for over three months. Ubi got their money, what do they care that their product is unplayable.

Friendly reminder that you can report products on the store page if they have game breaking bugs like this game does.

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by Peacemonger:

Bump for this game breaking bug, which has gone unfixed for over three months. Ubi got their money, what do they care that their product is unplayable.

Friendly reminder that you can report products on the store page if they have game breaking bugs like this game does.

I’m pretty sure Steam does not care unless it’s so bad that it makes the news headlines or some prominent YouTuber covers it. No one is really talking about Avatar in the news cycle, so I doubt they would take the game down.

I don’t think it’s happening to all players though, I am still yet to encounter this bug in my play though of the game. What mission or part of the story is it where this is happening to people and they can’t proceed?

[DrBonifarz]

That's the neat part: You don't - there is no specific action or quest section that appears to trigger the bug. I did my best to recommend manual backups as a precaution, yet players are usually not aware of the option until it is too late and their savegame is locked.

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by DrBonifarz:

That's the neat part: You don't - there is no specific action or quest section that appears to trigger the bug. I did my best to recommend manual backups as a precaution, yet players are usually not aware of the option until it is too late and their savegame is locked.

How do you manually backup your saves? Just manually saving, relatively often?

[DrBonifarz]

No, I mean copies of the savegame files on your PC. Restoring them is a little tedious, so I wrapped it up here, where you also find some example scripts that do the copying whenever you launch the game. Manual copy-paste will do the job, though.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3313036610