Fix Uplay issues on Steam Deck/Proton/Linux

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for gamers and developers to dissolve the economic bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Overview

It would be funnier to let that guy spreading malware run rampant in the discussion board to tarnish the name of Ubisoft but that would be tantamount to letting one used car salesman get a sick burn over another used car salesman with your poor grandma as the victim. Being mad at a billion dollar corporation is like being mad at the wind, God, or your cat barfing on the couch.

For your consideration, or for those of you who are just tech savvy enough to just need to know what to do to fix this thing, here's what we'll be doing today.

• Installing the updated Ubisoft Connect in it's own proton/wine prefix directory
  
• Removing the old Uplay folder inside the Assassin's Creed II wine prefix directory
  
• Creating a folder link (symbolic link) to our installed Ubisoft Connect to replace the Assassin's Creed's Ubisoft launcher

If you suddenly get starry eyed by installing Ubisoft Connect on your Steam Deck, bonus instructions included at the end to add all those games to your Deck's launcher.

Installing Ubisoft Connect

I'm going to copy and paste from this guide and replace Ubisoft Connect with Origin, don't say I don't give credit.

Installing Origin

• Go into Desktop mode, you can do this by opening the Power menu of the Steam Deck.
  
• Download Ubisoft Connect (UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe) from Ubisoft's website. You either need to do this on a Windows PC and transfer it to the Steam Deck or fake the User-Agent on the browser on Steam Deck. Just do it from Firefox.
  
• Open Steam and click the plus in the bottom left corner, select "Add non steam game"
  
• Click Browse... and in the bottom next to "File type:" select "All Files"
  
• Browse to the UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe, it is likely in /home/deck/downloads
  
• Click "Add selected program"
  
• Find UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe in your Steam Library, Right-Click and choose Properties...
  
• Go to compatibility, check "Force compatibility" and select either Proton 7.0-1 or Proton Experimental from the list.
  
• Close the window and launch UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe, walk through the installation, and exit Origin completely once you've logged in.

Adding Ubisoft Connect to Steam

While reading this section, pay attention to the 10 digit folder name and write it down in Kwrite or a notepad program/actual notepad of your choice, we will need it more than once

• Go into Desktop mode, you can do this by opening the Power menu of the Steam Deck.
  
• If you've followed the above steps you still have UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe in your Steam Library.
  
• Find the UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe and once again Right-click and choose Properties...
  
• Scroll down and select Browse.... and in the bottom next to "File type:" select "All Files"
  
• You are now going to look for Origin's "wine prefix" folder, it will be in /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata. Look for a folder with a name consisting of 10 numbers, If you have multiple then look at the "Date Modified" or open the folder and subfolders and check the contents. Remember the number, you will need it for adding the games to Steam separately. Write down/remember this number/folder
  
• Inside the wine prefix folder go to pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Origin. Inside that folder should be "UbisoftConnect.exe", select it and press open.
  
• Feel free to now name the shortcut "Ubisoft Connect" and close the window
  
• You can now launch Ubisoft Connect and install the games you want. You can also press play from here to play the games, but you might want to directly add them to Steam as well. You can do this on your own time, if you want to I'll add how I did this in a bonus section
  
• With Ubisoft Connect open, login to the program and ensure you can see your own library

Linking Folders to Ubisoft Connect

Go back to the compatdata folder with the 10 digit compatibility ID you definitely remembered to write down from the last section

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<YOUR_COMPATDATA_ID>/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Ubisoft/

and also the compat folder for Assassin's Creed II (split or new Dolphin/Explorer window) open the directory where the old Uplay is installed

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/33230/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Ubisoft/

Delete the existing

Ubisoft Game Launcher

folder in the Ubisoft, 33230 directory.

Then drag and drop the folder from your own Ubisoft Connect install to the 33230 directory And click "Link here", do not "move" the folder.


Look on my cringe, ye Mighty, and despair

Ubisoft Connect should now allow you to launch Assassin's Creed II.


If you did it right, you should have the full install of Ubisoft Connect from the previous step now in the Assassins Creed II wine compatibility folder replacing the old Uplay.

If the game asks you on launch to bind the game to your Ubisoft account, hit yes.

If you trust a complete stranger to type things into your terminal (eww), you can also run this to do the deletion and linking steps REPLACE THE <YOUR_COMPATDATA_ID> thing with your compatdata folder ID, I shouldn't even have to tell you that.

rm -rf /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/33230/pfx/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Ubisoft/Ubisoft\ Game\ Launcher/; ln -s /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<YOUR_COMPATDATA_ID>/pfx/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Ubisoft/Ubisoft\ Game\ Launcher/ /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/33230/pfx/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Ubisoft/

Now before you begin your pasta fueled rampage across Italy, close Ubisoft Connect.

BONUS: Uplay and EA games in Steam

If you want a dumber guide to do this, I implore you to google the million other guides out there, otherwise I'm going to just quickly paraphrase this out and assume the beginners at least learned something from the previous steps in this guide and can both infer the power of a folder link and not need the small details handheld for you.

Recall that compatdata number from earlier (and if you followed the steps for the EA launcher, that one too)

If you want to keep your games on an SD card or in a more accessible directory, you can do the same folder linking process to point to a location on your steam deck for EA and Ubi games.

The linking is not exactly necessary, I'm just a neurotic incel who likes a clean directory on my Linux machine. You can just as easily skip to the download and add folders step.

Linking folders because you're not an animal who ♥♥♥♥♥ on the lawn

For example, I have a directory in /home/deck/Games

In it, I have the following directory structure

/home/deck/Games/
├─ EA Games/
├─ Ubisoft Games/

these are real directories to keep the games better accessible and folder linked to

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<UBISOFT_COMPAT_ID>/pfx/drive_c/Ubisoft Games/

and

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<EA_COMPAT_ID>/pfx/drive_c/EA Games/

This is also theoretically possible to do on your SD card, simply link the folder you have in

/run/media/deck/<GUID-OF-SD-CARD>/Games

or in Dolphin/Explorer, the primary Removable Devices path, drag and link to the folder inside the compatdata wine prefix (pfx) folder to the corresponding launcher path so it points to your SD card directories. in this case, the launchers should see C:/Ubisoft Games or C:/EA Games/ when you use the settings in those launchers to choose a different download folder.

Or use the terminal to ln -s , if you're feeling lucky/actually know what you're doing.

Each wine pfx folder is basically a simulated Windows directory that the program can access. you're essentially telling the launcher to view the linked folder as a location within that simulated path to install to. We linked these folders away from the wine directories to a better local directory or your SD card to better manage space and keep the files accessible and clean.

Downloading and adding to steam

Download your games, then when you Add to Steam, add the path through the compatdata folder. In the case of the grey market key I bought for Ghost Recon Wildlands so many years ago.

"/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<UBISOFT_COMPAT_ID>/pfx/drive_c/Ubisoft Games/Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands/GRW.exe"

(or if you decided to not link folders and piss all over my bed, you will have to find the game inside the games folder in each launcher's files and use that for the target and Start In directories)

That will be your "Target" when you clean up the shortcut link in Steam (right click->properties)

Start in, should be

/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<UBISOFT_COMPAT_ID>/pfx/drive_c/Ubisoft Games/Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands/

And finally, the secret sauce for Launch Options

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH="/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<UBISOFT_COMPAT_ID>" %command%

The STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH will tell the game to use the wine prefix folder in the right launcher so that the business executives who thought Gabe was having just a little too much of their money can be stroked to satisfaction. This will have to be pointed at the compdata numbered folder for each corresponding launcher.

For whatever game you're working with, if it doesn't work immediately, you can consult steamdb.info's config on the game (if it exists in steam) to figure out the launch options [steamdb.info] if it's not there welcome to the world of tinkering until it works, and don't forget Proton Experimental.

[W1CK3DWYRM]

You can't just like remove it?

[George0202_best]

I linked as you said but I get this error: Unable to find Ubisoft Game Launcher, please reinstall Assassins Creed 2

[RedAtari]

i'm lost here ---->If you've followed the above steps you still have UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe in your Steam Library.
Find the UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe and once again Right-click and choose Properties...
Scroll down and select Browse.... and in the bottom next to "File type:" select "All Files"
You are now going to look for Origin's "wine prefix" folder, it will be in /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata. Look for a folder with a name


I open the properties of UbisoftConnectInstaller.exe and see target and start in. I hit browse and key in the path, i don't see the folder. errr

[Bearlissimo]

Absolutely magic! You've saved my bacon! Thank you

[SAI227]

When Ezio gets his hidden blade fixed after that the game gets stucked why it's not working

[Steel]

Omg, it works! Thank you very much, my friend!

[night_assassin]

I found the required directory on the micro SD and carried out the operations described above, but it did not help. I even deliberately copied a ten-digit catalog there, then made a link, as in the guide, but that didn’t help either

[norb]

I know that the SD card might have it's own steamapps/compatdata directory not in the /home/deck/.local folder, maybe at some point in the future I'll come back to this when I've moved the game there to add that section. for now though I will admit I do not trust fully the magic of GUIDs and Linux to attempt it.

[night_assassin]

Its working, ITS WORKING!!!! OR, how to say Todd Howard:it just works. But it not work on micro sd, buut it not matters