The seamless multiplayer functionality that is included in Watch Dogs 2 is malfunctioning in the retail console release of the game. Ubisoft disabled the functionality just days before the release of the game.

A Ubisoft representative states that during the game's "pre-launch phase" the development team discovered "an issue tied to the seamless multiplayer feature that caused the game to lag and crash periodically."

The game developer states that it has chosen to release the game with the functionality disabled to "make sure that it doesn't impact the core gameplay experience."

On social media fans of the franchise have expressed their disappointment with the disabling of the functionality, blaming Ubisoft's poor quality assurance testing.

"How did this not get realized? Did you guys play multiplayer?" one angry fan posted on Reddit. "This is little disappointing. I wish I had read of this before purchasing the game today. Really didn't want to be supporting this kind of behaviour as far as QA goes." another user replied.

Ubisoft states that players can still play the full singleplayer campaign normally. In addition, the co-op multiplayer functionality is unaffected, allowing players to still play with eachother by inviting their friends.

The game developer also states that it is working on a patch to resolve the issues, but it is unclear how long it will take them to release it.

Whether the PC version of the game is likewise affected is currently unknown. The PC version launches on November 29th 2016.