RUSE will not use Ubisoft's standard DRM, the RUSE team have confirmed. Instead, it'll use Steamworks and will be playable offline in the normal Steam fashion.
The RUSE team released this message aimed squarely at PC gamers:
"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. Consequently, a Steam account and Internet connection will be required to activate the game, as per Steam policy. For this reason, R.U.S.E. will not use the Ubisoft protection. Single player can be played offline."
Ubisoft's controversial DRM, which requires a constant internet connection at all times to play even singleplayer games (and will sometimes prevent you from saving your game if your connection drops, booting you to the menu), has always been a bad idea. We've made sure to make a stink about the DRM when we review Ubisoft games that use it. From their point of view, it's the only thing preventing anyone from pirating their games. From the pirates' point of view, it's the best thing about pirating their games. From PC Gamer's point of view, it makes it very hard for us to recommend an excellent game if the slightest nibble at your broadband cable (or their servers) can kick you out of a single player session and ditch your progress.
This is the first major crack in Ubisoft's resolve - their DRM must be hurting sales, and they're worried about their cerebral strategy game because it doesn't have the widespread appeal of, say, Assassin's Creed, that it'd need to push through the anti-DRM picket lines.
It could also be that they've hit upon an idea that's something like this:
