Last Remnant PC activation issues

By Robert Purchese Published 20 March, 2009

Steam authentication required but denied.

The PC version of The Last Remnant, which launches today in Europe, cannot be played nor installed as far as we - and a Eurogamer reader with the same problem (and an entire Steam forum with the same problem) - can ascertain.

The problem revolves around Steam, with which the game needs to be activated using a registration code found on the back of the manual.

Any attempt to do so, however, is met by the following message: "The Last Remnant has not been officially released, and cannot be unlocked at this time. Please check Steam news to find out the release time. Steam will notify you when the game becomes unlocked."

Worryingly, The Last Remnant is not due for launch on Steam until 9th April, when it will become the first Square Enix game on the digital distribution service.

Square Enix was unavailable to tell us whether we will have to wait until then to activate and play the game. We'll keep chasing them. It's not like we can sit here playing the game after all.

Thanks to Eurogamer reader John Garbutt for pointing this out.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Vanmunt #1 3 years ago

    Bloody hell, count your blessings........ this game manages to both 'suck and blow' at the same time.

  • FortysixterUK #2 3 years ago

    Above comment is WROOOOOONG...wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong.

    You're WRONG.....

    But buy it on xbox 360 anyway.

  • crwoody #3 3 years ago

    Was going to pick this up tomorrow from town :S I think i'll wait to find out if I can play it or not first though.

    (or find a handy crack online)

  • Vanmunt #4 3 years ago

    @Fortysixter

    Think we will have to agree to disagree on this one!!

  • djed #5 3 years ago

    gg squeenix.
    Edited by 2 at 20/03/09 @ 15:32

  • dudefella #6 3 years ago

    Oh god, you mean the boxed retail copy *requires* Steam? That's awful, and I love Steam. So you can buy it in the store but not play it because it isn't "officially" out yet. Bullshit.

  • Erinan #7 3 years ago

    Played the demo, thought it looked ugly and rubbish to play. And generic.
    Edited by 1 at 20/03/09 @ 15:54

  • Dagdriver #8 3 years ago

    Another one goes the Steam way?
    I was really disapointed when I installed my boxed Empire Total War, only to find out it required Steam.
    Steam is in theory a good idea, but IMHO it's implemented real bad, and I *really* don't like the idea of small applications lurking on my pc almost bejond my control.

  • kangarootoo #9 3 years ago

    "Oh god, you mean the boxed retail copy *requires* Steam? That's awful, and I love Steam."

    Truth.

    I've never used Steam, but I'm a big fan of digital distribution.

    HOWEVER I am also a firm believer that if you buy a disc based game in a shop you should be able to install and play it whether your PC connected to the internet or in a plastic bubble at the bottom of the ocean.

    If a game requires an internet connection for gameplay reasons (such as a multiplayer only RTS or something) then fair enough, but requiring an internet connection for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with the gameplay experience that the player paid for is a very poor show (putting it politely).

  • GreyBeard #10 3 years ago

    This definitely qualifies a legitimate, 5-star OMFG fuck-up.

    I'm really starting to worry about SE.

  • UncleLou #11 3 years ago

    FWIW, I bought this, and contacted the German customer support after I saw Steam says release date is April 9. Here's the funny thing: the German support that is mentioned in the manual, Koch Media, didn't even know they're doing support for TLR.

    And Square Enix seem to have changed the release date to and fro merrily several times, but kinda forgot to inform Steam or their German co-distributor.

    So before people jump on the anti-Steam bandwagon all too quickly, this looks more like a major cock-up from Square-Enix at this moment.
    Edited by 1 at 20/03/09 @ 16:28

  • Darren #12 3 years ago

    I must admit I'm starting to really dislike Steam of late for the following reasons:

    1. It took the best part of two days (i.e. a weekend!) before it would update Unreal Tournament III to v2.0 with the Titan Pack so I could play it online. I kept getting the Downloading Starting message but it never did, despite numerous restarts of the Steam application. It was nothing to do with my internet connection either as I was able to download demos from other internet sites.

    2. I bought F.E.A.R. 2 last month on disc from GAME and got it a day early. However, because it uses Steam instead of DRM I had to wait a day to be able to play it. OK so that wasn't a big deal but as this article proves it can be if you have to wait TWO weeks to play a game you've just bought.

    3. My Steam folder was so large and I had so little space left on the partition that I had to actually move the ENTIRE folder to another drive in order to even install F.E.A.R. 2 in the first place. Why can't you choose an install path for that game like you can with every other disc-based game, why do I have to move 80 GB worth of files? It's just unnecessarily stupid.

    4. Steam itself is overpriced. When I can buy games online from GAME for £25, why the hell would I pay Steam's over-inflated prices? For example, I paid £24.99 for F.E.A.R. 2 when it was £34.99 on Steam, £18 for Crysis when it was £39.99 (???) and so on. I thought digital distribution was supposed to cut out the middle man and give us cheaper games since there's no disc, manual or box?

    The only good things I'll say about Steam is that it does away with the need to have the disc in the DVD tray when you play and it does have the odd cheap bargain such as OutRun 2006 for £5 and Lost Planet for £3.50.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #13 3 years ago

    This is what happens with US based companies - SO used to being 'first', things like this 'never happen'..

    Considering this is the 3rd major game to require Steam for DRM in the past few months and both DoWII and Empire went well, and this happens and it's all 'OMG!! STEAM IS TEH EVIL!' again....

    Hopefully this is quickly fixed as I still beleave personally that Steam as DRM is MUCH better then 'renting' a full product.

    Oh and FYI Last Rem isn't a bad game if you get into your head it's NOT 'Final Fantasy' and more like Fire Emblem or Tactics

  • Nithron #14 3 years ago

    Steam isn't "teh evil", it's just that the addition of internet activation screws things up for their customers.

    It works okay most of the time, and then occasionally it goes wrong. Except you can't really justify it going wrong, even occasionally, because the online activation doesn't add any advantage for the customer, or the developers/publishers, at all.

    I suppose it means that nobody can play it before the release date, but who cares?

  • AssassiN Verified Owner/Editor, Computers N Stuff #15 3 years ago

    It's working now incase anyone is bothered.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #16 3 years ago

    According to a few forums many have rung the Square-Enix helpline in UK and those guys aren't best pleased themselfs from whats been said Steam should be unlocking EU copies now (even tho from the installation it's a unisersal version).. In fact mine has just worked :)

    I kinda agree things should work on the day at least, but I still stand by the fact at least Steam DRM is better then 'renting'

  • michaelius #17 3 years ago

    oh TLR requires steam - what a pity I'll buy it when it hits bargain bin then

  • GreyScale #18 3 years ago

    Its like they are doing their bestest to ensure that no-one buys their stupid game.

  • hiddenranbir #19 3 years ago

    Those pirates must already have got their ultima weapons already.

  • Spekingur #20 3 years ago

    Steam is AWESOME but it needs a bit more control of where you install things.

    Still, this has a big FAIL stamp on it.

  • dacicus #21 3 years ago

    Let me check this: the legit buyers are getting the pirate treatment, while the pirates already have the game with no hustles as the ones I see presented in this article. Every Steam exclusive was pirated to the hell and back, and I'm still confused why if I buy a retail edition from a retail shop, I should be concerned with Steam activation...FEAR2, Empire: TW, War40k: DOW2, The Last Remnant, Merchants of Brooklyn, C&C RA3: Uprising, Soviet Assault expansion for World in Conflict, all those titles were available to the pirates. Also the patches and the preorder bonuses for them. While the honest customers must go through hell to play their legit games, being limited in so many ways, the pirate just picks up the game and plays it. What's worse he gets the full treatment, as the pirate actually bought the game...And I still remember Steam's "=" sign between dollar and euro. Steam has a lot of problems, and while it's more permissive than Securom online, it's not that far. And me, as a customer who likes to buy from retail shops, I don't see the point of being forced to put Steam on my PC. Why, if I pick up the game on a CD/DVD support, i'm forced to wait to play it, why I should have Steam or GFW Live or ahny other third party programs? How many more programs running in my background while playing?
    Sure I can understand Steam required in the case fo RA3: Uprising or Soviet Assault, or Merchants of Brooklyn, but I can't understand Steam on any other games that are out in the mortar and brick retail shops. And I loathe any kind of activation, since my conandrums with Bioshock and Mass Effect. I never played Half Life2, because of the Steam component, and certainly I will skip any retail game that is forcing me to put more and more programs in the background that will run while playing. Skipped GTA4 because GFW Live and Rockstar Club and all the retail titles that are requiring Steam activation. So, I guess I'll skip The Last Remnant too. On the other side, I do have Soviet Assault and RA3: Uprising, as there was no other mean to get them (still I don't like the fact that the original RA3 had Securom Online for protection and I feel cheated). I'm more for the Impulse and Stardock way as they provide now. I like the way they treat their customers and Impulse, at least, tries to maintain a balance between customers and the need to protect the games.

  • GordonJ #22 3 years ago

    This reminds me of DoW2 where a load of people got it delivered on the day before the release day. As it was a steam game it refused to install until the Friday.

  • ZuluHero #23 3 years ago

    "Oh god, you mean the boxed retail copy *requires* Steam? That's awful, and I love Steam."

    But thats the same as any of the Half Life 2 games and episodes? I love Half Life, but i really hated steam for that...

  • dudefella #24 3 years ago

    To be clear, I think Steam is great. But as said, I think any boxed retail game should work on its own, certainly a game like Last Remnant which has no online components at all, why should it require Steam verification? It makes no sense.

    HL2 and episodes were Valve games, so at least it made sense in that context.

  • Gastrian #25 3 years ago

    Steam pissed me off with DoW2. I had the game delivered two days before the release date and it wouldn't even let me install it until Steam said it was released.

  • DodgyPast #26 3 years ago

    I suspect all the pissing and moaning due to release date shenanigans is one of the major reasons publishers like Steam.

    Personally I prefer Steam over the limited activations bullshit that EA has been pulling, though guessing we do lose the opportunity to resell the games which is a complete bastard and does need to be investigated.

  • UncleLou #27 3 years ago

    You seem to care a lot, otherwise you wouldn't have read the thread and replied.

  • photoboy #28 3 years ago

    Exactly the same thing happened to me with FEAR2 on Steam, it arrived early in the post but I was prevented from playing it because Steam decided that the game wasn't out yet.

    I'd like to know what happens when these activation servers go offline in 10 years time or if Valve go bust or if they stop supporting certain publisher's games or if the installer can't work over IPv6, how will I install and play my game then? I still enjoy playing Doom, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, etc and they're from over 12 years ago so it's not outside the realms of possibility that I will want to play these new games a decade from now (well aside from them being crap).

    I'm sick of all this DRM shit, no wonder piracy is so rampant on the PC when "official" games treat you like a criminal. Why bother paying for the inferior product when the free one is better?!

  • Nithron #29 3 years ago

    It's pretty funny, actually. All the people that defend DRM in the comments on any articles about piracy suddenly disappear when an article like this turns up.

  • UncleLou #30 3 years ago

    Er, no, here I am, to defend DRM in this "game playable on release day" shocker.

  • UncleLou #31 3 years ago

    PC version seems to be ok.