2K announced on Steam and their support site on Monday that the multiplayer and challenge mode features in XCOM 2 will be removed from the Steam version on March 28th. The brief post only mentions freeing up resources, presumably for Firaxis’ upcoming Marvel Midnight Suns. The team’s announcement follows:
As a heads up to the XCOM 2 community, we wanted to share that we will be retiring services for Multiplayer and Challenge Mode for the Steam version of the game.
On March 28, 2022 an update to the Steam version of XCOM 2 will remove the functionalities; this won’t affect XCOM 2 on console platforms, or on Mac and Linux. The decision to retire these services isn’t something done lightly, but it does allow us to refocus our resources.
We appreciate your support and thank you for your understanding.
2K Announcement
Thanks to Wakayama_PT for pointing out the news. I’ve added the date to the Watch List calendar.