It looks like I am now being forced to update the game in order to access it. Does anyone know of a way to avoid it?

Most likely not, when they post those you have to update. You are going to have to update or stop playing if it won't let you in.

@tosha said in Updates:

It looks like I am now being forced to update the game in order to access it. Does anyone know of a way to avoid it?

No , as far as i researched there is no , But what version you are on ? 5.0
my phone was on 5.0 and yeah it was locked today
The oldest working version now is 5.1.1

Yeah, that's the one too. I didn't really want to deal with the new pvp & some other changes.