Many of Electronic Arts' (EA) old games are being put to pasture.
The popular game publisher recently announced it is retiring some of its old games due to their maintenance becoming no longer feasible with the number of remaining players still playing them.
Some of the games will turn into exclusively single players games or lose some modes and features, while others are permanently unplayable due to their servers being shut down.
EA Game Shut Down Details
EA mentioned in its announcement that it is shutting down the servers of a number of games in the near future, with some being in the line of fire as soon as Oct. 20.
According to EA's announcement, two Army of Two games, specifically Army of Two: The 40th Day and Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, will lose their online multiplayer capabilities on Oct. 20. The same is true for Dragon Age Origins' MP screenshots server.
Come Nov. 9, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (the one with Tim Curry going to space) and Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars for the Xbox 360 and its Kane's Wrath expansion will become exclusively single-player games. However, these games, especially Red Alert 3, have a following large enough to have fan-supported servers. As such, the game will continue running for a long time even after EA shelves it, per Kotaku.
Mercenaries 2 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will also lose its servers on Nov. 9.
ONRUSH is also up for retirement, with the game being sunsetted on Nov. 30. Additionally, two Super Mega Baseball games, specifically Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings for Luna+ and Super Mega Baseball 3 for Luna+, will also see new pastures on Dec. 15.
Finally, the popular parkour video game Mirror's Edge, as well as Gatling Gears, NBA Jam on Fire Edition, and Shank 2 are turning into single-player games exclusively on Jan. 19, 2023.
Although not a complete shutdown, EA will be replacing The Sims 4 Deluxe Edition with the new Sims 4 EA Play Edition on the Play List on Oct. 18. The same will also happen with The Sims 4 Bundle, which contains The Sims 4 Deluxe Edition and the game's Dine Out and Kids Room Stuff DLCs. It will be replaced with The Sims 4 EA Play Pro Edition on Oct. 18 as well.
EA Game Retirements' Effect On Players
As previously stated, the games listed will have their online multiplayer capabilities switched off due to them losing their servers. As such, games that offer live services exclusively will become unplayable, while those that provide single-player experiences will continue to be playable, albeit with no online multiplayer mode.
One example of this is Mirror's Edge, wherein its players can still play the single-player story mode but will lose access to its online multiplayer mode and leaderboards, per Game Rant.
It is unknown if any of these games will be delisted from various online video game selling platforms, such as EA's own Origin platform and Steam, though this usually happens if licenses have expired, as in the case of sports and racing games.
