Shubham Sawarkar
Electronic Arts (EA), in adherence to its cyclical operational strategy, is set to retire the online servers for a selection of legacy titles before the close of the current year. Notably identified by PureXbox, EA has earmarked the cessation of online services for no less than twelve games in the forthcoming months. This roster includes renowned titles such as Battlefield Bad Company 2, Dead Space 2, Crysis 3, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, among others.
Games such as Crysis 3, Dante’s Inferno, Dead Space 2, and Battlefield 1943, which are accessible via Xbox backward compatibility, face a limited time frame for the utilization of their online components by players engaging with these titles on contemporary Xbox consoles.
Acknowledging the complexity of the decision, EA conveys that the process of retiring aging games is a deliberation marked by its inherent difficulty. Nevertheless, these judicious determinations are requisite to empower EA to channel its finite temporal and resource assets towards the upkeep and enhancement of more contemporary and actively frequented gaming experiences.
In the words of EA, “As the gaming landscape evolves with the introduction of novel titles, the demographic of players engaged with longstanding games gradually diminishes to a level—usually comprising fewer than 1% of the peak online players across the EA gaming spectrum—where the sustainable continuation of the intricate background operations underpinning online services for these games becomes untenable.”
The scheduled timeline for the discontinuation of online services is as follows:
- Crysis 3 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One (via backward compatibility), Steam, and EA App, shuttered by September 7, 2023.
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, shuttered by October 10, 2023.
- Restaurant DASH: Gordon Ramsay for Apple, Google, and Amazon, shuttered by October 30, 2023.
- FIFA 18 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, shuttered by November 6, 2023.
- FIFA 19 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, shuttered by November 6, 2023.
- FIFA 20 for Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, shuttered by November 6, 2023.
- FIFA 21 for Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, shuttered by November 6, 2023.
- Battlefield 1943 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, shuttered by December 8, 2023.
- Battlefield Bad Company for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, shuttered by December 8, 2023.
- Battlefield Bad Company 2 for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, shuttered by December 8, 2023.
- Dead Space 2 on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, shuttered by December 8, 2023.
- Dante’s Inferno on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox 360, shuttered by December 8, 2023.
