An EA game from 2018 can no longer be purchased nor played. The game in question is only available on PS4 and Xbox One, but it has been playable on PS5, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X via backward compatibility. That said, it is no longer playable on the current-gen machines because it is no longer playable on last-gen machines. EA has done little to publicize the shutdown, but it was added to Online Service Shutdown page from EA.
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Thankfully, the shutdown isn’t that notable because it is an EA Sports game, and has consequently received two installments since in 2020 and 2023. For those that have not connected the dots yet, the mystery game just vanished from existence is EA Sports UFC 3 from EA Canada. It released back on February 2, 2024 to a 75 on Metacritic, and has been made redundant by newer games.
Why EA can’t leave the servers on is no doubt due to the cost of running and maintaining said servers, which is not only not free, but costly. And if there is no one, or next to no one, playing the game it doesn’t make sense to fork over money to maintain servers for the game. In addition to this, servers not regularly managed pose a security risk, giving EA even more incentive to shut the game down, which it has.
This shutdown follows the very similar shutdown of Rory McIlroy PGA Tour (PGA Tour 2016) for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 back on February 3. This shutdown was no doubt for similar reasons and was handled very similarly.
It is worth noting that this issue is not exclusive to EA. With the increasing number of games that are either online only or have substantial online elements, these shutdowns are increasingly common. And for what it is worth, while EA doesn’t do a great job of getting the word out abut some shutdowns, it does do more with Online Services Shutdown page than others in the industry do.
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