One of the things that is nearly inevitable in online gaming is that servers for older, less populated games will eventually be closed down. This is, of course, unfortunate for anyone still playing those games online, but it’s important to remember that keeping those servers online does cost companies money. If the playerbase isn’t there to support it, shutting it down makes perfect financial sense. To that end, it’s recently been announced that Electronic Arts will be closing several servers for older games that fit the bill. Fortunately, players still have a bit of time before the servers are closed for good, so if you want to hop in and play one last match, you have plenty of time to do so.
The news was first spotted by PureXbox, who noted that EA is closing the servers to 12 games over the next few months. For the most part, these games are from older systems, though several of them are available via backward compatibility. Of course, you’ll still be able to play all of these games. It’s just the online elements that are going down. That said, if you want to hop into a final game of Crysis 3‘s online multiplayer, you need to do it sooner rather than later.
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Speaking of Crysis 3, it’ll be the first game to have its server closed when the PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC versions shut down on September 7. Next up will be Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 (October 10) and Restaurant DASH: Gordon Ramsay (October 30). Then, FIFA 18, 19, 20, and 21 will shut off their servers for all platforms on November 6. That’ll be just a few days after EA Sports FC 24 drops on September 29, so some of this is probably EA trying to move players onto the new game. Finally, Battlefield 1943, Battlefield Bad Company, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Dead Space 2, and Dante’s Inferno will close their servers on December 8.
Again, this is a fairly routine thing that EA (and most developers) do from time to time. Especially with sports games like the FIFA series, the company wants players to move forward so that EA can continue to make its money from microtransactions. While some probably hoped the older games like Crysis 3 and Dead Space 2 would keep their servers on, it appears that there just aren’t enough players still hopping in for EA to continent to do so.
