Nintendo Exclusive Gets Shut Down Unexpectedly

RIP to this 2014 Nintendo game.

By Tyler Fischer

A Nintendo exclusive from yesteryear has been shut down early after Nintendo took its servers down and now apparently can't revive them. Back in 2014, Nintendo released its first ever free-to-play game. A landmark moment for Nintendo was unfortunately not accompanied by a landmark game. 2014 was actually itself a great, notable year for Nintendo game releases between Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros, Yoshi's New Island, Donkey Kong Country: Tropic Freeze, Mario Golf: World Tour and other new releases. What wasn't notable was Steel Diver: Sub Wars. You may have never heard of this game, but it is the aforementioned free-to-play game, and a game that has cemented itself in the Nintendo history books despite flying under the radar of so many.

Back in March of 2023, Nintendo announced that the 3DS game and its DLC were no longer available to purchase as the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo 3DS was being discontinued. This won't happen until later in the year, but the game has gone and disappeared early. 

As you may remember, on September 4 of last year, the game's online servers were taken offline for "emergency maintenance." And then it never came back online. Fast-forward to this week, and Nintendo has relayed word the game is done. According to it, there is "no hope of recovery." It does not divulge why though. That said, with online play for all 3DS games set to shut down on April 8, there's probably little to no incentive to continue to beat the game with a hammer and wrench just to extend its life a few months, especially since servers are probably dead to begin with. 

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"Regarding the Nintendo 3DS software "Steeldriver Subwars" released on February 14, 2014, we have been conducting emergency maintenance from September 4, 2023, but there is no hope of recovery, so we apologize for the inconvenience. The service has ended," writes Nintendo.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to customers using Steeldriver Subwars and ask for your understanding. Thank you for your continued patronage of Steeldriver Subwars."

It's worth noting the original message is in Japanese, so the message above comes through translation. Sometimes vital meaning and context is loss in translation. If any more information or a more precise translation surfaces, we will be sure to update the story accordingly. In the meantime, for more Nintendo coverage -- including all of the latest Nintendo news, all of the latest Nintendo rumors and leaks, and all of the latest Nintendo deals -- click here.

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