It’s the end of an era for one of Electronic Arts’ most iconic series. As of Monday, the company is delisting a number of older Need for Speed titles. The games are being removed from sale, and all online services are shutting down.
According to EA, there are no longer enough active players to justify keeping these games and their features alive. Now the publisher is “shifting gears to focus on the future of NFS.”
Need for Speed Games to be retired
- Need for Speed Carbon
- Need for Speed Undercover
- Need for Speed Shift & Shift 2: Unleashed
- Need for Speed The Run
While some titles remain on Steam (Undercover, Shift, and Shift 2), all will eventually be removed from digital storefronts. Online services remained open as of yesterday, but going forward only offline features are available. As with any news like this, fans are upset with the the game’s sudden disappearing act. Often times these older titles have very small, tight-knit player bases that keep the game’s memory intact.
In a Reddit post, Need for Speed developers admitted that “decisions to retire games are never made easy.” Continuing, “We hope you have gotten many victories, satisfying drifts, moments of friendly rivalry, and hours of joy over the last few years out of these games. And we hope you’ll keep driving with us in one of our newer titles.”
As for when those newer titles will arrive, that’s relatively unknown. Development on the newest NFS was delayed so that Criterion could help out with the next Battlefield game. Most would expect a release some time within the first quarter of 2022.