Earlier this month,EA announced that it will be taking Anthem offline next year, rendering it completely unplayable. While the game isn’t exactly popular, the move has proven incredibly controversial for the precedent it sets,sparking petitionsand adding even more fuel to the Stop Killing Games movement. But it doesn’t end there.
As reported byPush Square, in a fairly obscureOnline Service Shutdown page on the EA website, it was also quietly revealed that Need for Speed: Rivals is being taken offline later this year on October 7. Bizarrely, there’s no mention of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, only Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Don’t worry about digging out your old consoles, though. UnlikeAnthem, you may still play Rivals when it goes down.
Thankfully, Need For Speed: Rivals Has An Offline Mode
Since Need for Speed: Rivals doesn’t require an internet connection, you can still play the game, just without any of the online components. I.e., instead of competing with real players, you’ll be matched with AI bots. Then again, since the game is a decade old, even playing it online right now is likely to leave you in a ghost town. On Steam, it only has a 24-hour peak of 129 players, with an all-time peak of just 415, so it was never the most active racer.
As some players point out, the servers have been struggling, too.u/Checho-73 claimsthat, while playing on PC, they kept running into “random disconnects and host migration” problems, pushing them to just play single-player and ignore the online elements altogether. So, it going offline won’t change much.
While PS3 and Xbox 360 aren’t mentioned, they have reportedly suffered from sign-in issues.
However, this has sparked concern that Need for Speed (2015) will be up next, as it launched two years later. Unlike Rivals, it doesn’t have an offline component, so if the servers were to be shut down, it would follow Anthem’s suit and be made completely unplayable.
Stop Killing Games seeks to prevent situations like this,and with over one million signatures and counting, is gaining momentum fast. It’s all hinging on the lawmakers now, but if passed, it would stop future Anthems from happening. Let’s just hope it’s retroactive.
