Several older Need for Speed games will be removed from digital stores and have their in-game economies shuttered starting May 31, publisher EA announced. Online services for these games will cease operations in August.
Carbon, Shift, Shift 2: Unleashed, The Run, and Undercover are the Need for Speed games that are being prepared for retirement. All five games will no longer be purchasable from digital storefronts and players can't participate in their in-game economies to buy things like car parts and currencies. Online services such as leaderboards and matchmaking will stay active until August 31, at which point all five games will be relegated to strictly offline play.
Community manager Max Myrus took to the Need for Speed subreddit to deliver the news, explaining why retirement for these games has come.
"Decisions to retire games are never made easy, but we are now shifting gears to focus on the future of Need for Speed," Max said. "The development teams and operational staff have put a lot of time and passion into the development, creation, release and upkeep of the game over the years, and we love to see you play. But the number of players has come to a point where it's no longer feasible to continue the work behind the scenes required to keep Need for Speed Carbon, Need for Speed Undercover, Need for Speed Shift, Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed and Need for Speed The Run up and running."
This news isn't too surprising considering the age of these games, with the oldest on the list being Need for Speed: Carbon (2006) and the youngest being Need for Speed: The Run (2011). EA has published six other Need for Speed games since The Run; the latest was 2019's Need for Speed Heat.
Various Need for Speed games are on EA's subscription service EA Play, including Heat, Payback, and Rivals. The publisher will host an all-virtual EA Play Live on July 22. Though it's unclear if a new Need for Speed will surface, fans might get information about Battlefield 6 and Dragon Age 4.
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