EA Need for Speed community manager Max_Joker, shared on the Need for Speed subreddit, that they would be retiring older Need for Speed titles. The announcement is below:
Starting May 31st 2021, Need for Speed Carbon (2006), Need for Speed Undercover (2008), Need for Speed Shift (2009), Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed (2011) and Need for Speed The Run (2011) will be removed from digital storefronts and you will no longer be able to purchase them. In-game stores will also be closed from May 31st. This is in preparation for the retirement of the online services for these titles which will happen on August 31st 2021. Until that date, you will be able to play and race your friends (and rivals) online. From September 1st 2021 onwards, you can still play the games and use the respective offline features of these titles.
The reason behind this decision is that the Need for Speed developers want to "focus on the future of Need for Speed." While the developers want players to keep playing their games it seems that the amount of players playing these games has deteriorated to the point that "it's no longer feasible to continue work behind the scenes" for older Need for Speed games to remain "up and running". However, newer games such as Need for Speed Most Wanted (2012), Need for Speed Rivals, Need for Speed (2015), Need for Speed Payback (2017), Need for Speed Heat (2019), and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered (2020) will still be available via an EA Play subscription and on digital storefronts such as Steam as well.
For more information on all things Need for Speed, stay tuned to TechRaptor for more details.
Quick Take
While this isn't the greatest of news, these games are all over ten years old so it makes sense they are no longer being supported. This doesn't mean that players shouldn't be able to play their favorite games online. If possible server files should be released, but unless a huge fuss is kicked up such a thing is extremely unlikely. Oh well, at least with the Need for Speed series there's a lot of games to choose from.
What do you think of this news? Do you still play any of these Need for Speed titles? Let us know in the comments!
