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Electronic Arts and DICE just announced that they plan on "sunsetting" a handful of older titles. By "sunsetting" they mean that they will be taking the servers for these games offline and they will also remove the games from digital storefronts. After April 27, 2023, you will no longer be able to purchase these games.
Those games being pulled starting April 28 include Battlefield 1943, Battlefield: Bad Company, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Mirror's Edge.
Now, the Battlefield games I can somewhat understand. Battlefield 1943 and Bad Company are stuck on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The planned PC release for Battlefield 1943 never materialized. I cannot say I necessarily agree with sunsetting Bad Company 2. That one does have a PC release and could have been spared this fate had EA released the server files to the public.
Pulling Mirror's Edge from storefronts makes even less sense. Mirror's Edge is a single player game. The only multiplayer component for the game is a leaderboard for the optional time trials. Do you mean to tell me, the best option here is to totally pull what is 99% a single player game from storefronts all because of an online leaderboard? Was there never any sort of a local fallback option for those leaderboards if the servers were ever down or what?
If Mirror's Edge isn't being pulled because of the leaderboard thing, then why is it being pulled? The only other thing that makes sense is that it's being pulled due to a licensing issue with audio. Perhaps the Still Alive song played during the game's credits?
The only silver lining here is that while these games are being pulled from stores after April 27, you will still be able to play them to a certain degree.
Online services for all of these titles will be cut on December 8, 2023. For Battlefield 1943, this means the game will be completely dead on that date. Bad Company 1 & 2 and Mirror's Edge at least have their offline single player campaigns that you can keep playing after December 8. Which again begs the question why Mirror's Edge is being pulled in the first place!
Anyway, EA and DICE talked briefly about the games they're taking out behind the shed in April.
Battlefield 1943
At the time this was our third entry in the Battlefield franchise available on consoles, and took you to World War II as you fought in the Pacific as either the United States Marine Corps or the Imperial Japanese Navy.
1943 was only ever released as a digital game, and was exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but crucially for the first time, it offered us the ability to play Wake Island on console.
Bad Company
Marlowe. Sweetwater. Redford and Haggard. Four names that resonate a lot with you as Battlefield: Bad Company introduced an iconic and relatable bunch of troublemakers who risked it all and went AWOL to pursue a personal quest.
Not only has the cast and their story piqued your interest, but their endless pursuit of gold bars as you battled it out through Gold Rush - a mode that is now called Rush - added a new core mode to the Battlefield franchise. It wouldn’t be Bad Company without referencing the loveable but deadly smiley grenade did too!
It also marked the birth of the Frostbite engine and the fun and chaotic multiplayer experience that has run through Battlefield ever since.
Bad Company 2
The band got back together for what they thought to be their final mission within Bad Company 2, which involved them going behind enemy lines. However upon completion, they were tasked with heading towards South America on what became an increasingly riskier but also mysterious mission.
Bad Company 2 was also the first time that PC players were introduced to this band of military outcasts, alongside new improvements coming to the Frostbite engine.
Mirror’s Edge
And while not a Battlefield title, many of us who work on Battlefield have also been part of the development of Mirror’s Edge. We look back fondly on Faith as an iconic character, and her parkour style gameplay.​
At the time this was our third entry in the Battlefield franchise available on consoles, and took you to World War II as you fought in the Pacific as either the United States Marine Corps or the Imperial Japanese Navy.
1943 was only ever released as a digital game, and was exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but crucially for the first time, it offered us the ability to play Wake Island on console.
Bad Company
Marlowe. Sweetwater. Redford and Haggard. Four names that resonate a lot with you as Battlefield: Bad Company introduced an iconic and relatable bunch of troublemakers who risked it all and went AWOL to pursue a personal quest.
Not only has the cast and their story piqued your interest, but their endless pursuit of gold bars as you battled it out through Gold Rush - a mode that is now called Rush - added a new core mode to the Battlefield franchise. It wouldn’t be Bad Company without referencing the loveable but deadly smiley grenade did too!
It also marked the birth of the Frostbite engine and the fun and chaotic multiplayer experience that has run through Battlefield ever since.
Bad Company 2
The band got back together for what they thought to be their final mission within Bad Company 2, which involved them going behind enemy lines. However upon completion, they were tasked with heading towards South America on what became an increasingly riskier but also mysterious mission.
Bad Company 2 was also the first time that PC players were introduced to this band of military outcasts, alongside new improvements coming to the Frostbite engine.
Mirror’s Edge
And while not a Battlefield title, many of us who work on Battlefield have also been part of the development of Mirror’s Edge. We look back fondly on Faith as an iconic character, and her parkour style gameplay.​
