Five Need For Speed games have just been canned by EA

ByKyle Wilson Hours

Last Updated on: 1st June 2021, 06:41 pm

We know EA isn’t exactly the internet’s “Golden Boy” when it comes to the gaming industry, but this seems like a strange move even for them. EA has essentially deleted five Need for Speed games from the internet recently and there wasn’t really any warning.

Yeah, we don’t know either. Need for Speed Carbon, Need for Speed Undercover, Need for Speed Shift, Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed, and Need for Speed The Run have all been removed from digital storefronts as of May 31st. Now, if you want to play any of them you’ll only be able to play physical copies and/or pre-bought digital copies.

In addition to this, the in-game stores have all been shut down and the online multiplayer services will be removed on August 31st. If you own Need for Speed Carbon, you’ve not got long to play a few multiplayer races.

Need For Speed Games The Shift
Credit: EA

If EA offered its fans some forewarning, we can imagine quite a few of us would have picked up a couple of old Need For Speed titles on Origin. We can understand the online servers being shut down, but deleting them from digital storefronts seems a little extreme…

EA’s Decision To Remove Need For Speed Games

What makes the whole situation bizarre, really, is the lack of forewarning from EA. Rather than any kind of message before, the Community Manager of Need For Speed’s official Reddit posted the following statement on the day of removal.

” Hello there!

” Today, we have some news to share about some of the older Need for Speed titles:

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” Starting May 31st 2021, Need for Speed Carbon, Need for Speed Undercover, Need for Speed Shift, Need for Speed Shift 2: Unleashed and Need for Speed The Run 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.

Need For Speed Games The Run
Credit: EA

” Decisions to retire games are never made easy, but we are now shifting gears to focus on the future of Need for Speed. 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. 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 – Need for Speed Most Wanted (2012), Need for Speed Rivals, Need for Speed (2015), Need for Speed Payback, Need for Speed Heat and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered – many of which are available via our EA Play subscription. Pedal to the metal.”

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Essentially, it seems like the issue is that not enough people play them. That’s fair enough, but we can imagine that the threat of these titles being removed would have been enough for avid Need For Speed fans to breathe new life into the titles.

As you can imagine a lot of people had issues with EA’s communication of the whole event and the fact that the announcement came as soon as a recent sale on NFS titles ended.