Max_Joker, Community Manager of the r/NeedForSpeed subreddit posted Monday afternoon to announce that five older Need for Speed titles were set to be removed from digital storefronts starting that same day. The full announcement follows:
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.
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.
At the time of writing, all titles had been delisted on Xbox 360 except for Undercover. Need for Speed Carbon and Need for Speed SHIFT PSP appeared to be available for PlayStation Portable and Vita. Need for Speed The Run and SHIFT 2 Unleashed appeared to be available for PlayStation 3. The titles originally released to Steam remained available. Only the newer entries in the series appeared on Origin and EA Play. All of the games are also available on physical media though they will be impacted by the August 31st termination of online services.
I’ve added the online services deadline to the Watch List calendar and will have some pages up on the site soon. Thanks to @anFerzy who initially pointed out the news to the site.