[UPDATED 10/26/20] Thanks again to FallenRyan for following up. EA has pushed back the deadline for Madden titles to December 14th and FIFA titles to November 30th. Details have been updated below
Thanks once again to friend of the site, FallenRyan, for sending in a reminder about some server shutdowns coming this November. Probably the wildest among them is Destiny 2’s “Content Vault” that Bungie first announced in June. After that are a handful of older EA Sports titles that will lose online features and multiplayer later in the month of November.
Destiny 2 – November 10, 2020
ALL Platforms
“To create a sustainable ecosystem where the world can continue to evolve in exciting ways, and where we can update the game more quickly, we’re going to adopt a new content model that we’re calling the Destiny Content Vault (DCV). Each year, usually at the expansion boundaries, we will cycle some destination and activity content out of the game (and into the DCV) to make room for new experiences.
The first cycle of Destiny 2 content going into the DCV begins [November 10th], with the appearance of the Pyramid ships in Season of Arrivals and the Beyond Light expansion. To set a new maintainable foundation for the game this fall and to create room for Beyond Light and the future roadmap, the first Destiny 2 deposit into the DCV will be larger than those to come in the future and includes:
- Io
- Titan
- Mercury
- Mars
- Leviathan
- This includes all PvE activities (including campaigns) on those destinations
To be clear, the DCV does not apply to any weapons and armor in a player’s inventory or vault. The DCV is about activities and destinations.”
Madden NFL Titles – December 14, 2020
Madden NFL 25 (2013), Madden NFL 15, Madden NFL 16
on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
FIFA Titles – November 30, 2020
FIFA Street (2012) on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
FIFA Manager 13 on PC
Electronic Arts doesn’t issue individual statements on their Service Updates site but they do give a boilerplate statement that echoes many titles that have lost online features over the years.
“The decisions to withdraw particular features or modes of certain EA games, or to retire online services relating to older EA games are never easy. The development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into our games, their features and modes almost as much as the players, and it is hard to see one retired. As games are replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the games that have been live for some time dwindles to a level – typically fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles – where it’s no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping the online services for these games up and running.
We are also committed to constantly updating and improving the features and modes to keep in our games to ensure they remain exciting to play for as long as possible. That commitment to great gameplay sometimes means that we need to remove outdated features and modes.
In some instances, where the online services for a particular game may no longer be available or supported, the game may still be played and enjoyed offline. Depending on the type of game, and the particular services which may no longer be supported, players’ inventory of virtual currency and/or in-game items may continue to be used, whether or not the applicable in-game store is open or disabled, and whether or not the game is still available for sale to new users.”
I’ve also added these dates to the Watch List calendar but at this time will not be adding individual game pages to the site.