The year is proving to be a tough time for video game preservation. EA has announced that they will be delisting three beloved Battlefield titles later this year. The original announcement also mentioned plans to delist the wholly single-player Mirror’s Edge but was later changed.
Bad Times for a Bad Company Fan
Battlefield 1943, Battlefield: Bad Company, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be delisted on April 28th, 2023. Online services will later be terminated on December 8th, 2023.
Disappointment continues to wash over fans of the series as new releases struggle to compare to older titles. EA themselves have noted that Battlefield 2042 was something of a misstep. Battlefield‘s lackluster modern releases make this decision all the more frustrating, as fans are left with little to look back on.
For those wanting to experience the single-player content, both Bad Company games feature campaigns that will still be available post-shutdown. This proves to be the most controversial component of the decision, however, as both games feature a substantial amount of offline content. Battlefield 1943‘s position as a purely digital, online-only game, unfortunately, leaves it vulnerable to absolute erasure.
The Hot Topic of Sunsetting Video Games
Sunsetting has been a hot topic for the past few years as companies continue to abandon their older releases. Dozens of games are condemned to the void with little care. As generational gaps continue to grow, these kinds of destructive events become more common.
EA has made a habit of sunsetting titles lately, with the recent closure of Apex Legends Mobile in January. Beyond EA, players saw the closure of Epic’s Rumbleverse just last month, which ended after less than a year. While it’s a miracle Battlefield 1943 has lasted as long as it has, it’s a sad end to something that should be preserved for generations to come.
Games preservation itself can be an incredibly cumbersome process. The YouTuber known as The Completionist recently released a video detailing the process of purchasing every Nintendo 3DS and Wii U game on the Nintendo eShop before their closure later this month. This type of clean preservation is an admirable push for preservation as a whole, as detailed by Kelsey Lewin, Co-Director of the Video Game History Foundation, in this thread of Tweets.
