Now and again throughout the year, the servers for various Xbox games end up being shut down for different reasons - whether that's simply because they're old titles now, or perhaps they haven't performed as well as expected.
We've seen a few Xbox servers being shut down already in 2024, but March is looking particularly busy for these closures, with games from EA, Ubisoft and FromSoftware all being affected. We highlighted these late last year, but they were announced in stages, so we thought we'd bring them all back together ahead of the new month.
Here are the Xbox games that are shutting down their servers in March (so far):
- Armored Core: Verdict Day (March 31)
- Dark Souls 2 for Xbox 360 (March 31)
- Multiple F1 Games - F1 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 & Race Stars (March 21)
- Micro Machines World Series (March 21)
- Rocket Arena (March 21)
- The Crew (March 31)
The big highlight here for many is probably The Crew, which is unfortunately an online-only game, meaning it'll be totally inaccessible after March 31st. EA's Rocket Arena will also become completely unplayable 10 days earlier.
We'll have more Xbox server shutdowns later this year too, with the biggest loss being the Xbox 360 store closure in July. It shouldn't affect anything in terms of backwards compatibility, but lots of 360-only games will be delisted forever.
Sad to see these Xbox games shutting down their servers next month? Tell us in the comments below.
Comments 16
games as a service.....
After buying or putting money into game as service then never being able to play it again.
All digital is great thing, right? Nope. Granted example is a GaS. But take good look at not being able to access something after paying for it.
Physical media is the best and only way to go. This will not happen to you.
@GuyinPA75 if it's actually the full playable game on the physical disk/cartridge then yes it's definitely the best way to go. But in reality a ton of physical media is just wasted resources for something that you're going to have to download digitally anyways because it's not actually on the disk/cartridge.
I expect limited run physical copies will be a niche market for collectors and that's all. Not sure how you could stop that change from happening as the average consumer doesn't care about having a physical copy so neither do the publishers.
Love the Comments about games as a service by people who clearly just read the article name and not even the games losing their servers. Every time there's an article like this. Yes, my favorite live service game Dark Souls 2 on the 360.
@GuyinPA75 Physical or digital makes absolutely no difference in this situation. If you own a disc for The Crew it's going to be a frisbee or drink coaster when the service goes down.
@Krzzystuff To be fair, there are just as many games that have the full, playable games on disc now. There are whole websites dedicated to providing lists of these. And there are a lot.
@GuyinPA75 all but one of the games listed above (Rocket Arena) was released on disc.
It's a shame they will not put out a patch to allow you to play some of these offline. The Crew is a good example, after all these years I still load it up just to cruise around.
@BleedingDreamer That exactly!They should be forced to patch the game to make it offline but the consumers are sheep these days and just accept anything that's being shoved down their throats unfortunately...
They all suck, doesn't affect me.
Let's play vanilla Dark Souls 2! I still have my 360
It's sad that they shut down the servers to The Crew. There is plenty of players still playing the game. I will play the game as long as I can
Most of these will be restored on PC versions where you have file access. Hopefully a version of Insignia is made for Xbox 360.
Down with this sort of thing!
Careful now!
They really should be regulated to ensure a minimum lifetime of the servers is stated when the game is purchased.
Servers will persist until 2030 at the earliest. That sort of thing. At least then you can gauge the value of your purchase.
thats why game as a service is a cancer of our industry its meant to be capitalize on a 5 to 10 year life cycles, i don't buy those game up to 10$ for me they are like going to cinema they are meant to be consume and move on! Which is terrible for players.
Screwed again just like the Wii. This proves once again how digital purchases can be bad. Guess I’ll have to browse the 360 store to double check any games I want to grab before the cut off. Any digital games I buy I wait till they’re super cheap but physical games is still king! I still jump in my car & go to GameStop 2 or 3 times a month (or Best Buy) to buy physical games. Now that Sony is seeing this I’m sure ps3 store is not far behind as they already tried once and took a lot of heat for it and backed off.
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