EA has announced plans to delist Mirror’s Edge and several Battlefield games
Update: EA says it has no plans to pull Mirror’s Edge from sale
DICE has announced plans to delist Mirror’s Edge and several Battlefield games.
“As we close in on 15 years since the release of Battlefield 1943, and Bad Company 1 & 2 and Mirror’s Edge, we are announcing that their journey is coming to an end,” the EA studio wrote in a blog published on Tuesday.
The games will be removed from digital storefronts on April 28, and online services for the titles will be closed on December 8.
While Battlefield 1943 is an online-only game, the other three titles will remain playable using their offline features, such as the single player campaign.
Update
EA has now updated its blog post and removed references to Mirror’s Edge.
“An earlier version of this announcement included Mirror’s Edge,” it said. “That was an error. We currently have no plans to remove Mirror’s Edge from digital storefronts.”
“While these titles hold a special place in our heart, we’re now looking forward to creating new memories alongside you as we shift our focus towards our current and future Battlefield experiences,” DICE said.
EA has closed the online services for various games over the past six months, including Mirror’s Edge in January.
DICE general manager Rebecka Coutaz said last June that the studio has “no time” to pursue non-Battlefield projects as it looks to establish itself as a leading developer in the FPS market.
EA recently announced that DICE will serve as a co-developer on the next Battlefield single-player campaign, supporting Ridgeline Games, a new internal studio being led by Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto.
DICE is also currently working on a future multiplayer experience for the Battlefield series.
The removals again highlight the issue of preservation in the games industry, with developers facing challenges to keep their games playable in the future, should crucial services such as Xbox Live or PSN ever disappear.
Journalist Brittany Vincent argued in a VGC column that the games industry needs to increase its efforts for preserving video games, before more titles are lost to time.