Epic Games cuts ‘out-of-date’ online services for over 20 older games, including Unreal Tournament and Rock Band
Epic Games has decided to turn off online servers for dozens of its older titles, including the Unreal Tournament and Rock Band series. Some of them, however, will still remain playable offline.
In a blog post, the company said it is now moving to only support Epic Online Services, a set of services for game development that offers voice chat, matchmaking, live ops, and other cross-platform tools.
The list of affected games includes:
- 1000 Tiny Claws
- Dance Central 1-3
- Note: Dance Central VR online multiplayer will remain available
- Green Day: Rock Band
- Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess
- Rock Band 1-3
- The Beatles: Rock Band
- Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars
- Unreal Gold
- Unreal II: The Awakening
- Unreal Tournament 2003
- Unreal Tournament 2004
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition
Despite cutting “out-of-date online services and servers”, most titles on the list will remain playable offline. Epic Games also plans to bring back online features for Unreal Tournament 3 via Epic Online Services.
On top of that, the company pulled the mobile title DropMix, as well as the Mac and Linux versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star from stores.
Epic Games will also shut down Battle Breakers, Unreal Tournament (Alpha), Rock Band Blitz, Rock Band Companion, and SingSpace, bringing the total number of affected games to 25.
“Thank you to all of the players and communities who have enjoyed these titles over the years,” the announcement reads.
It is worth noting that some of the affected games like Rock Band, Dance Central, and DropMix are made by Harmonix, which has been creating different rhythm titles since 1995. Last year, Epic Games acquired the team for an undisclosed sum to create music content for Fortnite.