Epic Shutting Down Online Services For Several Unreal Tournament And Rock Band Titles, Among Others

In a blog post, Epic has announced that it’s shutting down the servers and online services for many of its older titles, beginning today. The reason is that the company wants to, in its own words, “move to solely support Epic Online Services with its unified friends system, voice chat features, parental controls, and parental verification features.” 

Epic has stated that these titles would no longer work online starting January 24, with some exceptions. These titles will be removed from all digital stores and DLC purchased by Epic won’t work. You can still play these games offline, if they are yours. Here is a list of the games that are affected:

• 1000 Tiny Claws
• Dance Central 1 – 3 (Dance Central VR Online Multiplayer will be accessible)
• Green Day Rock Band
• Monsters probably stole my princess
• Rock Band 1-3Rock Band 4 multiplayer online will be accessible)
• Rock Band: The Beatles
• Supersonic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars
• Unreal gold
• Unreal II: The Awakening
• The Unreal Tournament 2003
• 2004 Unreal Tournament
• Unreal Tournament 3.Epic Online Services is Epic’s future plan to restore online features.)
• Unreal Tournament: Edition Game of the Year

Offline modes games are still playable but multiplayer-based titles will cease to exist. The free-to-play Battle Breakers game will cease to be playable from December 30, for example. Epic will refund any in-game purchases made in Battle Breakers within 180 days. 

Additionally, the publisher has already removed the Mac and Linux versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star from stores, as well as the mobile version of DropMix. However, owners will continue to be able access the titles. On January 24, Unreal Tournament (Alpha), Rock Band Blitz and the Rock Band Companion App, as well as SingSpace, will cease to be available. 

Epic is closing down its online server because several of the games in question are more than a decade old. This makes it even less surprising, particularly if there are very few active communities. This is a sad day for preservationists. Are you going to be playing Unreal Tournament 2004 with your friends or The Beatles: Rock Band before January 24th? Please let us know your thoughts in the comment section!