Photo Credit: Sergiy Galyonkin / CC by 2.0
Epic Games has outlined its plans to shut down online services for several games in the Rock Band franchise.
According to the game developer, it will begin turning off “out-of-date online services and servers” for many older games. Epic is moving to support Epic Online Services–a much more recent platform in the world of gaming. Epic says most of these titles will remain playable offline, but “some will no longer be playable.”
Players have until January 24 for the online services for the following Rock Band games:
- Dance Central 1 – 3
- Green Day: Rock Band
- Rock Band 1 – 3 (Rock Band 4 multiplayer will remain online)
- The Beatles: Rock Band
“We have started removing games that were still available from all digital storefronts and are disabling any in-game DLC purchasing as of today,” the announcement reads. That suggests that any DLC previously available for these games in the form of song packs will now be unavailable to re-download–even if you already purchased them. That’s unfortunate, but it is the reality of games that require backend servers to continue to function.
Rock Band 4 Rivals bundle is still available on PlayStation and Xbox and can be played with up to four players online. That includes matchmaking with public and private sessions. The rivals mode offers an online battle mode that wasn’t present in previous Rock Band games, too. That game released in 2016 by Harmonix and has several DLC packs available for download. But a game released in 2016 is growing long in the tooth, even as an online service game.
Activision sunset the online servers for its rival game Guitar Hero Live back in 2018. The mobile versions of the game were shut down and no longer available for download–meaning only devices that had the game installed before it was removed can still play it with the caveat “if you update your iOS software, the app may no longer be supported.”