Update: All mention of a delisting for Mirror's Edge has quietly been scrubbed from EA's blog post. The three Battlefield games are still being taken down, however.
Original story: EA and DICE have announced that on April 28, 2023, Mirror's Edge, Battlefield 1943, Battlefield: Bad Company, and Bad Company 2 will all be delisted from digital stores.
These delistings are "in preparation for the retirement of the online services for these titles which will happen on December 8, 2023," developer DICE says in a blog post. "For Bad Company 1 and 2 and Mirror’s Edge, you can still continue playing them and use their respective offline features, such as the single player campaign."
The devs add that "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."
While Battlefield 1943 is an online-only game, the two Bad Company games feature some of the best FPS campaigns of their era, and the online features of Mirror's Edge are a complete afterthought compared to its beloved story mode. There's no indication of whether specific technical or licensing issues are forcing EA's hand here - it really just looks like the company is no longer interested in taking your money for some of the best single-player experiences in its catalog.
Happily, Mirror's Edge and both Bad Company games are readily available on the secondary market, and the Xbox 360 versions are backwards compatible on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S (they're also on the EA Play service, which consequently means they're on Xbox Game Pass - no word on whether that'll remain the case after they're removed from sale). That doesn't offer much benefit if you're hoping to pick up the up-to-date PC versions, though.
EA announced shutdowns for a number of its online services last year, including the Mirror's Edge servers. It seemed pretty funny at the time, since Mirror's Edge only used online for its now thoroughly hacked leaderboard feature, so it looked like no great loss. I'm much sadder now.
We have already declared Bad Company 2 top among the best Battlefield games of all time. Enjoy it while it lasts.
