It's a rather sad time to be a Nintendo fan nostalgic for the 3DS and Wii U era of games. In less than three weeks, the online servers for all games on the consoles will be shut down for good, making an enormous number of online modes for fan-favorite games unplayable forever.
It's now almost 13 years since the first 3DS model launched, and nearly 12 since the Wii U, so it's fair to say that their online functionality had a good run, even if so many incredible games are about to become a lot less playable. Some of the most popular ones that'll be affected by this include Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Mario Kart 7 and 8 (the non-deluxe Wii U version), and the first Splatoon. In New Leaf, for example, players will no longer be able to visit others' towns online or play minigames over the internet on Tortimer's Island, while Mario Kart players will be stuck playing against CPU racers and friends in local play for the rest of time.
