Epic Games has announced it’ll be turning off online services and servers for over 20 titles in the “Epic family” from 24th January next year, including multiple entries in the Rock Band, Dance Central, and Unreal Tournament series.
In a post announcing the news, Epic called affected services and servers “out-of-date”, and said it was making the move as it transitions to only supporting its Epic Online Services “with its unified friends system, voice chat features, parental controls, and parental verification features”.
The good news is most affected games will still be playable in offline solo and multiplayer modes when servers go down on 24th January. That applies to the following titles:
1000 Tiny ClawsDance Central 1-3Green Day: Rock BandMonsters (Probably) Stole My PrincessRock Band 1-3 The Beatles: Rock BandSupersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-CarsUnreal GoldUnreal II: The AwakeningUnreal Tournament 2003Unreal Tournament 2004Unreal Tournament 3 Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition
Note all is not lost for Unreal Tournament multiplayer fans; Epic says it “plans” to bring Unreal Tournament 3’s online features back at a later date via Epic Online Services.
Epic has started the process of removing all the above titles from digital storefronts and is disabling in-game DLC purchasing as of today. It’s also pulling Mac and Linux versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star from sale, as well as mobile title DropMix, and is making a number of other titles completely inaccessible to players as of 24th January: Unreal Tournament (Alpha), Rock Band Blitz, the Rock Band Companion app, and SingSpace.