The quiet announcement came via a Reddit post. In it, an EA community manager says that the publisher will be pulling Need for Speed Carbon, Undercover, Shift, Shift 2: Unleashed and The Run. The online servers of these games will also be closed in three months. And this is done so that the publisher can focus on working on the new games in the series, the upcoming one already being delayed. But doing so means moving resources from maintaining the older ones.
As mentioned, the announcement came very abruptly. At the time of writing, the Reddit post is stated as being up 10 hours ago. But the announcement itself says the delisting of these older Need for Speed games will happen starting 31 May 2021. Even with time zone differences, this would mean that at best there’s a couple of hours left before they are gone. If you already own these games though, you’ll still be able to play them normally. Online functionality will remain until 1 September, when EA shuts down their servers. Beyond that, offline is the only way you’ll be able to play these Need for Speed games. (Source: Reddit)
