EA Closes ‘Need for Speed World,’ ‘Battlefield Heroes’ and Other Free-to-Play Games

Need for Speed World

Electronic Arts announced that it is ending its support for some of its free-to-play titles.

These include various PC games such as "Need for Speed World," "Battlefield Heroes," "Battlefield Play 4 Free" and "FIFA World," IGN reported.

According to Patrick Soderlund, the EVP of EA Studios, the company will shut down the games after 90 days.

In the case of "Battlefield Heroes," the PC game will no longer be available starting on July 14 of this year. In preparation for the game's official closure, players will not be allowed to create new accounts or take advantage of its Play4Free Funds starting today until its end date.

Soderlund explained that the decision to shut down the games was based on their declining popularity. Although there are still a number of gamers who actively play the games, their support for the titles has dwindled within the past years.

"Some of our other PC free-to-play games are not as popular as they once were," the executive said in a statement. "So we find ourselves announcing the tough decision today that we are stopping development and winding down support for our four PC free-to-play titles."

Despite announcing the closure of the games, Soderlund assured gamers that EA will turn its attention to some of its more popular games. Particularly, the company is planning on expanding the game play experience of "Star Wars: The Old Republic" trough new updates to broaden its user base.

"We've been looking closely at the types of PC free-to-play experiences that players are engaging with across the world," Soderlund said. "For instance, 'Star Wars: The Old Republic' is a game that continues to have a very enthusiastic and growing player community, and we have plans to introduce more new story-driven game updates to our 'Star Wars: The Old Republic' players this year."

In addition, EA also plans to create more free-to-play games in the future.