Epic Games shuts down multiple Xbox game servers in January

Epic Games has announced the shutdown of servers for multiple games, including several Rock Band and Dance Central titles, and is already in the process of delisting some from its digital storefronts.

according Advertising From Epic Games, the publisher will close online services for Dance Central, Dance Central 2, Dance Central 3, Rock Band, Rock Band 2, Rock Band 3, Green Day: Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band, Rock Band Blitz, and Unreal Tournament 3 on January 24, 2023.

Starting today, we will begin turning off legacy servers and online services for many legacy games in the Epic family as we transition to supporting only Epic Online Services with a unified friend system, voice chat features, parental controls, and parental verification features. Most titles will be playable in offline mode, while some of them will not be playable,” says Epic Games. “We apologize to the players affected by these changes.”

The Epic Games server shutdown is set for January 24, 2023

As far as we can tell, it appears that not many of these games feature online-only achievements. Rock Band, Rock Band 2, and Unreal Tournament 3 seem to be the only games with achievements you’ll need to unlock before they’re discontinued.

Epic Games also notes that it has “plans to bring back online features via Epic Online Services in the future” for Unreal Tournament 3. Whether this applies to the Xbox version of the game is currently unclear, as Epic has announced a new free-to-play PC version. A first person shooter.

The publisher has also begun removing games from its digital storefronts and has disabled purchasing in-game DLC packs. “We have begun removing games that were still available from all digital storefronts and disabling any in-game DLC purchases as of today,” says Epic. However, Harmonix confirmed on Discord that the Rock Band DLC will still be purchasable via digital stores.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you sad to see these games go? Let us know in the comments.