As recent preservation discourse has made abundantly apparent, video games are not guaranteed to last forever, particularly online-only multiplayer releases. Recently, 1047 Games announced the end of active development for Empulse and Splitgate: Arena Reloaded, with the FPS games shifting to peer-to-peer hosting on September 3. These shooters are still playable for now, but a few major FPS games are shutting down for good in the coming weeks and months, including two versions of Call of Duty: Warzone.
While most of us might have moved on from these sunsetting FPS games, many still hold affection towards them and might wish to jump on board one last time before the servers shut down for good. With the never-ending news cycle, these announcements might have slipped through the cracks for some folks, so I’m here to make sure that nobody feels like they missed out once the final gun has been fired.
All these games officially announced their end dates a while back, and this article summarizes these announcements in one place.
Counter-Strike Nexon Fires Its Last Shot On September 30
Valve’s Strangest Spin-off Comes To An End After 12 Years
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Image via NEXON -
Image via NEXON
In one form or another, Counter-Strike will continue to top Steam’s most-played games list until the sun goes supernova and eradicates life on Earth. However, Counter-Strike Nexon has never been that title, as the 2014 spin-off never surpassed 10K concurrent players and hasn’t exceeded 1K since September 2024. As its name suggests, Nexon developed and published this strange offshoot, which turned Counter-Strike 1.6 into an arcade romp with zombies, boss raids, and MMO-style elements.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude once again to all our players for your immense love and support for CSN.
Although Nexon is ultimately just a footnote in CS‘s legacy, that doesn’t mean the FPS game didn’t bring joy to many people’s lives, and a 12-year run is by no means terrible. The switch to over-the-top action served as a neat contrast to the mainline entries’ tactical gameplay, proving that this type of detour could fit the engine and franchise. Nexon’s Counter-Strike Online is still active and popular in some Asian markets, although the publisher shut down Counter-Strike Online 2 in 2018.
Call of Duty: Warzone Leaves PS4 And Xbox One Around October 23
Modern Warfare 4 Marks The End Of An Era
On October 23, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches on PS5, Xbox Series, PC, and Switch 2, eventually ushering in a new Warzone season. Once Black Ops 7 Season 6 comes to an end, the battle royale game will officially shut down on the PS4 and Xbox One, bringing to a close a run that started with Warzone 1.0 in March 2020. As we saw with Genshin Impact and will soon see with Tower of Fantasy, cross-gen live-service games can reach a point where they can no longer release updates on platforms that just don’t have the necessary juice.
Call of Duty: Warzone on PlayStation 4 and XBOX One will be available to play through the end of Season 06 for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.
On June 4, Warzone was removed from the PS4 and Xbox One stores, so it would no longer be available for download. On June 25, the in-game store was shut down, although you can still use your account’s COD Points on the current-gen console of your chosen platform. When Modern Warfare 4 Season 1 starts, Warzone will officially end its run on the last-gen systems.
Hyper Dash Ends Its Journey On November 1
The VR Multiplayer Scene Isn’t Big Enough For Many Niche Shooters
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Image via Triangle Factory -
Image via Triangle Factory
Here we have a cautionary tale about the volatile nature of virtual reality, dooming a great game like Hyper Dash to an early grave. A near 6-year run might not seem all that bad, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time, and the Steam version only managed to peak at 56 players. Although way more popular on the Meta Quest 2, Hyper Dash still felt like a big fish in a puddle that can’t really sustain multiple small projects with niche communities.
Simply put, Hyper Dash is no longer generating enough revenue to cover its ongoing server and maintenance costs. As the game has grown older, the time and resources required to support it have continued to increase, and unfortunately, we can no longer justify those costs.
To make matters worse, Triangle Factory confirmed that Hyper Dash uses third-party software that doesn’t support community hosting, meaning November 1 will be the last time this game is playable in any form. Give it a run while you still can.
TheHunter Classic Completes Its Last Hunt On November 11
An FPS Game, Killed
By far the longest-running FPS game in this article, theHunter Classic has been around since 2009 and has served as the gold standard for hunting sims for many years. However, theHunter: Call of the Wild ultimately inherited its predecessor’s crown, causing the original to gradually slip into the wayside.
Thank you for being a part of this journey and sticking around with us for all these years, many of you for a huge chunk of your lives. We do not take that for granted.
With no offline patch or community server tools, theHunter Classic will be completely wiped from existence, killing 17 years of purchases, progress, accounts, and items. The game has always been online-only, so disc copies will become useless.
