On Twitter earlier this week, the U.S. Army announced it will shut down support and online servers for America’s Army: Proving Grounds on May 5.
For PlayStation Network players, the game will no longer have its own PlayStation Store page. In addition, they won’t be able to re-download the game if they delete it at some point.
Offline features will still work, but don’t expect the Play Online feature and player stats to remain available.
As for Steam players, privately-run servers, the Mission Editor, and offline features will continue to work fine. That said, player stats will no longer be available.
Finally, the America’s Army website will take down the user login areas, player stats, and “other resources.”
This might not be game over for the series, however — the U.S. Army promised “future announcements” at some point.
For the uninitiated, America’s Army is a series of video games developed and published by the U.S. Army. The first game released in 2002 as a recruiting tool for prospective Army soldiers.
Over the last 20 years, the America’s Army series spawned several mainline entries for PC and consoles. It also spawned versions for mobile and arcades.
America’s Army: Proving Ground, the latest entry, released as a beta in August 2013 and fully in October 2015 for the PC and PlayStation 4.
The game places players in the fictional country of Czervenia and includes two modes: “normal” and “hardcore.” Normal mode shows basic tasks a soldier would perform, while hardcore mode keeps things more realistic.
At first, critics took no umbrage with America’s Army — the original game holds an 82 average on Metacritic. Several outlets at the time nominated the title for the year’s best multiplayer title.
However, that changed in the years since. Critics argue the games contribute to a militarization of society and focus more on the technological aspect of warfare instead of the moral.
Critics also contest the games inappropriately target children and simplify the complex events soldiers experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
