EA Pulls the Plug on Dragon Age: Inquisition PS3 Servers, Reddit is Shocked It Survived This Long

12 years is a damn eternity in the gaming world. While most modern live-service games bite the dust just a year or two after launch, EA somehow kept the PS3 servers for Dragon Age: Inquisition alive all the way to 2024. But all good things must come to an end, and EA is finally pulling the plug.

EA Pulls the Plug: The PS3 Era is Officially Cooked

Quick recap for those who skip reading patch notes: EA announced they are officially shutting down the Dragon Age: Inquisition servers for the PS3 version on April 28.

If you're currently grinding the story mode, take your hands off the keyboard and don't rage quit just yet. This "purge" only affects the Multiplayer Co-op mode. The single-player offline campaign is completely fine. You can still slay dragons and romance NPCs without a single glitch.

Reddit's Take: Wait, it was still alive? And what about ME3?

An old game's server shutting down isn't usually breaking news, but a quick scroll through r/Games showed some pretty witty discussions. It even took a wild turn:

• "Wait, it was still live?": A lot of people were genuinely shocked (myself included). User finderfolk grabbed over 130 upvotes saying: "I am amazed that they are still live, I thought it was very niche even on release." Let's be real, DA:I's multiplayer wasn't exactly a mainstream hit. EA keeping it on life support this long is wild.
• The Mass Effect 3 (ME3) Paradox: Naturally, ME3 got dragged into the chat. People wondered how ME3's multiplayer is still alive and kicking with instant matchmaking. The secret sauce? ME3MP is Peer-to-Peer (P2P), not server-based. As long as 4 tryhards want to blast Reapers, the "server" is immortal. As long as you have decent internet or a game booster designed to reduce game ping and stabilize gaming networks for players around the world, you're golden.
• The Old-Gen Holdback: User noodlekhan brought up some old beef, noting that DA:I was heavily polarizing back in the day. Many felt the game was severely held back because EA forced it onto the PS3/X360 instead of just focusing on the next-gen consoles at the time.

Dev Talk: Why P2P is the Real MVP for Side Modes

Speaking from a dev's perspective, I think EA maintaining a server for 12 years on a dead console generation is remarkably generous (or someone in accounting just forgot to cancel the subscription until now).

So, what's the takeaway for game devs? If you're building a game and plan to tack on a Co-op/Multiplayer side mode just to pad out playtime, take notes from ME3. Don't blow your budget renting expensive cloud vps for something that might not be the main attraction. Just use a P2P architecture. It saves you massive maintenance costs and keeps the game playable forever for the die-hard fans.

Anyway, GG Dragon Age: Inquisition PS3 Multiplayer. You had a hell of a run, time to rest!

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Sources:

• Reddit /r/Games Thread
• Kotaku Article