this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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It's true. Pragmatically speaking if you don't have access to the server software you can't play it if the servers go down, and besides reverse engineering or the goodwill of the developers I'm not aware of any games with online components that continue to be playable after their servers are taken down.
Back in 2000-2012, a good lot of mainly singleplayer games had optional multiplayer modes. Think Halo, Starcraft, TRON, Titanfall, etc. Even DOOM 2016 had it. These games function with the servers down.
Something I haven't thought about in a while: In the early 2000s games where you made a direct connection to the other player without an intervening, third-party server were still a thing. You still see it in things like netplay functionality in emulators.
Is this still a thing at all in 2023? Imagine it would be very niche, but this comment made me curious.
It's still in Team Fortress 2 and Factorio
Well then allow me to name a few:
Battlefront 2 (the original), still active when the servers have been down for years
Titanfall 2. Official servers aren't technically down, but pretty much unusable and NorthStar is the alternative
Counter strike 1.6 is pretty much just community-run servers, same with day of defeat: source. I don't know if they are tied with valve that if valve shut them down, they wouldn't be searchable.
Supreme commander: Forged Alliance
Hell, Battle for Middle Earth II still has a small community
Valheim has never had official servers. I run my own via docker on debian
Unreal Tournament 1999
Minecraft (official servers aren't down, but if they shutdown there would still be 2000 servers)