Aliens: Fireteam Elite rendered unplayable on Switch after cloud shutdown
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is no longer available to play on Nintendo Switch
Aliens: Fireteam Elite has become one of the first Nintendo Switch games to officially become unplayable due to server shutdowns. The game’s Switch version was only playable through cloud streaming, and with the game’s servers closing down, it can no longer be played on Switch hardware.
This is the first of many Switch Cloud games that will eventually become unplayable. The Switch version of Fireteam Elite was released in April 2023, which means that the game’s servers were closed little more than three years after the game’s launch. Purchasers were not given a refund or otherwise compensated for the game’s closure. The game simply stopped working on August 5th.
Cloud-only games are a bad idea
The fate of Aliens Fireteam Elite on Switch was inevitable. Running the game’s online servers is an ongoing expense, and eventually those servers would be closed down. Without an offline option, gamers who own Fireteam Elite can no longer play the game they paid for. If they want to play Fireteam Elite again, they will need to do so on another platform.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite was removed from the Nintendo eShop earlier this year, with gamers being given a warning about the game’s server shutdown. Iron Cloud Studios has not given a reason for this closure. As such, we can only assume it’s money. Keeping servers online costs money, and closing servers ends an ongoing expense.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite remains available on other platforms. In fact, Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 is coming to PC and consoles this year. Fireteam Elite 2 will be available on Switch 2. Thankfully, this game will be available as a native Switch 2 game, not as a cloud-based game.
At a minimum, Cold Iron Studios should have offered Switch owners of Fireteam Elite free access to the game on another platform. Generating game codes would have cost them nothing. Instead, Cold Iron Studios took away something that Switch owners bought and paid for. Yes, cloud-based games could eventually close down, but did anyone expect the servers to shut down in little more than three years?
You can join the discussion on Aliens Fireteam Elite’s Switch version being rendered unplayable on the OC3D Forums.
