America’s Army multiplayer shooter ends after 20 years

America’s Army, the free-to-play multiplayer shooter and disguised recruiting and marketing tool for the US military, is closing after 20 years. Online features will be shut down in May, but offline features will remain.

The US military, the party behind the game, says America’s Army: Proving Grounds will close on May 5. According to the military, the game has completed its mission as a recruiting tool and platform for “strategic communications” and now the time has come to shift its focus and look at “new and innovative ways to assist the armed forces with communications and recruiting.”

America’s Army: Proving Grounds, the third installment in the series, is currently available for Windows via Steam, the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation Network. For Steam players, closing the game means that player stats will no longer be available and official servers will close. Private servers, the Mission Editor, and other offline features are “expected” to continue to function.

PlayStation players will notice that the PlayStation Store page of America’s Army: Proving Grounds will disappear and that downloading the game will no longer be possible. Players who choose to keep the game in their library will no longer be able to use the Play Online feature as of the closing date and player stats will also disappear. The offline features are also expected to remain available for this group.

America’s Army first appeared in 2002 and is basically a promotional tool for the US military. At the same time, it is a free-to-play tactical multiplayer shooter that is relatively realistic. In the game, players always take on the role of American soldiers who have to take on generic enemies. As a player, you could never take the enemy’s perspective and take on the American soldiers. That has always been one of the main criticisms. Players will also receive training in the game in things such as medical treatment and driving a Humvee all-terrain vehicle.