The Call of Duty Elite online service will end from 10am PDT today, Friday, February 28th, 2014. The system was launched in 2011 alongside Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, and included Clan details and organisation, plus stats and leaderboards for Black Ops, Black Ops 2 and MW3. It also offered news, video updates and Elite TV videos and live streaming options.
The closure has been officially announced by Activision, as ‘Call of Duty Elite was designed to work with prior Call of Duty games and has begun winding down support for those titles since late last year, which ends on February 28, 2014‘
What this essentially means is:
- Call of Duty Elite Founders will keep their emblem, and any previous content stored in-game or uploaded to Youtube via Call of Duty Elite will either be migrated to your personal Youtube account, or to dedicated Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 Black Ops 2 channels.
- If you’ve logged into Call of Duty Elite since Jan 1, 2014, you’ll get 2 hours of double XP in Call of Duty: Ghosts, which will be available to you ‘soon’.
- No Call of Duty MW3 and Black Ops 2 Clans, Clan Management, Medals and Stats will no longer be available.
The end for older Call of Duty games?
Currently Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 are still playable online, although the lack of updates and monitoring has meant hacking has become rife. But plenty of people are still playing Black Ops, Black Ops 2 and Modern Warfare 3 by comparison, and we know numerous gamers who have stuck with the Black Ops series rather than move to Ghosts.
The loss of Clan details probably won’t worry most people, who will be taking on the challenge of actually getting the new Ghosts App to actually update. But it’s a definite shame that the historical stats and data aren’t easily accessible online – there was some pride to be taken in displaying that you’d managed to grind your way through all multiplayer rankings and prestiges.
It’s also slightly odd timing as there is a big sale on all Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 2 content on Xbox Live until March 3, but perhaps that’s the last gasp clearout before the leaked push for Ghosts comes into effect.
It’ll definitely be interesting to see what happens with the Call of Duty series this year, with the forthcoming release being spearheaded by Sledgehammer Games – and the challenge of both Titanfall and Destiny.
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