PS5 and PS4 Server Shutdowns: What Goes Offline in July and August 2026
A wave of online services is winding down across July and August — but almost nothing is being pulled from the store outright. Here's exactly what changes, and when.
Summer is quietly turning into a season of goodbyes on PlayStation. Across July and August 2026, a cluster of PS5 and PS4 titles are switching off their online services, and Sony's PlayStation Stars loyalty points begin expiring at the end of this month. None of it is dramatic on its own — no headline exclusive is vanishing — but taken together it's the kind of housekeeping that catches people out if they aren't watching the calendar. If you still dip into any of the games below, this is the run-down of what changes and when. Push Square has tallied more than ten PS5 and PS4 titles being delisted or switched off across the same July–August window.
How to read this: every date and closure here is confirmed by the relevant publisher or by Sony — EA for its sports titles, GungHo for Let It Die, and PlayStation's own notices for PS Stars. Crucially, almost nothing is being delisted (removed from sale). These are mostly online-service shutdowns: multiplayer, in-game stores and companion features go dark, while the single-player game usually keeps working offline. Where a full server shutdown does apply, we've said so plainly.
What's Happening
The biggest single name is Madden NFL 23. EA confirmed its online services — including online play and the various Ultimate Team modes — retire on 13 July 2026, a little under three years after launch. This is routine for annual sports games: as newer entries arrive, older ones lose their live support and eventually their servers. Offline modes remain playable on PS5, PS4 and every other platform; you simply won't be able to go online. EA's two hockey titles follow the same path a few weeks later, with NHL 22 and NHL 23 both losing online services on 31 August.
The most notable full closure belongs to Let It Die, Grasshopper Manufacture and GungHo's free-to-play survival-action cult favourite. Its servers shut down on 31 August 2026, ending online play nearly a decade after the game arrived on PS4 in 2016. In-game transactions (including its Death Metals currency) stop earlier, on 30 July, and the game is set to become undownloadable from 30 August. The good news: GungHo has confirmed a separate paid offline version is planned for autumn 2026, with save data carrying over — so the game itself isn't disappearing, only its always-online form.
Rounding out the list are a handful of smaller service losses: New World: Aeternum ends in-game purchases on 20 July ahead of a full server closure scheduled for January 2027; Media Molecule's charming Tearaway loses its online features and the Tearaway.me companion website on 13 August; and 2K's party sports pair — NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 and WWE 2K Battlegrounds — switch off online services on 20 August. Codemasters' DiRT Rally 2.0 already retired its Racenet Clubs feature on 8 July, though the rest of its online functionality continues for now.
The Full Schedule
Here's the whole summer at a glance. Every entry below is confirmed; "online services" means multiplayer and connected features unless noted, with offline play generally unaffected.
| Title | What changes | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| DiRT Rally 2.0 (PS4) | Racenet Clubs feature retired | 8 Jul | Confirmed (past) |
| Madden NFL 23 (PS5/PS4) | Online play & Ultimate Team end | 13 Jul | Confirmed |
| New World: Aeternum (PS5) | In-game purchases end (servers close Jan 2027) | 20 Jul | Confirmed |
| Let It Die (PS4) | In-game transactions end | 30 Jul | Confirmed |
| PlayStation Stars | Redeemable points begin expiring | 31 Jul | Confirmed |
| Tearaway (PS4/Vita) | Online services & Tearaway.me end | 13 Aug | Confirmed |
| NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 (PS4) | Online services end | 20 Aug | Confirmed |
| WWE 2K Battlegrounds (PS4) | Online services end | 20 Aug | Confirmed |
| Let It Die (PS4) | Servers shut down (offline version to follow) | 31 Aug | Confirmed |
| NHL 22 (PS5/PS4) | Online services end | 31 Aug | Confirmed |
| NHL 23 (PS5/PS4) | Online services end | 31 Aug | Confirmed |
What It Means for PS5 Owners
For most people, the honest answer is: not much. These are ageing titles — annual sports games two or three cycles old, a nine-year-old survival game, a Vita-era platformer — and the modes going offline are the ones with the smallest remaining player counts. If you never touched Madden 23's Ultimate Team or Let It Die's online raids, nothing about your library changes.
The subtler point is about preservation, and it's the reason a quiet list like this is worth reading. When a live-service or online-only mode is switched off, that piece of the game is gone in a way an offline single-player release never is — you can't re-download the servers. Let It Die's planned offline edition is the encouraging counter-example: a publisher choosing to keep a game playable rather than let it vanish. It's the same tension we've written about around Sony's move to wind down physical disc production — as PlayStation leans further into digital and always-online, what happens to a game after its servers close matters more, not less.
Almost nothing here is a true delisting. With the partial exception of Let It Die becoming undownloadable ahead of its offline relaunch, every title on this list stays purchasable and — for its offline content — playable. The summer's changes are about connected features, not availability.
Before the Lights Go Out
A few practical things worth doing this month if any of these games are yours:
- Redeem your PlayStation Stars points. Points expire on a rolling 12-month basis, and a batch reaches its deadline on 31 July. You can convert them to PS Store credit via the PlayStation App before they lapse. The programme itself is winding down towards a full close later in 2026, so there's no reason to hoard them — the fastest route is the Rewards tab in the PlayStation App, which converts points to wallet credit in a couple of taps.
- Finish any online trophies or challenges. If you're chasing a Platinum in Madden NFL 23, Let It Die or the NHL titles, the online-dependent trophies become unobtainable once the servers close. Knock them out before the dates above.
- Spend in-game currency now. Let It Die's Death Metals stop being usable from 30 July; anything you've banked is worth spending before then.
- Back up what matters. For Let It Die, GungHo has said saves transfer to the offline version — but keeping your own cloud or USB backup is never a bad habit, and it frees you to tidy your drive too (see our guide to freeing up PS5 storage).
For the official word on the loyalty programme in particular, PlayStation's own notice on the PlayStation Blog remains the reference point, and it's the source we'd trust over any third-party countdown.
The Bottom Line
None of this is a crisis, and it isn't meant to read like one. It's the ordinary, easy-to-miss maintenance of a large platform: old sports servers going dark, a beloved survival game closing one chapter and opening an offline one, and a loyalty scheme reaching the end of its life. The one item with a real deadline for most PS5 owners is the 31 July PlayStation Stars points expiry — that's free store credit you'll simply lose if you ignore it. Everything else is a gentle reminder that in an increasingly online, increasingly digital PlayStation, it pays to know which parts of your games depend on a server that won't always be switched on.
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